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THE WORKS 



MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE; 

COMPRISING 



HIS ESSAYS, 

LETTERS, 

AND 

JOURNEY THROUGH GERMANY AND ITALY. 

WITH 

NOTES FROM ALL THE COMMENTATORS, 

BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, 

&c, &c. 

BY WILLIAM HAZLITT. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. W. MOORE, 193 CHESNUT STREET. 

1849. 






STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN. 
PRINTED BY T. K. AND P. G. COLLIN! 

CHtt 

W. L, Shoemaker 

7 s oe 



PEEFACE. 



The first English translation of the Essays of Montaigne was executed by John 
Florio, Italian and French tutor to Prince Henry, son of James I., and is entitled : 
" The Essaies, or Morall, Politike, and Militarie Discourses of Lord Michael de 
Montaigne, Knight of the Noble Order of St. Michael, &c." It was first published 
in 1603, and was reprinted in 1613, and again in 1632. The form is a single 
volume folio, and it is dedicated — " To the most Royal and Renowned Majestie 
of the High-borne Princess Anna of Denmark, by the grace of God, Queene of 
England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, &c." The Essays are prefaced by a 
copy of verses, in Italian, addressed to the same princess ; a preface to the 
reader, and some complimentary verses to " his deare brother and friende, Mr. 
John Florio," from " Samuel Daniel, one of the Gentlemen Extraordinary of her 
Majestie's most Royal Privie Chamber." There is also an engraved title-page, 
of the most ornate description. 

The translation by Charles Cotton appeared somewhere about the year 1680, 
but I have not been able to ascertain the exact date. It is dedicated in the 
following terms : — 

" To the Right Honourable George, Marquiss, Earl, and Viscount Halifax. Baron of Eland, 
Lord Privy Seal, and one of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council. 

" My Lord, — If I have set down the only opportunity I ever had of kissing your lordship's 
hands amongst the happy encounters of my life, and take this occasion, so many years after, 
to tell you so, your lordship will not, I hope, think yourself injured by such a declaration from 
a man that honours you ; nor condemn my ambition, when I publish to the world that I am 
not altogether unknown to you. Your lordship, peradventure, may have forgot a conversation 
so little worthy your remembrance : but the memory of your lordship's obliging fashion to 
me all that time, can never die with me ; and though my acknowledgment arrives thus late 
at you, I have never left it at home when I went abroad into the best company. My lord, I 
cannot, I would not flatter you, I do not think your lordship capable of being flattered, neither 
am I inclined to do it to those that are ; but I cannot forbear to say that I then received such 
an impression of your virtue and noble nature, as will stay with me for ever. This will 
either excuse the liberty I presume to take in this dedication, or, at least, make it no wonder ; 
and I am so confident in your lordship's generosity that I assure myself you will not deny 
your protection to a man whose greatest public crime is that of an ill writer. A better book 
(if there be a better of the kind — in the original I mean) had been a present more fitly suited 
to your lordship's quality and merit, and to my devotion. I could hardly wish it such : but 
as it is, I lay it at your lordship's feet, together with, my lord, your lordship's most humble 
and most obedient servant, 

"Charles Cotton." 
W 



PREFACE. 



The dedication is followed by this letter from Lord Halifax : — 

This for Charles Cotton, Esq., at his House at Berisford. — To be left at 
Ashburne in Derbyshire. 

"Sir, — I have too long delayed my thanks to you for giving me such an obliging evidence 
of your remembrance : that alone would have been a welcome present, but when joined 
with the book in the world I am best entertained with, it raiseth a strong desire in me to be 
better known, where I am sure to be so much pleased. I have till now thought wit could 
not be translated, and do still retain so much of that opinion, that I believe it impossible, 
except by one whose genius cometh up to that of the author. You have the original strength 
of his thought, that it almost tempts a man to believe the transmigration of souls, and that 
his, being used to hills, is come to the moor-lands, to reward us here in England, for doing 
him more right than his country will afford him. He hath, by your means, mended his first 
edition. To transplant and make him ours is not only a valuable acquisition to us, but a 
just censure of the critical impertinence of those French scribblers who have taken pains to 
make little cavils and exceptions to lessen the reputation of this great man, whom nature 
hath made too big to confine him to the exactness of a studied style. He let his mind have 
its full flight, and showeth, by a generous kind of negligence, that he did not write for praise, 
but to give the world a true picture of himself and of mankind. He scorned affected 
periods, or to please the mistaken reader with an empty chime of words. He hath no 
affection to set himself out, and dependeth wholly upon the natural force of what is his own, 
and the excellent application of what he borroweth! 

"You see, sir, I have kindness enough for Monsieur de Montaigne to be your rival; but 
nobody can now pretend to be in equal competition with you : I do willingly yield it is no 
small matter for a man to do to a more prosperous lover; and if you will repay this piece of 
justice with another, pray believe that he who can translate such an author without doing 
him wrong, must not only make me glad but proud of being his very humble servant, 

"Halifax.'' 

Mr. Cotton prefaces his translation in the following terms: — 

"My design in attempting this translation was to present my country with a true copy of 
a very brave original. How far I have succeeded in that design, is left to every one to 
judge ; and I expect to be the more gently censured, for having myself so modest an opinion 
of my own performance, as to confess that the author has suffered by me as well as the 
former translator; though I hope, and dare affirm, the misinterpretations I shall be found 
guilty of are neither so numerous nor so gross. I cannot discern my own errors ; it were 
unpardonable in me if I could, and did not mend them ; but I can see his (except when we 
are both mistaken), and those I have corrected; but I am not so ill-natured as to show where. 
In truth, both Mr. Florio and I are to be excused, where we miss the sense of the author, 
whose language is such, in many places, as grammar cannot reconcile, which renders it the 
hardest book to make a justifiable version of that I ever yet saw in that or any other language 
I understand; insomuch that, though I do think, and am pretty confident, I understand 
French as well as any man, I have yet sometimes been forced to grope at his meaning. 
Peradventure, the greatest critic would, in some place, have found my author abstruse 
enough. Yet are not these mistakes I speak of either so many or of so great importance, as 
to cast any scandalous blemish upon the book, but such as few readers can discover, and 
they that do will, I hope, easily excuse. 

" The errors of the press I must in part take upon myself, living at so remote a distance 
from it, and supplying it with a slubbered copy from an illiterate amanuensis, the last of 
which is provided against in the quires that must succeed." 



PREFACE. 



With reference to this translation, the editor of a later edition remarks : — 

"Mr. Cotton has, indeed, succeeded to a miracle in his translation of so celebrated a piece, 
and we are thoroughly persuaded that very few Frenchmen now living, were they to under- 
take the task, would find themselves capable of turning Montaigne's Essays into modern 
French with the same spirit and justice to the author; but still our translator was not 
altogether infallible : he had certainly one of the most difficult books in the world to struggle 
with, and he complains of it himself in his preface : it is no wonder, then, that he fell into 
such mistakes, which we should not only have fallen into ourselves, but probably have 
committed a great many more, had he not first trod the rugged way before us." 

The same Editor states that he has altered Mr. Cotton's prose in above three 
thousand places, and changed his language where fifty years had rendered it 
obsolete or harsh. 

In 1776 appeared a new- edition of Cotton's translation, " with very considera- 
ble amendments and improvements from the most accurate and elegant French 
edition of Peter Coste." Of this version there was a reprint in 1811. It exhibits, 
in many places, just corrections of Mr. Cotton, where that gentleman has 
obviously misapprehended his author ; but it leaves a far greater number of 
errors untouched ; while its constant « improvements," in the way of modernizing 
Mr. Cotton's style and language, divest his translation of nearly all its spirit and 
naivete. I also, no doubt, subject myself, in the opinion of many persons, to the 
charge of presumption, for having in my turn, ventured to correct Mr. Cotton ; 
and, indeed, I have had it roundly objected, that in any way to alter Cotton Ls to 
damage Montaigne. Having, however, read and re-read both the original work 
and the translation, the careful comparison I have made of the two has shown 
me that not to alter Cotton, in many places, were gross injustice to Montaigne ; 
and it is solely with this conviction that I have ventured upon the emendations 
here made. I most readily admit that Cotton's translation is, as a whole, a 
master-piece ; but then there occur in it, and at no very long intervals, instances 
of carelessness which greatly detract from the value of the translation, by making 
it fall short of, and in some cases absurdly misrepresent, the author's meaning. 
I could easily collect enough of these instances to make a new chapter in the 
Curiosities of Literature, but this would be as ungracious as it is unnecessary. 
One or two illustrations will, I conceive, suffice to form my justification. In 
chapter 55, Montaigne, chatting about smells, remarks, En la plus espesse babarie, 
les femmes Scythes, &c. " in an age of the darkest barbarism, the Scythian 
women," &c. ; which in Cotton's version assumes the following shape : " in the 
wildest parts of Barbary, the Scythian women," &c. In chapter 56, Montaigne, 
after quoting a curious opinion set forth by Margaret de Valois, who speaks of a 
young man's saying his prayers in a church regularly after visiting another man's 
wife, as a testimonial of singular devotion, says, — Mais ce n'est pas par ceste 
preuve seulement qu' on pourroit verifier que les femmes ne sont gueres propres, a 
traicter les matieres de la theologie : " But this is not the only proof we have that 
women are not very fit to treat of theological matters," which Cotton thus 
renders : — " But it is by this proof only, that a man may conclude few men very 
fit to treat of theological affairs!" Again, in chapter 57, Montaigne observes, 
1« 



PREFACE. 



E me semble que, considerant la foiblesse de nostre vie et a combien d'escueils 
ordinaries et naturels elle est exposee, on n'en debvroit pas f aire si grande part a la 
naissance, a Poysifvete et a Papprentissage, — " Methinks considering the frailty 
of life, and the many natural and ordinary wrecks to which it is exposed, we 
should not give so large a portion of it to idleness, either in childhood or in 
apprenticeship to the world," — which Cotton reads, — "For the frailty of life, 
and the many natural and accidental rubs to which it is obnoxious and daily 
exposed, birth though noble, ought not to share so large a vacancy, and so 
tedious a course of education." Book ii., chapter 2, Montaigne says, Laissons 
cette autre secte (the t Stoic) faisant expresse profession de fierte ; — "Let us leave 
that other sect, which makes an express profession of haughty superiority ;" 
which Cotton converts into this sentence: — "Let us leave that other sect, and 
make a downright profession of fierceness." In another place, Cotton subjects 
his author to a sad imputation: Montaigne (book ii. chapter 6), speaking of an 
accident that threw him into a swoon, says that, however, Je m'advisais de 
commander qu'on donnast un cheval a ma femme, que je veoyois s'empestrer et se 
tracasser dans le chemin, qui est montueux et malayse, "I had so much sense 
about me as to order them to give a horse to my wife, who, I saw, was toiling 
and labouring along the road, which was a steep and uneasy one ;" this Cotton 
renders, " I had so much sense as to order that a horse I saw trip and falter on 
the way, which is mountainous and uneasy, should be given to my wife," &c. 

I trust that these illustrations will suffice to justify me, even with the warmest, 
admirers of Cotton, — and he has no sincerer admirer than myself, — for the 
departures which I have made from his translation. They are frequent, it is 
true, but for the most part, only where absolutely required to restore the author's 
meaning. The style and spirit of Cotton's version it would be impossible to 
improve upon ; and I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion that, the 
inaccuracies in question being now carefully corrected, the present edition of the 
essays of Montaigne fully comes up to the definition of a good translation 
suggested by Lord Woodhouselee, viz. — " That in which the merit of the 
original work is so completely transfused into another language as to be as 
distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which 
that language belongs, as it is to those who speak the language of the original 
work." Here, indeed, as in the case of Ozell's Rabelais, the position might be 
even more strongly put. 



THE LIFE 



MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE. 



Michael me Montaigne was born, as he himself tells us, « betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock in 
the forenoon, the last of February, 1533." He was the third son of Pierre Ey quern, 1 Ecuyer? a brave 
and loyal soldier, who had seen service in the wars beyond the mountains, and had brought back with 
him from Italy and Spain a cultivated mind. The description which his son gives of him, is highly 
interesting : — " He spoke little and well, ever mixing his language with some illustration out of modern 
authors, especially Spanish ; and amongst them Marcus Aurelius was very frequent in his mouth. His 
behaviour was grave, humble, and modest ; he was very solicitous of neatness and decency in his per- 
son and dress, whether a-foot or on horseback. He was exceedingly punctual to his word, and of a 
conscience and religion tending rather toward superstition than otherwise. For a man of little stature, 
very strong, well proportioned, and well knit; of a pleasing countenance, inclining to brown, and very 
adroit in all noble exercises. I have yet in the house to be seen cines full of lead, with which, they 
say, he exercised his arms for throwing the bar or the stone ; and shoes with leaden soles, to make him 
' afterwards lighter for running or leaping. Of his vaulting he has left little miracles behind him ; and I 
have seen him, when past threescore, laugh at our agilities, throw himself in his furred gown into the 
saddle, make the tour of a table upon his thumbs, and scarce ever mount the stairs up to his chamber 
without taking three or four steps at a time." 

This gentleman, with some instinctive prescience apparently, of his son Michael's mental superiority, 
formed a wish to have him educated in a manner altogether different from the routine then gone through. 
Even before his birth, he consulted learned and clever men on the subject, and on these consultations 
and his own admirable judgment, he formed a system, as Mrs. Shelley observes, such as may in some 
sort be considered the basis of Rousseau's ; and which shows that, however we may consider one age 
more enlightened than another, the natural reason of men of talent leads them to the same conclusions, 
whether living in an age when warfare, party struggles, and the concomitant ignorance, were rife, or 
when philosophers set the fashion of the day : " The good father that God gave me," says he, " who has 
nothing of me but the acknowledgment of his bounty, but truly 'lis a very hearty one, sent me from 
my cradle to be brought up in a poor village of his, and there continued me all the while I was at 
nurse, and even longer, bringing me up to the meanest and most common way of living. This humour 
of his yet aimed this end, to make me familiar with those people, and that condition of men, which 
most need our assistance ; believing that I should be more holden to regard them who extended their 
arms to me, than those who turned their backs upon me: and for this reason also it was that he pro- 
vided me godfathers of the meanest fortune, to oblige and bind me to them." 

Next came the question of education. The Greek and Latin tongues, our author's father felt, are 
an acquisition of great worth ; but at the same time they were somewhat dearly bought under the 
system which, at that period, universally prevailed, and does so even now, to a great extent. The elder 

1 Scaliger, in the Scaligcrana Sccunda, is reported ns saying that Montaigne's father was a seller of herrings, — 
whether in gross or detail is not specified,— but the statement is a mere falsehood. In the supplement to the Chronique 
Bordelaisc, hy Jean Darnal, there is an account of the various gradations by which Pierre Eyciuein, Seigneur da Mon- 
taigne, ascended from the office of first jurat of Bordeaux, in 1530, to thut of mayor, in 1S33. 

'* Montaigne himself mentions the surname of Eyquem, though it does not appear that he ever made use of it him- 
self. He says the name was still borne by a family in England; its English form was probably Egham. 

m 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



Montaigne's own reading being confined to works written in the living tongues, he was the more 
anxious that his son should be early made acquainted with the languages of Athens and Rome, and he 
meditated long on the received modes of introducing youth into the chief vestibules of knowledge. He was 
struck by the time given to, and the annoyances a child suffers in, the acquirement of the dead languages, 
and had thus been exaggerated to him as a cause why the moderns were so inferior to the ancients in 
greatness of soul and wisdom. But the difficulty which he felt, the expedient he devised to obviate it, 
and the result of this expedient, cannot be better told than in Montaigne's own words : — 

" My late father having made the most precise enquiry that any man can possibly make amongst 
men of the greatest learning and judgment, of an exact method of education, was by them cautioned 
of the inconvenience then in use, and informed that the tedious time we applied to the learning of the 
languages of those people who, themselves, had them for nothing, was the sole cause we could not 
arrive to the grandeur of soul and perfection of knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans : I do not, 
however, believe that to be the only cause ; the expedient my father, however, found out for this was 
that, in my infancy, and before I began to speak, he committed me to the care of a German (who since 
died a famous physician in France), totally ignorant of our language, but very fluent and a great critic 
in Latin. This man, whom he had sent for out of his own country, and whom he entertained, at a 
very great salary, for this only end, had me continually with him. To whom there were also joined 
two others of the same nation, but of inferior learning, to attend me, and sometimes to relieve him ; who 
all of them conversed with me in no other language but Latin. As to the rest of his family, it was an 
inviolable rule that neither himself, nor my mother, nor man, nor maid, should speak anything, in my 
company, but such Latin words as every one had learnt to gabble with me. It is not to be imagined how 
great an advantage this proved to the whole family ; my father and my mother, by this means, learning 
Latin enough to understand it perfectly well, and to speak it to such a degree as was sufficient for any 
necessary use ; as also those of the servants did who were most frequently with me. To be short, we 
did Latin it at such a rate that it overflowed to all the neighbouring villages, where there yet remain, 
and have established themselves by custom, several Latin appellations of artisans and their tools. As 
for myself, I was above six years of age before I understood either French or Perigordian any more than 
Arabic, and without art, book, grammar, or precept, whipping, or the expense of a tear, had by that time 
learned to speak as pure Latin as my master himself. If, for example, they were to give me a theme, 
after the College fashion, they gave it to others in French, but to me they gave it in the worst Latin, to 
turn it into that which was pure and good ; and Nicholas Grouchy, who wrote a book de Comitiis 
Rornanorum ; William Guerente, who has written a Commentary upon Aristotle; George Buchanan, 
that great Scotch poet, and Marc Antony Muret, whom both France and Italy have acknowledged for 
the best orator of his time, my domestic tutors [at college], have all of them often told me that I had in 
my infancy that language so very fluent and ready that they were afraid to enter into discourse with 
me. Buchanan, whom I since saw attending the late Mareschal de Brissac, then told me that he was 
about to write a Treatise of Education, the example of which he intended to take from mine, for he was 
then tutor to that Count de Brissac, who afterwards proved so valiant and so brave a gentleman." 

"As to Greek, of which I have but little smattering, my father also designed to have taught it me by 
art, but in a new way, and as a sort of sport; tossing out declensions to and fro, after the manner of 
those who, by certain games, at tables and chess, learn geometry and arithmetic ; for he, amongst other 
rules, had been advised to make me relish science and duty by an unforced will, and of my own 
voluntary motion, and to educate my soul in all liberty and delight, without any severity or constraint. 
Which he was an observer of to such a degree, even of superstition, that some being of opinion it 
troubles and disturbs the brains of children suddenly to wake them in the morning, and to snatch them 
violently and over-hastily from sleep (wherein they are much more profoundly involved than we), he 
caused me to be waked by the sound of some musical instrument, and was never unprovided of a 
musician for that purpose. By which example you may judge of the rest, this alone being sufficient to 
recommend both the prudence and affection of so good a father ; who, therefore, is not to be blamed if 
he did not reap the fruits answerable to so excellent a culture. Of which, two things were the cause : 
first, a sterile and improper soil; for though I was of a strong and healthful constitution, and of a dis- 
position tolerably gentle and tractable, yet I was, withal, so heavy, idle, and sluggish, that they could 
not rouse me even to any exercise of recreation, nor get me out to play. What I saw, I saw clear 
enough; and under this lazy complexion nourished a bold imagination, and opinions above my age. I 
had a slothful wit, that would go no faster than it was led, a slow understanding, a languishing invention, 
and, above all, an incredible, defect of memory ; so that it is no wonder if, from all these, nothing con- 
siderable could be extracted. Secondly, like those who, impatient of a long and steady cure, submit to 
all sorts of prescriptions and receipts, the good man being extremely timorous of any way failing in a thing 
he had so wholly set his heart upon, suffered himself, at last, to be over-ruled by the common opinion, 
which always follows the lead of what has gone on before, like cranes; and falling in with the method 
of the time, having no longer about him those persons he had brought out of Italy, and who had given 
him his first models of education, he sent me, at six years of age, to the College of Guienne, at that 
time the best and most flourishing in France. And there it was not possible to add anything to the 
care he had to provide me the most able tutors, with all other circumstances of education, reserving also 
several particular rules contrary to the College practice; but so it was that, with all these precautions, 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



it was a College still. My Latin immediately grew corrupt, and, by discontinuance, I have since lost 
all maaner of use of it; and so this new plan of education served me to no other end than only, at my 
first coming, to prefer me to the first forms : for at thirteen years old, that I left the College, I had gone 
through my whole course, as they call it, and, in truth, without any manner of improvement, that I can 
honestly brag of, in all this time." The vigorous idiom of Tacitus and Seneca, which had thus become 
his natuial language, had doubtless, through life, an influence in him greatly over the French, 
which he learned at a later period, as it were a foreign tongue, and which, having only just been 
nationalized by Francis I., was as yet anything but a langage fait, took the more freely, in an organ 
still young, the form given it by the earlier impressions. Locke, in his Treatise on Education, seems 
to have paid great attention to that of Montaigne; so far admitting the plan pursued with our Essayist, 
that, while he requires that a child should, in the first instance, learn his maternal language, he at the 
same time lays it strongly down that he should be provided with a master to teach him Latin also, by 
conversing with him in that tongue. 

As a child, though of a gentle and tractable disposition, it was difficult to rouse him from his quiet, 
even to join in boyish games ; but when he once began to play, then all the sports of his youthful com- 
panions seemed to him in the light of serious actions; and he had an entire repugnance to mix up 
with them any finesse or trickery, going always the straight way to play as to work, and keeping to it. 
Yet his mind, which seemed inactive, did not fail to form judgments upon the objects which he became 
acquainted with, and he digested his thoughts freely and at leisure. " Yet for all this heavy disposition 
of mine," says he, " my mind, when retired into itself, was not altogether idle, nor wholly deprived of 
solid inquiry, nor of certain and clear judgments about those objects it could comprehend, and could also 
without any helps digest them ; but, amongst other things, I do really believe it had been totally 
impossible to have made it to submit by violence and force. Shall I here acquaint you," he adds, 
" with one faculty of my youth 1 I had great boldness and assurance of countenance, and to that a 
flexibility of voice and gesture to any part I undertook to act ; for before 

Alter ab undecimo turn me vix ceperat annus, 

I played the chief parts in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret, that were acted in 
our college of Guienne with very great form; wherein Andreas Goveanus, our principal, as in all other 
parts of his undertaking, was, without comparison, the best of that employment in France, and I was 
looked upon as one of his chief actors." The first taste for reading that Montaigne acquired, arose in 
the manner which he himself thus relates: — '.< The first thing that gave me any taste of books was the 
pleasure I took in reading the fables of Ovid's Metamorphoses ; and with them I was so taken that, 
being but seven or eight years old, I would steal from all other diversions to read them, both by reason 
that this was my own natural language, the easiest book that I was acquainted with, and for the subject 
the most accommodated to the capacity of my age: for as for Lancelot of the Lake, Amadis of Gaul, 
Huon of Bordeaux, and such trumpery, which children are most delighted with, I had never so much as 
heard their names, no more than I yet know what they contain ; so exact was the discipline wherein I 
was brought up. This made me think the less of the other lessons prescribed me ; and here it was 
infinitely to my advantage to have to do with an understanding tutor, who was wise enough to connive 
at this and other truantries of the same nature; for by this means I ran through Virgil's .-Encids, and 
then Terence, and then Plautus, and some Italian comedies, allured by the pleasure of the subject ; 
whereas had he been so foolish as to have taken me off this diversion, I do really believe I had brought 
nothing away from the College but a hatred of books, as almost all our young gentlemen do. But he 
carried himself very discreetly in that business, seeming to take no notice, and heightened rny appetite 
by allowing me only such time for this reading as I could steal from my regular studies. For the chief 
things my father expected from them to whom he had delivered me for education, was affability of 
manners and good humour ; and, to say the truth, my temper had no other vice but sloth and want of 
mettle. The fear was not that'I should do ill, but that I should do nothing. Nobody suspected that I 
should be wicked, but most thought I should be useless ; they foresaw idleness, but no malice in my 
nature ; and I find it falls out accordingly. There is nothing," he adds, « like alluring the appetite and 
affection, otherwise you make nothing but so many asses laden with books, and by virtue of the lash 
give them their pocket full of learning to keep." Montaigne thus grew towards maturity, with an 
education more like that of our day than of his own. In the management of those first years of life, it 
is impossible not to see the source of much that afterwards marked him out from others. The main 
principle of teaching him every thing without requiring any conscious effect, or producing any sense of 
struggle on his part, doubtless disinclined him, as such a system always must, to encounter hardships, 
or engage in conflict : whence partly the indolence, though a busy indolence, of his life : hence, too, in 
a great degree, his reluctance to admit any views of man and duty which required him to regard life as 
a long battle against ignorance and weakness, in a word, against evil ; and which estimate the highest 
and best of our thoughts and feelings as only then pure and active, when consciously toiling against the 
stream of self-indulgence. But as his education gave him not only ease, but also knowledge, and 
opened to him an inexhaustible source of mental pleasure, no wonder that he became a literary epicure, 
and made the gratification of every whim in speculation, and to a great degree in practice, the only aim, 



xii LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 

if so it can be called, of his existence. Thanks, however, to the sound structure of mind and body, to 
the sturdy manly nature which he partly inherited from his father, partly owed to his care, to the strong 
and honest minds and the admirable books with which he was early familiarized, there is under and 
around all this capricious idleness predominant, clear, homely sense and apprehensiveness for truth, 
accompanied by sincerity and kindness of will, the natural yoke-fellows of such endowments, which 
give both the most sterling value and the most exquisite charm to his works. 

On attaining the age of thirteen, Montaigne's taste for study, and perhaps his dislike to military 
discipline and vexation, were so decided that, although the son of a gentleman and soldier of the sixteenth 
century, he preferred the business of a law-court to that of a camp ; and although the same distaste for 
restraint must have disinclined him for the study of the mass of custumal jurisprudence which at that 
time overwhelmed not only justice, but law, he went through the requisite preparations, and became, in 
the year 1554, one of the counsellors of the Parliament of Bordeaux, to which office he, in all probability, 
succeeded in place of his paternal uncle Busaguet, who died young. The functions of this office he 
fulfilled until the death of an elder brother gave him an independent income. He has been accused by 
Balzac of allowing his quality of gentleman to make him so ashamed of having filled this situation, that 
he never makes mention of it; but this is a mistake, for even so late as 1563, in writing publicly to his 
father, he signs himself, counsellor of Bordeaux. It is true that, in the course of so egotistical a work 
as the Essays, he but very rarely refers to this period of his life ; but whatever may have been his 
feelings with regard to his own professional career, it is certain that, while engaged in it, he gained, and 
through life retained, a bitter and scornful disgust at the mass of arbitrary pedantries and cruel wrongs 
involved in the system which then regulated all the social interests of his countrymen. Notwithstanding 
the ordonnance of Francis I., in 1539, by which all public acts were ordered to be drawn up in French, 
these acts continued, in Gascony, to be written in Latin. Montaigne protested against this practice : — 
" What can be more strange," he observes, " than to see a people obliged to obey and pay a reverence 
to laws they never heard of, and to be bound in all their affairs, both private and public, as marriages, 
donations, wills, sales, and purchases, to rules they cannot possibly know, being neither writ nor pub- 
lished in their own language, and of which they have, of necessity, to purchase both the interpretation 
and the use ? He was, besides, a warm advocate for simplifying the law and making it uniform. He 
observes, in his Essays, that there are more books to explain law-books than books on any other subject. 
There is no end, he says, of commentary upon commentary. 

During his life as a counsellor at Bordeaux, he seems to have made, probably on business connected 
with his office, frequent journeys to Paris and to the Court, where his conversational powers obtained 
for him the favour and patronage of Henry II., by whom he was appointed a gentlemen of the king's 
bed-chamber. From this monarch, also, according to Dom de Vienne, he received the collar of the 
order of St. Michael, which, when young, he tells us, he had coveted above all things, it being at that 
time the utmost mark of honour among the French nobles, and rarely bestowed ; but at the time Mon- 
taigne received it, it had got into discredit. Pasquier, his contemporary and personal friend, tells us, 
however, that this latter distinction was conferred upon Montaigne by Charles IX. As to his fulfilment 
of his duties, his close intimacy with the Sieur de Pibrac and Paul de Foix, his countrymen and fellow- 
counsellors, and, above all, his familiar connexion with the Chancellor de l'Hospital and de Thou, 
announce the high degree of confidence with which he was honoured, more especially as a magistrate 
representing the interests of an important town, at a period full of the most important events. It is 
quite clear that he was at different times consulted by men of a prominent position in that most troublous 
and intricate whirl of politics which then agitated France. The result for us is, that Montaigne knew 
mankind on many sides, and in the most different classes. He was in a station to associate early with 
the highest ranks, even with kings, and of habits and a temper that smoothed his intercourse even with 
the lowest. He had learning to make him an apt companion for scholars ; practical shrewdness and 
knowledge to procure him respect from the world ; and the secure and easy circumstances which gave 
him perfect leisure to indulge his tastes and fancies, to speculate upon those of others. But the most 
important event of his counsellor's life at Bordeaux, was the friendshipthe there formed with Stephen 
de la Boe'tie, an affection which makes a streak of light in modern biography almost as beautiful as that 
left us by Lord Brook and Sir Philip Sydney. Our essayist and his friend esteemed, before they saw 
each other. La Boetie had written a little work, entitled "De la Servitude Voluntaire,' n in which 

i This little book, observes a writer in the Westminster Review, seems to have been written when the author was 
only sixteen. It is a declamation against the lawless government of many by one, with much that recalls Tacitus, and 
something that resembles the political writings of Milton, but having a pervading tone of idle, imitative rhetoric, 
which is all but inevitable in the work of one so young. Though doubtless in some degree prompted by the miseries 
of France in that clay, it is chiefly a reproduction of the sonorous and statutesque republicanism of the classical writers ; 
the eloquent, headlong, youthful utterance of a sharp, clear brain and glowing heart, to whom the world was yet but 
a stage for declamation, while almost all the outward facts of life lay concealed from him, behind the scene-curtain. 
Warmth and reasonableness are finely blended in the book, though weakened by a kind of abstract vagueness, a date- 
less no where-ness of the facts and topics. There is no trace of the wayward, fantastic self-questioning which gives 
such charm and peculiarity to Montaigne. But probably, at La Boetie's age, his friend's writings would have shown 
much less of this than now appears in them. For passionate life and keenness of style, the "Treatise" is more 
remarkable even than the Essays. 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



Montaigne recognized sentiments congenial with his own, and which, indeed, bespeak a soul formed in 
the mould of classic times. Of Montaigne, La Boetie had also heard accounts, which made him eager 
to behold him, and at length they met at a large entertainment given by one of the magistrates of Bor- 
deaux. They saw and loved, and were thenceforward all in all to each other. The picture that 
Montaigne in his Essays draws of this friendship is in the highest degree beautiful and touching; nor 
does La Boetie's idea of what is due to this sacred bond betwixt soul and soul, fall short of the grand 
perception which filled the exalted mind of his friend. In the treatise just named, its youthful author 
thus expresses himself on the subject : — " Friendship is a sacred name ; it is a holy thing ; it never 
arises but between good men ; exists only by mutual esteem ; supports itself not so much by services 
on either part as by goodness of life. That which makes one friend certain of the other, is the know- 
ledge he has of his integrity. The sureties which he has for him are his good disposition, fidelity, and 
steadfastness. There cannot be friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there 
is injustice." Indeed, judging from the whole of this brief but admirable work, La Boetie, observes 
Mrs. Shelley, evidently deserved the high esteem in which Montaigne held him, though apparently very 
dissimilar from him in character. Boldness and vigour mark the thoughts and style ; love of freedom, 
founded on a generous independence of soul, breathes in every line ; the bond between him and Mon- 
taigne rested on the integrity and lofty nature of their dispositions, on their talents, on the warmth of 
heart that distinguished both, and a fervid imagination, without which the affections seldom rise into 
enthusiasm. The friendship of Montaigne for this admirable person yielded only in force to his 
tenderness for his father, if even to that; for while, it is true, he speaks of his father, in several places 
of his Essays, with the highest veneration and love, to Friendship he dedicates one whole chapter, 
in which it is observable that his style rises and becomes as energetic as it is full of soul. Nor 
was this friendship, glowing and enthusiastic as it was, a passing effervescence. Nine years after 
the death of La Boetie, — whose calm and considerate last moments, Montaigne, in a letter to his 
father, has described in the most eloquent and touching manner, — he tells us; "From the day 
that I lost him, I have only had a sorrowful and languishing life; and the very pleasures that 
present themselves to me, instead of administering any thing of consolation, double my affliction for his 
loss. We were halves throughout, and to that degree that, methinks, by out-living him, I defraud him 
of his part." Nay, even eighteen years after, during his journey in Italy, in 1580, he tells us that, 
while writing to the Cardinal d'Ossat, the recollection of his loss came across his mind, and il se trouva 
mal, en pensant d son ami. Montaigne did not regard women as capable of the same high order of 
friendship, but his physical complexion was such as made him fond of female society, and the character 
of his mind led him more especially to seek the friendship of those ladies of his time who were dis- 
tinguished for their wit and imagination, or for their graver powers of mind. It was this that induced 
him, in the one case, to pay his court to the authoress of the Heptameron, the gay and spirituelle 
Marguerite de Valois, at whose request he wrote one of the longest and most carefully studied chapters 
of his Essays ; and, in the other, to address to Diana de Foix his chapter " On the Education of Children," 
and to Madame d'Estissac that " On the Affection of Fathers to their Children." It is possible that his 
notion of a perfect tender friendship, which he in vain sought for among his female acquaintance, might 
have been realized in Mademoiselle de Gournay, had she been born twenty-five years earlier , and, 
indeed, Madame de Bourdic, in her Eloge de Montaigne, describes the lady in question as being in 
existence at the same time with La Boetie, and sharing with him the heart of Montaigne ; but this is a 
mere poetic fiction, the offspring of a wild enthusiasm. 

Montaigne married at the age of thirty-three ; but, as he informs us, not of his own wish or choice. 
" Might I have had my own will," says he, " I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would 
have had me : but 'tis to much purpose to evade it, the common custom and use of life will have it so ; 
the most of my actions are guided by example, not choice. And yet I did not go to it of my own 
voluntary motion ; I was led and drawn to it by extrinsic occasions ; and I was persuaded to it when 
worse prepared and more backward than I am at present, that I have tried what it is. And as great a 
libertine as I am taken to be," he adds, " I have in truth more strictly observed the laws of marriage 
than I either promised or expected." His wife, Francoise de la Chassaigne, was the daughter of Joseph 
de la Chassaigne, one of the most celebrated counsellors of the Parliament of Bordeaux, and sister of 
Geoffroi de la Chassaigne, Sieur de Prcssac, author of several works. She found, in Montaigne, a 
husband kind and considerate, though not enthusiastically attached. We read, for instance, that on the 
occasion of an accident of which he gives a picturesque description, the first thing he did on arousing 
from the swoon into which he had fallen, was to give a horse to his wife, " who he saw was toiling 
and labouring along the road, which was a steep and uneasy one." Again, when at Paris, he 
heard of the death of a daughter of theirs, he sent his wife a letter full of sympathy and kindness, 
accompanying it with Plutarch's Letter of Consolation to his Wife, written under similar cir- 
cumstances. 

It was from the same natural kindness and ready disposition to oblige and please those whom he 
loved, that at the desire of his father he translated and addressed to him the Natural Theology of Ray- 
mond Sebond. The elder Montaigne, animated with the ardour which influenced Francis I. in 
encouraging literature, had for a long time kept his house open to learned men, though not a learned 
man himself. Among others, he had received as a guest Peter Bunel, who warmly recommended to 



xiv LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 

him this work of Sebond's as one very useful to read, at a period when the innovations of Luther were 
beginning to get into credit, and menaced to shake in many places the ancient faith. Montaigne 
hastened to translate the volume, and presented it, in its French dress, to his father, who was so 
delighted with its contents that he had it printed and published. It is from proofs drawn from natural 
reason that Sebond, after the example of Raymond Lully, here undertook, not to explain the mysteries, 
but simply to oppose to the innovators, in support of the old faith, the same reason with which they 
sought to combat it. The work had great success, especially with the ladies; and Montaigne, as their 
champion, and as the vindicator of the book he had translated, afterwards came forward in its defence, 
both against those who charged the. author with unlicensed boldness in his opinions, and those who 
sneered at his arguments as devoid of strength or foundation. 

It was soon after the publication of this translation that Montaigne succeeded to the chateau and 
estate 1 of Montaigne, in consequence of the death of his excellent father, who, according to our essayist, 
was somewhat apprehensive that the inheritance in the hands of his son Michael, would be wasted by 
his indolence and carelessness ; but Montaigne's faults were negative ; and he easily brought himself to 
regard his income as the limit of his expenses, and even kept within it. His hatred of business and 
trouble, joined to sound' common sense, led him to understand that ease could be best attained by 
limiting his desires to his means ; and by the degree of order necessary to know what these means 
were ; and his practice accorded with this conclusion. 

One of the first things that engaged our author's attention, on thus becoming entirely master of 
himself, was the publication of La Boetie's Opuscula, which, together with his library, that beloved 
friend had bequeathed him, and which he now sent forth to the world, dedicated to the writer's relations. 
To the volume thus published, Montaigne added his own account, as addressed to his father, of the 
circumstances of La Boetie's death; but, probably out of consideration for those of the author's 
connections who were attached to the court or to the public service, Montaigne did not deem it advisable 
to reprint on this occasion the Treatise on Voluntary Servitude, which he perhaps thought might be 
made a sinister use of by party spirit, in a time of fierce faction and civil trouble. 

From this period Montaigne seems to have lived chiefly at his chateau. At the time of his succeeding 
to this property, he was under thirty-nine, and thenceforth his time was chiefly spent in reading and 
writing. It is not to be supposed, however, that he loved a wholly sedentary and inactive life. Though 
he adhered to no party, and showed no enthusiasm in the maintenance of his opinions, his disposition 
was inquisitive to eagerness, ardent, and fiery. The troubles that desolated his country throughout his 
life, fostered the activity of mind of which his writings are so full. He often travelled about France, 
and, above all, was well acquainted with Paris and the Court. He loved the capital, and calls himself 
a Frenchman only through his love of Paris, which he names the glory of France, and an ornament of 
the world. In one of his essays, he says that a chief reason with him for wishing to live longer, is that 
he may see the completion of the Pont-Neuf, which was then in course of construction. He attended 
the Court at the same time with the famous Due de Guise, and the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry 
IV. He predicted that the death of one or the other of these princes could alone put an end to the 
civil war, and he even foresaw the likelihood there was that Henry of Navarre would change his 
religion. At a later period he was at Blois, when the Due de Guise was assassinated ; and he was a 
contemporary of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, at the particular period of which our philosopher, 
humane from sentiment, tolerant from reason, kept himself at home, apart altogether from either party, 
and attached to his king by an affection, as he says, " purely and entirely legitimate and political ; 
neither attached nor repelled by private interest." In the whole course of the fierce contest between 
the Catholic party and the Huguenot, Montaigne, though a firm Catholic, abstained from mingling in 
the mortal struggles that were going on. One of his reasons for not attacking the Huguenots may 
perhaps be found in the circumstance that one of his brothers, M. de Beauregard, had been converted to 
the reformed religion. So high an opinion, however, was entertained, not only of his knowledge of the 
events that were passing around, but of his honesty and good faith, that he was requested to draw up 
the history of them, but he declined. " I am solicited," he says, " to write the affairs of my own time, 
by some who fancy I look upon them with an eye less blinded with prejudice or partiality than another, 
and have a clearer insight into them, by reason of the free access fortune has given me to the heads of 
both factions ; but they do not consider that to purchase the glory of Sallust I would not give myself the 
trouble, sworn enemy as I am to all obligation, assiduity, and perseverance : besides that there is nothing 
so contrary to my style as a continued and extended narrative, I so often interrupt and cut myself 
short in my writing only for want of breath." . 

We have how come to a period in the life of Montaigne, to which the highest interest attaches. It 
was towards the year 1572 that he commenced, in his retreat, the composition of his Essays. " When 
I lately retired myself to my own house," says he, "with a resolution, as much as possibly I could, to 
avoid all manner of concern in affairs, and to spend in privacy and repose the little remainder of time I 
have to live, I fancied I could not more oblige my mind than to suffer it at full leisure to entertain and 

1 The estate to which he succeeded comprised the chateau, and eighteen mctairies, or farms, around it, comprising 
one or two small villages. The revenue thence accruing was about 2000 crowns of the money of the time. 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



divert itself, which I hoped it might now the better be entrusted to do, as being by time and observation 
become more settled and mature ; but I find, 

Variani semper dant otia mentem, 

that, quite the contrary, it is like a horse that has broken from his rider, who voluntary runs into a much 
wilder career than any horseman would put him to, and creates me so many chimeras and fantastic 
monsters, one upon another, without order or design, that, the better at leisure to contemplate their 
strangeness and absurdity, I have begun to commit them to writing, hoping in time to make them 
ashamed of themselves." " This faggotting-up of so many divers pieces," he adds elsewhere, " is done 
in this way : I never set pen to paper but when too great idleness becomes troublesome, and never any 
where but at home ; so that it is made up at several interruptions and intervals. I never correct my 
first by my second conceptions; perhaps I may alter a word or so; but it is only to vary the phrase, 
and not to omit my former meaning." In this particular, however, Montaigne's statement of the matter 
is not consistent with fact; for the edition of 1588, for example, contains several passages, which the 
author afterwards altered or entirely omitted, to the advantage certainly of the work. The materials 
which he possessed for adding to the wealth of his own mind, the stores of classic intellect and experience, 
were unusually great for that period. His own library was already a good one, when it was considerably 
enlarged by the collection of books bequeathed him by La Boe'tie. In this library he spent the principal 
portion of his time, reading, meditating, and writing, or dictating. His custom was to walk about as 
he read and meditated, " for," says he, " my thoughts go to sleep, if I sit down." His mode of pro- 
ceeding appears to have been altogether of a most desultory character. He would turn over the leaves, 
now of one book, then of another, without order or apparent design ; now he noted, then he meditated, 
and anon dictated, as he walked, what he had thus digested, more or less maturely. He had a memory, 
rather of ideas, than of words; what remained in his mind, he no longer remembered as the property 
of another. But let us hear his own account of the matter: " I make no doubt but that I often happen 
to speak of things that are much better, and more truly handled by those who are masters of the trade. 
You have here purely an essay of my natural, and not acquired, parts ; and whoever shall take me 
tripping in my ignorance, will not in any sort displease me ; for I should be very unwilling to become 
responsible to another for my writings, who am not so to myself, nor satisfied with them. Whoever 
goes in quest of knowledge, let him fish for it where it is to be found ; there is nothing I so little profess. 
These are fancies of my own, by which I do not pretend to discover things, but to lay open myself. 
They may, perhaps, one day be known to me, or have formerly been, according as fortune has put me 
upon a place where they have been explained ; but I have forgotten them ; and if I am a man of some 
reading, I am a man of no retention ; so that I can promise no certainty, if not to make known to what 
point the knowledge I now have rises. Therefore let nobody insist upon the matter I write, but my 
method in writing it: let them observe in what I borrow, if I have known how to choose what is proper 
to raise or help the invention, which is always my own ; for I make others say for me what, either for 
want of language gr want of sense, I cannot so well myself express. I do not number my borrowings, 
I weigh them. And, had I designed to raise their value by their number, I had made them twice as 
many. They are all, or within a very few, so famed and ancient authors, that they seem, methinks, 
themselves sufficiently to tell who they are, without giving me the trouble. In reasons, comparisons, 
and arguments, if I transplant any into my own soil, and confound them amongst my own, I purposely 
conceal the author, to awe the temerity of those forward censurers that fall upon all sorts of writings, 
particularly the late ones, of men yet living, and in the vulgar tongue, forsooth, which puts, it would 
seem, every one into a capacity of judging, and which seems to convict the authors themselves of vulgar 
conception and design. I would have them give Plutarch a fillip upon my nose, and put themselves in 
a heat with railing against Seneca, when they think they rail at me. I must shelter my own weakness 
under these great reputations. I shall love any one that can unplume me, that is, by clearness of 
understanding and judgment, and by the sole distinction of the force and beauty of reason : for I, who, 
for want of memory, am at every turn at a loss to pick them out by their national livery, am yet wise 
enough to know, by the measure of my own abilities, that my soil is incapable of producing any of those 
rich flowers that I there find set and growing ; and that all the fruits of my own growth are not worth 
any one of them. I have no other officer to put my writings in rank and file, but fortune. As things 
come into my head I heap them in ; sometimes they advance in whole bodies, sometimes in single files. 
I am content that every one should see my natural and ordinary pace, ill as it is. I let myself jog on 
at my own rate and ease. Neither are these subjects which a man is not permitted to be ignorant in, 
or casually, and at a venture, to discourse of. I could wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, 
but I will not buy it so dear as it will cost. My design is to pass over easily, and not laboriously, the 
remainder of my life. There is nothing that I will break my brain about; no, not knowledge, of what 
price soever." 

The extraordinary knowledge that Montaigne displays of man, in all his several relations, and the 
infinite variety of historical illustrations, ancient and modern, foreign and domestic, that he adds to his 
own experiences, have induced many persons to suppose that he had travelled beyond the limits of 
France, at the time he composed his work, and M. Villemain, among others, appears to entertain this 
opinion, but it is certain that Montaigne's journey into Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, was posterior 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



to the publication of the Essays, in March, 1580. That which has deceived some biographers, is the 
circumstance that several features in the Journey were inserted by Montaigne himself, as early as 1582, 
in the edition of the Essays which preceded that wherein that work received the last form it assumed 
under its author's hands. But this circumstance proves nothing; for in every new edition that Mon- 
taigne published, he added something or other, by way of bonus, to those former purchasers, who might 
thereby be induced to buy a copy of the new edition. But Montaigne had travelled sufficiently about 
France, and in sufficiently stirring times, to give him an extensive and varied insight into human 
character ; indeed, for that matter, there is hardly a village so small, wherein a man who understandingly 
seeks for this sort of information may not learn a great deal, and our philosopher was precisely the 
person to obtain it. « I observe in my travels this custom," he says, "ever to learn something from the 
information of those with whom I converse (which is the best school of all others), and to put my 
company upon those subjects they are the best able to speak of." We have mentioned his frequent 
■visits to Paris, where, indeed, his attendance was required at intervals, by the place he filled of one of 
the gentlemen of the king's bed-chamber. He was at Bar-le-Duc with Henry II., and he accompanied 
Charles IX. to Kouen, probably at the time of the declaration of the majority of this prince, to whom, 
at our author's instance, were presented the South American Indians, of whom he speaks in his chapter 
On Cannibals. The Abbe Talbert, in his Eloge de Montaigne, speaks of it as a well known fact, that 
Montaigne not only acted as secretary to Catherine de Medici, when she wrote her letter of instructions 
to Charles IX., but that the letter itself was the composition of our essayist, a statement which some of 
the recent editors of Montaigne have concurred in. 

As Montaigne advanced in life, he lost his health. The stone, which he believed he inherited from 
his father, and painful nephritic cholics that seized him at intervals, put his philosophy to the test. He 
would not allow his illness to disturb the usual tenor of his life, and, above all, refused medical aid, 
having also inherited, he tells us, from his father, a contempt for physicians. There was a natural 
remedy, however, by which he laid great store, one much in favour at all times on the continent — 
mineral and thermal springs. The desire to try these, as well as a wish to quit for a time his troubled 
country, and the misery multiplying around him, caused him to make a journey into Italy. His love 
of novelty and of seeing strange things sharpened his taste for travelling; and, as a slighter motive, he 
was glad to throw household cares aside ; for though the pleasures of command were something, he 
received perpetual annoyances from the indigence and sufferings of his tenants, or the quarrels of his 
neighbours : to travel was to get rid of all this at once. 

Of course his mode of proceeding was peculiar : he had a great distaste for coaches or litters; even 
a boat was not quite to his mind ; and he only really liked travelling on horseback. Then he let 
every whim sway him as to the route ; it gave him no annoyance, but rather pleasure, to go out of his 
way : if the road was bad to the right, he took that to the left; if he felt too unwell to mount his horse, 
he remained where he was till he got better : if he found he had passed by any thing he wished to see, 
he turned back. On the present occasion, his mode of travelling was, as usual, regulated by convenience : 
sumpter-mules or hired vehicles carried the luggage, while he proceeded on horseback. He appears to 
have been accompanied on this journey by four gentlemen, his brother, the Sieur de Mattecoulon, M. 
d'Estissac, M. de Caselis, and M. de Hautoy; Montaigne retaining throughout the direction of the 
journey, and having things apparently all his own way. 

Our traveller set off from the Chateau de Montaigne on the 22d June, 1580, and after stopping for a 
short time at the camp of the Marshal de Matignon, who was then besieging the town of La Fere; and, 
after accompanying to Soissons the body of the Count de Grammont, who had been killed at the siege, 
he went on to Beaumont-sur-Oise, where he arrived on the 5th of September, and where he was joined 
by M. d'Estissac ; the other gentlemen were already, apparently, with him. The party then proceeded 
through the north-east of France to Plombieres, where Montaigne took the waters; and then went on 
by Basle, Baden, in the canton of Zurich, to Constance, Augsburg, Munich, and Trent. It is not to 
be supposed that he went to these places in a right line : he often changed his mind when half-way to 
a town and came back ; so that at last his zig-zag mode of proceeding rendered several of his party 
restive. They remonstrated ; but he replied that, for his own part, he was bound to no place, but that 
in which he was at the time ; and that he could not go out of his way, seeing that the only object he 
had proposed to himself, was to wander in places before unknown to him ; and so that he never 
followed the same road twice, nor visited the same place twice, his scheme was accomplished. If, indeed, 
he had been alone, he tells us, he had rather have gone towards Cracovia, or overland to Greece, instead 
of at once to Italy ; but, he adds, he could not impart the pleasure he took in seeing strange places, 
which was such as to cause him to forget ill health and suffering, to any other of his party; so that he 
was obliged to pursue the uneven tenor of his way to Italy ; and, after many windings, having visited 
Venice, which « he had a hunger to see," he at length found himself at Rome, on the last day of 
November, having the previous morning risen three hours before daylight, in his eagerness to behold 
the Eternal City. Here he had food in plenty for his inquiring mind; and, getting tired of his 
guide, rambled about by himself, finding out remarkable objects, making his shrewd remarks, and trying 
to discover those ancient spots with which his mind was familiar; for Latin being his mother-tongue, 
and Latin books his primers, he was more familiar with Roman history than with that of France; and 
the names of the Scipios and the Metelli were less strange to his ear than those of many Frenchmen 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



of his own day. He was well received by the pope, Gregory XIII., who felt almost grateful to any man 
of talent and rank who would still abide by, and stand up in defence of, the old religion. Montaigne, 
before he left home, had printed two books of his Essays ; a copy of these was taken from him at the 
Custom-house at Rome, and underwent a censorship ; several faults were found, which he particularizes 
in the Diary, but Montaigne took this fault-finding very easily, saying that he had put down the things 
in question as his real opinions, and did not regard them as errors, and that, in several cases, the censor 
had altogether mistaken his meaning. The authority to whom the matter was referred was a man of 
sense, who readily admitting the explanations offered by our essayist, the censures were not insisted upon ; 
and when Montaigne left Rome, and took leave of the prelate who had discoursed with him on the 
subject, the latter paid him a high compliment as to the uprightness of his intentions, his affection for 
the church, and his talents ; adding, that the authorities at Rome thought so highly of his candour and 
conscientiousness, that they left it entirely to him to make what alterations he thought necessary, in 
another edition; and, finally, our author was earnestly requested to continue to aid the church with his 
eloquence, and to remain where he was, away from the troubles of his native country. Montaigne's 
vanity was highly tickled with all these courtesies, though he speaks of them as mere words of course ; 
and his satisfaction was completed by his being invested with the citizenship of Rome, in a papal bull, 
pompous in seals and golden letters, and most gracious in its expressions. Nothing, he tells us, ever 
pleased him more than this honour, empty as it might seem, and he had employed to obtain it, he says, 
all his five senses, for the sake of the ancient glory and present holiness of the city. 

The descriptions (observes Mrs. Shelley) which he gives of Rome, of the Pope, and all he saw, are 
short, but drawn with a master's hand — graphic, original, and just ; and such is the unaltered appear- 
ance of the Eternal City, that his pages describe it as it now is, with as much fidelity as they did when 
he saw it in the sixteenth century. Its gardens and pleasure-grounds delighted him ; the air seemed to 
him the most agreeable he had ever felt ; and the perpetual excitement of inquiry in which he lived, his 
visits to antiquities, and to various beautiful and memorable spots, delighted him ; and neither at home 
nor abroad was he once visited by gloom or melancholy, which he calls his death. 

On the 19th of April, he left Rome, and, passing by the eastern road and the shores of the Adriatic, 
he visited Loretto, where he displayed his piety by presenting a silver ex-vuto, and performing various 
religious duties, which prove the sincerity of his Catholic faith. In the month of May he arrived at 
the Baths of Lucca, whither he had repaired for the sake of the waters, and took up his abode at the 
Bagno della Villa, where, with the exception of a short interval, during which he visited Florence and 
Pisa, he remained till September. On the 7th of that month, he received letters to inform him that he 
had been elected mayor of Bordeaux, a circumstance which forced him to hasten his return, though he 
did not leave Italy without again visiting Rome. His journey home during winter, although rendered 
painful by physical suffering, was yet tortuous and wandering among the northern Italian towns. He 
re-entered France by Mont-Cenis, and, visiting Lyons, continued his route through Auvergne and 
Perigord, and arrived at the Chateau de Montaigne on the 30th of November, having been absent 
seventeen months and eight days. 

Of the journey thus performed, we have a Diary, written partly in Montaigne's own hand, partly 
dictated to his valet, who, though he speaks of his master in the third person, evidently wrote only the 
words dictated. This work, observes Mrs. Shelley, is singularly interesting. It seems to tell us more 
of Montaigne than the Essays themselves ; or rather, it confirms much said in those, by relating many 
things omitted, and throws a new light on various portions of his character. For instance, we find that 
the eager curiosity of his mind led him to inquire into the tenets of the Protestants ; and that at the 
Swiss towns he was accustomed, on arriving, to seek out with all speed some theologian, whom he 
invited to dinner, and from whom he enquired the particular tenets of the various sects. There creeps 
out, also, an almost unphilosophical dislike of his own country, springing from the miserable state into 
which civil war had brought it. The work abounds, too, with amusing illustrations of the vanity which 
formed so prominent a feature in our author's character. He loved to stop at places where, taking him 
for a noble of high degree, the local authorities waited upon him in state, bearing the portion of wine, 
accustomed to be offered to the more distinguished of their visitors, and accompanying it with long 
complimentary harangues, to which he would gravely reply with all corresponding dignity, and at 
proportionate length. 

Montaigne, though, of course, highly flattered by the unsought-for, and, by him, utterly unexpected, 
election of the citizens of Bordeaux, which he himself affects to attribute solely to their recollection of 
his father's former good administration of the office, yet, from ill health, and constitutional dislike to 
public employments, would have excused himself, as he tells us, had not the king interposed with his 
commands. On his arrival, he represented himself to his electors, such as he conceived himself to be, 
"a man without memory, without vigilance, without experience, and without vigour; but withal, 
without hatred, without ambition, without avarice, and without violence." It has been, indeed, insinu- 
ated against him, by M. Balzac, who, however, assigns no grounds for the imputation, that he exhibited 
indolence and indifference in the execution of the duties of his office ; while he himself deemed his 
negative merits deserving praise, at a time when France was distracted by the dissensions of contending 
factions; and the citizens themselves gave unequivocal proof of their approbation of his administration, 
by conferring upon him a second election of the two years' mayoralty, an honour so distinguished and 



LIFE OP MONTAIGNE. 



rare, that it had never occurred but twice before, in the persons, namely, of M. de Lansac, and of 
Marshal de Matignon, to whom Montaigne succeeded, and proud was he, he tells us, of so noble a 
fraternity. 

For some time after his return home, Montaigne, amidst all the fierce and licentious struggles of the 
contending parties, was suffered to remain unmolested in his retreat. " Peradventure," he writes, " the 
facility of entering my house, amongst other things, has been a means to preserve it from the violence 
of our civil wars; defence allures an enemy, and mistrust provokes him. I enervated the soldiers' 
design by depriving the exploit of danger, and all matter of military glory, which is wont to serve them 
for pretence and excuse. Whatever is bravely is ever honourably done, at a time when justice is dead. 
I render them the conquest of my house cowardly and base; it is never shut to any one that knocks. 
My gate has no other guard than a porter, and that of ancient custom and ceremony, who does not so 
much serve to defend it, as to offer it with more decency and the better grace. I have no other guard or 
sentinel than the stars. A gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence, if he be not 
really in a condition to defend himself. He that lies open on one side is every where so. Our ancestors 
did not think of building frontier garrisons. The means of assaulting, I mean without battery or army, 
and of surprising our houses, increase every day, above all the means to guard them ; men's wits are 
generally bent that way ; invasion every one is concerned in ; none but the rich in defence. Mine was 
strong for the time when it was built ; I have added nothing to it of that kind, and should fear that its 
strength should turn against myself; to which we are to consider that a peaceable time would require 
it should be dismantled. There is the danger never to be able to regain it, and it would be very hard 
to keep it, for in intestine dissensions your valet may be of the party you fear; and where religion is 
the pretext, even a man's nearest relation may be distrusted with a colour of justice. The public 
exchequer will not maintain our domestic garrisons; it would be exhausted; we ourselves have not 
means to do it without ruin, or, which is more inconvenient and injurious, without ruining the people. 
As to the rest, you there lose all, and even your friends will be more ready to accuse your want of 
vigilance and your improvidence than to pity you, and the ignorance and heedlessness of your profession. 
That so many garrisoned houses have been lost, whereas this of mine remains, makes me apt to suspect 
that they were only lost by being guarded ; this gives an enemy both an invitation and colour of reason ; 
all defence shows a face of war. Let who will come to me, in God's name; but I shall not invite 
them. 'Tis retirement I have chosen, for my repose from war. I endeavour to withdraw this corner 
from the public tempest, as I also do another corner in my soul. Our war may put on what forma it 
will, multiply and diversify itself into new parties ; for my own part, I shall not budge. Amongst so 
many garrisoned houses, I am the only person of my condition, that I know of, who have purely 
entrusted mine to the protection of Heaven, without removing either plate, deeds, or hangings. I will 
neither fear nor save myself by halves." His quiet, however, was at length intruded on, and he was 
made to feel in his own person the disturbances that desolated his country. It is a strange and 
instructive thing to picture France divided into two parties, belonging to which were men who risked 
all for the dearest privilege of life, freedom of thought and faith ; and were either forced, or fancied that 
they were forced, to expose life and property to attain it ; and to compare these religionists in arms with 
the tranquil philosopher, who dissected human nature in his study, and sounded the very depths of all oui 
knowledge in freedom and ease, because he abstained from certain watch-words, and had no desire for 
proselytes or popular favour. " I regard our king," he says, " with a merely legitimate and political 
affection, neither attached nor repelled by private interest ; and in this I am satisfied with myself. In 
the same way, I am but moderately and tranquilly attached to the general cause, and am not subject to 
entertain opinions in a deep-felt and enthusiastic manner. Let Montaigne, if it must be so, be 
swallowed up, in the public ruin ; but if there is no necessity for it, I shall be thankful to Fortune to 
save it. I treat both parties equally ; I say nothing to one that I could not say to the other, with the 
accent only a little changed ; and there is no motive of utility that could induce me to lie." It was in 
1585 that the factious, excited by their chief, the Due de Guise, at once against the Navarrese and 
against the king himself, who had now entirely given himself up to the society of his favourites, began 
to make onslaughts both against the sincere royalists and against the moderate Catholics. 

Montaigne's account of the Reformers, it may be observed, is by no means flattering; he represents 
them as men who " go towards reformation by the worst of deformations ; who advance towards their 
salvation by the most express causes that we have of most assured damnation; who by overthrowing 
the government, magistracy, and laws, in whose protection God has placed them, by tearing their 
mother (the Church) to pieces, and giving the lacerated limbs to her old enemies to gloat over, by 
inspiring fraternal minds with parricidal animosities, by calling devils and furies to their aid, think they 
can assist the holy sweetness and justice of the divine laws. Ambition, avarice, cruelty, and revenge, 
have not sufficient natural impetuosity of their own ; let us bait them with the glorious titles of justice 
and devotion. The common people," he proceeds, "then suffered therein very much, not present 
damages only, but future too : the living were to suffer, and so were they who were yet unborn : they 
pillaged them, and consequently me too, even of hope, taking from them all they had laid up in store to 
live on for many years. --- Besides this shock, I suffered others; I underwent the inconveniences 
that moderation brings along with it in such diseases; I was curried on all hands; to the Ghibelline I 
was a Guelph ; to the Guelph a Ghibelline. The situation of my house, and my friendliness to my 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



neighbours, presented me with one face ; my life and my actions with another. They did not lay 
formal accusations against me, for they had no hold. I never slink from the laws, and whoever would 
have questioned me, would have done himself a greater prejudice than me; they were only mute sus- 
picions that were whispered about, which never want appearance in so confused a mixture, no more than 
envious or idle heads. I commonly assist the injurious presumptions that fortune scatters abroad against 
me, by a way I have ever had of evading to justify, excuse, or explain myself, conceiving that it were 
to compromise my conscience to plead in its behalf: Ptrspicuitas enim augmentations elevatur. 
At what then befel me an ambitious man would have hanged himself, and a covetous one would have 
done the same. I have no manner of care of getting ; but the losses that befel me by the injury of others, 
whether by theft or violence, go almost as near my heart as they would do to that of the most avaricious 
man. The offence troubles me, without comparison, more than the loss. A thousand several sorts of 

mischief fell upon me in the neck of one another ; I could better have borne them all at once. I 

had already begun considering," he continues, "to whom amongst my friends I might commit a neces- 
sitous and degraded old age : and, having turned my eyes quite round, I found myself altogether at a 
loss. At last I concluded that it was safest for me to trust to myself in my necessity ; and if it should fall 
out that I should be put upon cold terms in Fortune's favour, I should so much more recommend me 
to my own, and so much the closer attach me to myself." 

It was well for him that he had philosophy to bear him up against all the evils that now assailed 
him; for, to complete his misery, and that of his countrymen, a pestilent fever broke out in 1586, and 
devastated Guyenne. Montaigne's own account of this horrible visitation runs thus: — "But behold 
another aggravation of the evil, which befel me in the tail of the rest. Both without doors and within, 
I was assaulted with a plague most violent in comparison of all others: I had to suffer this pleasant 
condition, that the sight of my house was frightful to me ; whatever I had there was without guard, and 
left to the mercy of every one. I myself, who am of so hospitable a nature, was myself in very great 
distress for a retreat for my family ; a wild and scattered family, frightful both to its friends and itself, and 
filling every place with horror where it attempted to settle ; having to shift abode as soon as any one's finger 
began to ache; all diseases are then concluded to be the plague, and people do not stay to examine 
what they are. And the mischief is, that, according to the rules of art, in every danger that a man 
comes near, he must undergo a quarantine in the suspense of his infirmity, your imagination all that 
while tormenting you at pleasure, and turning even your health itself into a fever. Yet all this would 
have gone the less to my heart, had I not withal been compelled to be sensible of others' sufferings, and 
miserably to serve six months together for a guide to this caravan ; for I carry my own antidotes 
within myself, which are resolution and patience. Apprehension, which is particularly to be feared in 
this disease, does not much trouble me ; and if, being alone, I should have taken it, it had been a more 
sprightly and a longer flight: 'tis a kind of death that I do not think of the worse sort; 'tis usually 
short, stupid, without pain, and consoled by the public condition ; without ceremony, without mourning, 
and without a crowd. But as to the people about us, the hundredth part of them could not be saved. 
In this place, my greatest revenue is manual : what a hundred men ploughed for me lay a long time 
fallow." 

In another place he gives a very interesting account of how, on one occasion, by presence of mind and 
self-possession, he saved his castle from pillage ; and elsewhere he relates a somewhat similar anecdote 
of the manner in which he got out of the clutches of a party of the gentlemen freebooters, who then per- 
ambulated the country, seeking what they might devour. 

Montaigne's family were long-lived ; but he himself attained no great age, and his latter years were 
disturbed by great suffering. Living in constant expectation of death, he was always prepared for it ; 
his affairs were arranged, and he was ready to fulfil all the last duties of his religion, as soon as he felt 
himself attacked by any of the frequent fevers that assailed him. One of the last and most agreeable events 
of his life was his friendship with Mademoiselle de Gournay. In his Third Book he tells us nothing of 
this friend, so worthy of the name, who came to console the philosopher, suffering under the public miseries 
and his own afflictions of body ; but he makes her the subject of an addition to the 17th chapter of 
Book II. j where, in the enumeration he gives us of the persons of his own time, possessed of more than 
ordinary greatness of mind, he distinguishes his fi lie d 'alliance, Marie de Gournay. His picture of her 
is not only delightful as a testimony of her merits, but a proof of the unfailing enthusiasm and warmth 
of his own heart, which even in suffering and decay equally allied itself to kindred merit. Mademoi- 
selle de Gournay was afterward esteemed one of the most learned and excellent women of her time, 
and was honoured by the abuse of pedants, who attacked her personal appearance and her age, in 
revenge for her transcending even their sex in accomplishments and understanding; while, on the other 
hand, she was regarded with respect and friendship by the first men of the day. 1 At the time when 
Montaigne first saw her, which was during a long visit he made to Paris, after his mayoralty at Bor- 
deaux was ended, she was very young, but she had conceived an enthusiastic love and admiration of 



i Resides her other works, this lady is the author of a little volume, not mentioned or contained in the editions of 
her writings, that appeared in 162U, 10.14, and 1G41, and unknown to M. Barbier: Bienvenuc de monscigncur le due 
d'Jlnjmi, d6diee a lascrenissimc republiquede Venise.son parrian tlesi<rne, par mademoiselle de G. Paris, Bourriquanl, 
1608. This Duke of Anjou was Gaston, due d'Orleans, second son of Henry IV. 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



him from reading his Essays, and she called upon, and requested and obtained his acquaintance, which 
soon ripened into earnest friendship. She afterwards, in company with her mother, visited him at 
Montaigne, and he paid them, in return, several visits at their chateau in Normandy, where he remained, 
on the whole, three months. Another adoption, very agreeable to his vanity, was that of his philosophy 
by Chamon, who became acquainted with him at Bordeaux, in 1589, and with whom he afterwards 
contracted a warm friendship. The theologian became the pupil of the philosopher, and his Treatise 
on Wisdom is little more than a developement of the maxims and lessons of his master, fully justifying, 
if it were needed, the title of Breviaire des honnetes gens, that Cardinal du Perron assigned to Mon- 
taigne's Essays. The pupil, however, was much less read than the master, who, very soon after the 
first publication of his work, was so much in vogue, — notwithstanding Mademoiselle de Gournay's 
somewhat unaccountable complaint as to the coldness of its reception, — that edition after edition was 
called for, and the Essays of Montaigne were to be found on the table of every gentleman in France 
that could read aught beyond his other breviary, and, ere long, became known, by the medium of 
translations, in Italy, England, and other countries. 

The disease which more immediately occasioned the death of Montaigne was a quinsy, that brought 
on a paralysis of the tongue, in which condition he remained three whole days, with all his senses about 
him, but unable to speak. Even now his presence of mind, his philosophy, and his kind heart did not 
forsake him. It is related of him, by Bernard Antoine, in his Commentaire sur la Coutume de Bor- 
deaux, that Montaigne, " feeling the approach of death, got out of bed in his shirt, and, putting on his 
dressing-gown, opened the door of his chamber, and, writing word for all his servants and others, to 
whom he had left legacies, to be called together, paid them the sums he had respectively bequeathed 
them, foreseeing the difficulty they might have in obtaining the amount from his heirs." Getting worse 
and worse, he requested his wife, in writing, to send for some gentlemen, his neighbours; and when 
they were all assembled, he caused mass to be celebrated in his chamber. At the moment of the 
elevation, he attempted to rise, but could not, and with his hands crossed, fell back fainting, and in this 
act of devotion expired, on the 13th September, 1592, in the sixtieth year of his age, presenting in hi.s 
death, says Pasquier, a fine mirror of the interior of his soul. He was buried at Bordeaux, in the 
church of the Feuillans, where his widow had a monument erected to him, with inscriptions in Latin 
and Greek, as follow : — 

D. O. M. S. 

Michaeli Montano Petrocorensi Petri F. Grimundi. N. Remundi Pron. Equiti torquato, civi Romano, civitatis 
Biturigum Viviscorum ex-Majori, viro ad naturae gloriam nato. Quojus nioram suavitudo, ingenii acumen, ex tempo- 
ralis facundia, et incomparabile judicium supra humanam sortem aestimata sunt. Qui amicos usus reges maximos, et 
terra Galliie primores viros, ipsos etiam sequiomm partium praestites, tamen etsi patriamm legum,et sacrorum avito- 
rum retinentissimus, sine quojusquam offensa, sine palpo, aut pipulo, universis populatim gratus, utque antidhac 
semper advorsus omnes dolorum minacias mamitam sapientiam Iahris et libris professus, ita in procinctu fati cum 
morbo pertinaciter inimico diutim validissimeconluctatus, tandem dicta factisexrequando, polcrae vitae polcram pausam 
cum Deo volente fecit. 

Vixit ann. LIX. mens. VII. dieb. XI. Obiit anno salustis CIOIOVIIIC. idib. Septemb. 

Francisca Cliassanea ad luctum perpetuum lieu relicta marito dolcissimo univira unijugo, el bene merenti 
;P. C. 

Hpioj/, owl.; iSdiv, jjS ovvopux, tovfidv jpwtfaj, 

M.av9avs Movi'aroj" IlcnJfo 8ajA.8oT(a8si,v- 
Oi>% Efta T/cuka, Sewa;, yivop ivyivhp, oM?o; avohSo;, 

Tlpostacaal, Swa/A-eii, rttuyvia Ov/jln "ivx^li- 

OvpavoBev xariiSriv, Bflov tyvtbv, ei; x^ova YLtVtuv, 

Ov <jo<po$ EMi.jjwoj' 6%8oo;, ovts tpito;. 
Aiiffowcoi/' aXk' Ets jtaWcov wfaftoj aXkuv, 

Tj}$ *£ fiafid co$L?]s avdtoi, t' svtrtiqs- 



Tjjv nOp/jtom^f, EMidSa &'h%t q>9ovo$, 
Efo.6 xol Avoovliqv, (pdovbpr[v 6' tpiv a,v?s, tjtta%uv, 
Td|[.y £7t' ©vpaviSu>v, rtatpLSd ftsv, avt6r t v. 

Thus rendered by M. de la Monnoye: 

Quisquis ades, nomenque rogas, lugere paratus, 

Montani audito nomine, pavce metn. 
Nil jacet hie nostri, nee enim titulosque, genusque 

Fasces, corpus, opes, nostra vocanda puto.. 
Callorum ad terras superis demissus ab cris 

Non alter cecidi Chilo, Cato ve novus ; 
Ast omnest equans untis, quoscumque vetustas 

Enumerai, celebres corde vel ore Sophos; 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNE. 



Solius addictus jurare in dogmata Christi, 
Caetera Pyrrhonis pendore lance sciens. 
Jam mihi de sophia Latium, jam Gracia certent, 
Ad Coelum redncem lis nihil ista movet. 
Montaigne's adopted daughter and her mother, to whom information of his illness had heen imme- 
diately forwarded by the family, hastened from their chateau in Normandy, by the assistance of passports, 
to traverse almost the entire of France, disturbed as it was, but arrived only in time to mix their tears 
and lamentations with those of the philosopher's widow and daughter. 

The only child that Montaigne left was a daughter, Leonora, who was afterwards twice married : she 
had no children by her first husband, but by her second, Charles, Viscount de Gamaches, she had a 
daughter, Marie de Gamaches, who married Louis do Lur de Saluces, Baron de Fargues, to whom she 
bore three daughters. The youngest, Claude Madeline de Lur, married Elias Isaac de Segur, whose 
son, Jean de Segur, was grandfather to M. le Compte de la Roquette, to whom the chateau of Montaigne 
duly descended, in accordance with the testamentary arrangements of the philosopher from whom it 
received its sole celebrity. 

The present may, perhaps, be the most suitable place for inserting a very interesting account of this 
chateau, as it appeared, a few years ago, to the eyes of an intelligent contributor to the Westminster 
Review. 

» At Castellan we exchanged our caleche for a small char-a-banc, with one horse, which took us to 
Montaigne St. Michael, along a detestable road, mostly somewhat ascending. We found the higher 
ground to be a wide, broken plain, out of sight of the Dordogne, and studded with small stone windmills, 
each carrying a conical roof. <• . 

« The first memorial of the days of Montaigne which we discovered was the parish church, a very 
old building. There is a massive square tower, covered by a slightly pointed roof, and having two large 
openings near its summit, in each side, which look like windows, but are without shafts, and seem to 
distinguish a good deal of the church architecture of the neighbourhood. There is a round apsis beyond 
the tower, at the east end, with only two small loop-hole windows, and at the west end is raised a small, 
curiously complicated wooden superstructure, designed to contain the bell of a large clock, to which 
access is obtained by a rude, external wooden gallery, painted red, and stretching all the length of the 
body of the church, close under the eaves. From this building runs a straight road, perhaps a quarter 
of a mile long, to the chateau. 

"The part of Montaigne's house which we first reached was the tower, described by him in his 
essay ' On the Three Commerces' (iii. 3.) as containing his library and study. It is a plain round 
structure, at the south-eastern corner of the chateau ; a dead-wall runs from it on either side, at right 
angles, and rises to about half its height. This is in reality the exterior of ranges of out-buildings, 
which form two sides of the court-yard. In this wall, close to the tower, and facing us as we approached, 
was a small gate, through which we found entrance. The chateau itself was now on our left, running 
along the western side of the quadrangle. It is a high building of grey stone, evidently very ancient, 
and probably untouched, except for repairs, since the days of Montaigne's father. There are a con- 
siderable number of windows scattered very irregularly over the front. Near the middle, at either side 
of the small unornamented entrance, are two large and high towers, of unlike architecture ; the one with 
deep machicolations, the other without them, and both with conical roofs. If erected, as I presume, by 
Montaigne's father, the building must be about three hundred years old: the whole place has now an 
air of sluttish neglect, though not at all of decay. It is now inhabited by an old gentleman, formerly a 
military man, whose civility we should ill repay by recording any idle accounts of his simple establish- 
ment and very agreeable conversation. The house is only one room deep, and behind it runs a long 
and broad terrace, covered with grass, and with some trees growing upon it, among others, a large 
horse-chesnut. It is bordered by a stone ballustrade, which rises on the edge of a steep, wooded bank, 
and has beyond it a very extensive prospect over a fiat country, with slight eminences on the horizon, 
marked towards the north by the village and chateau of Mont Peyroux, which in Montaigne's day was 
a sort of dependence on his seigneurie, and belonged to his younger brother. Near it, and still higher 
against the sky, are the ruins of the chateau of Gurson, destroyed in the Revolution, and which seems 
to have been a castle in our English sense of the word, that is, a feudal abode constructed for defence. 
It was probably the residence of the lady to whom Montaigne addresses his " Essay on Education" 
(i. 25). The whole prospect is woody and cultivated, but without water or any remarkable outlines, 
open, airy, quiet, and sufficiently prosperous. The old gentleman told us that he was possessed of 
eleven metairics or farms, with the chateau, but that Montaigne had held eighteen. The property had 
come by marriage to the Segur family, who had taken the name of Segur de Montaigne. They sold 
the estate to the present owner, who, in turn, was ready to dispose of it, if he could find a purchaser. 

" After taking leave of our host, we returned to the corner tower, which we examined throughout, 
and were much interested by the minute agreement of its present state with every thing recorded in 
Montaigne's description. This, too, was evidently not a modern and factitious correspondence, but 
secured by the abstinence of the successive owners from any changes, however slight. The ground- 
floor retains the appearance of having been once a small chapel, though now dark and dilapidated. The 
first floor, which was the sleeping apartment of the Gascon philosopher, docs not look as if it had been 



LIFE OF MONTAIGNl 



applied since his day to any other purpose. The third and last story is that so particularly described 
by its occupant, as having contained his library, and study, and his words would answer in most respects 
as a description of the spot at this hour, though ha who wrote them has been dead two hundred and 
fifty years. The room still overlooks the entrance of the chateau, and from three windows, in different 
sides of the circuit, commands the garden, the court, the house, and the out-houses. The books, indeed, 
are gone ; but the many small rafters of the roof are inscribed in their lower faces with mottoes and 
pithy sentences, which recal, as by a living voice, the favourite studies and thoughts of Montaigne. 
Such are these few hastily transcribed in a note-book : — ' 1. Solum cerium nihil esse certi, et homine 
nihil miserius aui superbius. 2. AXhioustv aXkov Qiuv -it #ai'0p<arfui' pikd. 3. Tapowwji tfouj av0purtoi>{ 
6v ta ypa^owa, aMa -tartiet %u»Bpwtov Soyfiata. 4. Quid super/As, terra et cinis ? — Bccl. x. 5. 
Vm qui sapientes estis in oculis vestris. — Eccl. v. 6. Favere fiueunde prxsentibus. Csetera extra 
te. 7. Tinvti, %oyco hoyo; 1.305 (Wttfsw'a*. 8. Nostra vagalur in lenebris, nee cseca potest mens cernere 
verum. 9. Fecit Deus hominem similem umbrae post solis occasum. — Eccl. vii.' 

" The chapel still shows the recess where stood the altar, and there are the remains of colours and 
gilding on the defaced coats-of-arms around the walls. The bed-room floor presents nothing remark- 
able; but that above, in which are the inscriptions on its rafters, preserves the exact form described by 
its ancient occupant. The paces of Montaigne must have been of about a foot and a half, for the 
diameter of the tower inside is about twenty-four feet. The circle is at one part cut by two straight 
walls, joining in an angle, being the portion which he speaks of as adapted for his seat and table. The 
three windows, affording a rich and free prospect, are still unchanged. There is a sort of closet 
opening off the room, with the traces of painted ornaments on the walls, a fire-place, as he mentions, at 
one end, and a window, which entitles it to be spoken of as tres plaisammant pierce — having a pleasant 
window-light — and which, though directly overlooking the court-yard, furnishes a view, above the 
northern line of offices, towards Mont Peyroux and Gurson. 

" The whole appearance and position of this apartment seem especially characteristic of Montaigne. 
The cheerfulness, the airiness, the quiet, the constant though somewhat remote view of natural objects, 
and of the far-spread and busy occupations of men — all are suitable to him. The ornamenting the 
joists of his chamber-roof with several scores of moral sentences was the work of a speculative" idler, and 
their purport is always, so far as I saw, suitable to his sceptical but humane and indulgent temper. 
The neglect of all elegance and modern convenience in the house, together with its perfect preservation 
from decay, add to the interest, and seem to prove that it is maintained in its old completeness and bare- 
ness, not from any notion of use, but out of respect for the memory of its celebrated owner." 

Montaigne had five brothers : Captain St. Martin, who was killed at the age of twenty-three, by the 
blow of a tennis-ball ; the Sieur d'Arsac, possessor of an estate in Medoc, that was buried under the 
sea-sands ; the Sieur de la Brousse, not mentioned by Bouhier in his Life of Montaigne, but referred to 
in the Essays, ii. 5 ; the Sieur de Mattecoulon, who accompanied him on his journey through Italy ; 
and the Sieur de Beauregard, who became a convert to Protestantism. Montaigne had one sister, 
named Eleonora, who married the Sieur de Cumain, counsellor to the Parliament of Bordeaux, and of 
whom mention is made in the will of Charron, in which the grateful disciple leaves the bulk of his 
property to the family of his master. 

We have thus brought together the principal facts connected with the life of our philosopher. It 
would have been easy to fabricate a very long biography, by reprinting in a consecutive form the 
information which the Essays themselves afford, for these are nearly taken up by narrations of what 
happened to himself, or dissertations on his own nature, so that there is scarcely any man into whose 
character we have more insight than that of Montaigne. The reader, however, will find in the Index a 
complete reference to all those passages in which our author thus speaks, of himself; and the critical 
opinions and eloges that precede the body of the work, will afford those who as yet have not read Mon- 
taigne, but have bowed their heads at his name, on the authority of prescription — an authority that 
empowers so many thousands to look unutterable things, as they repeat of men of whose works they 
know nothing — abundant justification for the faith that is in them, and will lead them on, with a pre- 
pared and understanding mind, to the Essays themselves. 



END OF THE LIFE OF MONTAIG1 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 



MONTAIGNE AND HIS WORKS. 



GEORGE, MARQUIS OF HALIFAX. 

The Essays of Michael de Montaigne are justly 
ranked amongst miscellaneous books : for they 
are on various subjects, without order and con- 
nection ; and the very body of the discourses has 
still a greater variety. This sort of confusion 
does not, however, hinder people of all qualities 
to extol these Essays above all the books that 
ever they read, and they make them their chief 
study. They think that other miscellanies of an- 
cient and modern books are nothing but an un- 
necessary heap of quotations, whereas we find 
in this authorities to the purpose, intermixed with 
the author's own thoughts; which, being bold 
and extraordinary, are very effectual to cure men 
of their weaknesses and vanity, and induce them 
to seek virtue and felicity by lawful means. 
• • * * There is hardly any human book 
extant so fit as this to teach men what they are, 
arid lead them insensibly to a reasonable obser- 
vation of the most secret springs of their actions ; 
and therefore it ought to be the manuale of all 
gentlemen, his uncommon way of teaching win- 
ning people to the practice of virtue, as much as 
other books fright them away from it, by the dog- 
matical and imperious way which they assume. 



DUGALD STEWART. 

At the head of the French writers who contri- 
buted, in the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, to turn the thoughts of their countrymen to 
subjects connected with the Philosophy of Mind, 
Montaigne may, I apprehend, be justly placed. 
Properly speaking, he belongs to a period some- 
what earlier ; but his tone of thinking and of 
writing classes him much more naturally with 
his successors, than with any French author who 
had appeared before him. 

In assigning to Montaigne so distinguished a 
rank in the history of modern philosophy, I need 
scarcely say that I leave entirely out of the ac- 
count what constitutes (and justly constitutes) to 
the generality of readers the principal charm of 
his Essays, the good-nature, humanity, and unaf- 
fected sensibility, which so irresistibly attach us 
to his character, — lending, it must be owned, but 
too often a fascination to his talk, when he can- 
not be recommended as the safest companion. 
Nor do I lay much stress upon the inviting frank- 
ness and vivacity with which he unbosoms him- 
self about all his domestic habits and concerns; 
and which render his book so expressive a por- 



trait, not only of the author, but of the_ Gascon 
country gentleman, two hundred years ago. I 
have in view chiefly the minuteness and good 
faith of his details concerning his own personal 
qualities, both intellectual and moral. The only 
study which seems ever to have engaged his at- 
tention was that of man; and for this he was 
singularly fitted, by a rare combination of that 
talent for observation which belongs to men of the 
world, with those habits of abstracted reflection 
which men of the world have commonly so little 
disposition to cultivate. " I study myself," says 
he, "more than any other subject. This is my 
metaphysic; this my natural philosophy." He has 
accordingly produced a work unique in its kind ; 
valuable, in an eminent degree, as an authentic 
record of many interesting facts relative to human 
nature, but more valuable by far, as holding up a 
mirror in which every individual, if he does not 
see his own image, will at least occasionally per- 
ceive so many traits of resemblance to it as can 
scarcely fail to invite his curiosity to a"Tnore 
careful review of himself. 



EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

Montaigjte seems to have a distinct character 
as a philosopher. As Machiavel was the first 
who discussed grave questions in a vulgar tongue, 
and created a philosophy of history ; so Mon- 
taigne was the first conspicuous writer who, in 
a modern language, philosophized on the com- 
mon concerns of men, and the ordinary subjects 
of private reflection and conversation. The de- 
gree which Nature claims in the diversity of 
talent, the efficacy of education, the value of the 
learned languages, the usages of society, the pas- 
sions that actuate private life, the singular cus- 
toms of different nations, are the subjects chiefly 
handled in his Essays. In the period from Soc- 
rates to Plutarch, such questions had been well 
treated before. But Montaigne was evidently 
the founder of popular philosophy in modern 
times. 



HAZLITT. 



The Essayists are, if not moral philosophers, 
moral historians, and that 's better ; or if they are 
both, they found the one character upon the 
other; their premises precede their conclusions, 
and we put faith in their testimony, for we know 
that it is true. 



24 



CRITICAL OPINIONS UPON MONTAIGNE. 



Montaigne was the first person who led the 
way to this kind of writing in the moderns. His 
great merit was that he may be said to have 
been the first who had the courage to say as an 
author what he felt as a man ; and, as courage is 
generally the effect of conscious strength, he was, 
probably, led to do so by the richness, truth, and 
force of his own observations on books and men. 
He was, in the truest sense, a man of original 
mind; that is, he had the power of looking at 
things for himself, or as they really were, instead 
of blindly trusting to, and fondly repeating, what 
others told him that they were. In taking up 
his pen, he did not set up for a philosopher, wit, 
orator, or moralist; but he became all these by 
merely daring to tell us whatever passed through 
his mind, in its naked simplicity and force, that 
he thought any way worth communicating. He 
enquires what human life is, and has been, to 
show what it ought to be ; and, in treating of 
men and manners, he spoke of them as he found 
them, not according to preconceived notions and 
abstract dogmas ; and began by teaching us what 
he himself was. In criticising books he did not 
compare them with rules and systems, but told 
us what he saw to like or dislike in them. He 
was, in a word, the first author who was not a 
book-maker, and who wrote, not to make converts 
of others to established creeds and prejudices, 
but to satisfy his own mind of the truth of things. 
In this respect we know not which to be most 
charmed with, the author or .the man. 

There is an inexpressible frankness and sin- 
cerity, as well as power, in what he writes. 
There is no attempt at imposition or concealment, 
no juggling tricks or solemn mouthing, no laboured 
attempts at proving himself always in the right, 
and everybody else in the wrong; he says what 
is uppermost, lays open what floats at the top, or 
lies at the bottom of his mind, and deserves 
Pope's character of him, where he professes to 

" Pour out all as plain 

As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." 

He does not converse with us like a pedagogue 
with his pupil, whom he wishes to make as great 
a blockhead as himself, but like a philosopher 
and friend, who has passed through life with 
thought and observation, and is willing to enable 
others to pass through it with pleasure and profit. 
A writer of this stamp, I confess, appears to me 
as much superior to a common bookworm as a 
library of real books is superior to a mere book- 
case, painted and lettered on the outside with 
the names of celebrated works. As he was the 
first to attempt this new way of writing, so the 
same strong natural impulse, which prompted 
the undertaking, carried him to the end of his 
career. The same force and honesty of mind 
which urged him to throw off the shackles of 
custom and prejudice, would enable him to com- 
plete his triumph over them. He has left little 
for his successors to achieve in the way of just 
and original speculation on human life. Nearly 
all the thinking of the last two centuries, of that 
kind which the French denominate morale obser- 



vatrice, is to be found in Montaigne's Essays ; 
there is the germ, at least, and generally much 
more. He sowed the seed, and cleared away the 
rubbish, even where others have reaped the fruit, 
or cultivated and decorated the soil to a greater 
degree of nicety and perfection. There is no one 
to whom the old Latin adage is more applicable 
than to Montaigne, — "Pereant isti qui ante nostra 
dixerunt." There has been no new impulse given 
to thought since his time. Among the specimens 
of criticisms on authors he has given us, are those 
on Virgil, Ovid, and Boccacio, in the account of 
books which he thinks worth reading, or which 
he finds he can read in his old age, and which 
maybe reckoned among the few criticisms which 
are worth reading at any age 



RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 

Of those books to which we have recourse for 
pleasure or recreation, we have a particular fancy 
for a gossipping book — a collection of choice 
morgeaux and short dissertations, in which an 
author gives us the cream of a diversity of sub- 
jects, without calling upon us for any rigid atten- 
tion, or nice examination of his arguments. A 
kind of reading which resembles the very best 
conversation, but which is, at the same time, more 
artificially dressed up, and more elegantly turned. 
When, for instance, we have been wading through 
a ponderous or tedious volume, for the purposes 
of analysis or for the sake of a few good extracts, 
we return, with a keen relish, to a, literary gossip 
with an author of this kind, whom we can take 
up with the certainty of being instructed and 
amused — the smooth current of whose thoughts 
we can follow without effort or constraint, and 
to whose guidance we abandon ourselves with a 
desultory, but luxurious, indifference : and whom, 
when we have read so much as to our humour 
or idleness seemeth good, we can lay down with- 
out a sense of weariness, or a feeling of dissatis- 
faction. And then, if his disquisitions be short, 
and have no sequel or dependence upon each 
other, we can select from the bundle such as, in 
length or quality, may suit our time or fancy. 
Truly this may be an idle, but it is a pleasant 
mode of reading, — and that is sufficient to recom- 
mend it. Indeed, we do not see why it should 
not be carried even further than for the mere 
purposes of relaxation and amusement. It is, 
without doubt, much better to pursue an agree- 
able road to the temple of knowledge, than to 
pick out the most rugged and uninviting path. 
The better course, it is true, calls upon us for a 
greater sacrifice of ease and comfort — it requires 
more resolution and pains-taking, and we our- 
selves should have no objection to it, where it is 
inaccessible by any other means. But to select 
this briery path in preference to one more easy 
and agreeable, voluntarily to lacerate ourselves 
with the thorns which stick in the way, is, we 
cannot help thinking, a labour of supererogation 
— an infliction of penance for its own sake : the 



CRITICAL OPINIONS UPON MONTAIGNE. 



% 



effect of which can only be to discourage and 
disgust. And one would think there are plea- 
sures few enough sprinkled in this pilgrimage of 
threescore and ten, to induce us, not inquisitively, 
" to make that little less." Nor can such a mode 
of study be called vain and unproductive, for the 
richest fruit grows on the sunny aspect of the 
hill, where nature has been busiest in scattering 
her May flowers and ornaments of a gay season. 
The countenance of wisdom is not naturally harsh 
and crabbed, and repulsive ; if it be wrinkled, it 
is not with care and ill temper, but with the 
lines of deep thought. Her ways are ways of 
pleasantness, and her smile is as genial and re- 
freshing as that of young beauty, and equally in- 
vites us to be joyous and glad. She teaches us 

"To live 

The easiest way; nor, with perplexing thoughts, 

To interrupt the sweets of life, from which 

God hath bid dwell far off all anxious cares, 

And not molest us; unless we ourselves 

Seek them with wandering thoughts and notions vain." 

We feel no sympathy with those authors who 
would do everything by the square and compass, 
who would rudely snap the springs of feeling, 
and torture us into wisdom and virtue. It is the 
author who gives utterance to the promptings of 
the heart, who mingles human feelings with all 
his knowledge, that lays fast hold of our affec- 
tion, and whom, above all,»ve love and venerate. 
And such a one is the lively old Gascon. 

Montaigne is, indeed, the author for a snug 
fire-side and an easy armed chair, and more 
particularly whilst (as at this moment) the rain 
is pattering against the window at intervals, as 
the gusts of wind come and go, and, with the 
sea's hoarse murmuring in the distance, makes 
harsh music, which shows that nature is some- 
what out of tune. At such a time, Montaigne's 
self-enjoyment becomes doubly our own. His 
everlasting gaiety and good humour is more 
grateful from the contrast. * * * 

The chief subject of Montaigne's reflections 
and writings is the philosophy of life. How to 
live well and die well with him 

" Is the prime wisdom ; what is more is fume, 
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence." 

To achieve this, he studied deeply and accu- 
rately ; he dissected and anatomized his feelings, 
his fears, and his hopes, nay, the slightest mo- 
tions of his soul, with the coolness and uncon- 
cern of an operating surgeon. He lets us into 
the innermost thoughts of his heart — he spreads 
out before us, as in a picture, every shade and 
gradation of feeling. Not a phantasma flitted 
across his mind that he did not put down, and, 
having contemplated its strangeness or absurdity, 
he placed it to the credit or debit side of his ac- 
count. " He nothing extenuates, nor sets down 
aught in malice." He is the most warm and 
candid of friends — the most open of enemies, if, 
indeed, he ever admitted into his heart any feel- 
ing which amounted to personal hostility. The 
consequence is, that nobody can read his works 
without becoming his intimate and approved 
good friend — his most familiar acquaintance. 



We know almost the very minute he was born ; 
and, if he could have so far anticipated time, he 
would, with equal precision, have informed us 
of the hour of his death. Nor do we think that 
anything would have given him so much plea- 
sure as afterwards to have been able to come 
back to earth again, and add another volume to 
his Essays, that the world might still know the 
state of his mind. 

* * * Nothing but the Essays themselves 
of our old confabulator can convey an adequate 
idea of their unrestrained vivacity, energy, and 
fancy, of their boldness and attractive simplicity. 
He says rightly that it is the only book in the 
world of its kind. All the world, however, may 
know his book in him, and him in his book; the 
character of each is the same. It requires more 
courage to tittle-tattle of a man's foibles, vanities, 
and little imperfections, than to expose heinous 
defects or wicked inclinations ; as the man who 
shrinks from small inconveniences, will yet rush 
into "the pelting, pitiless storm," with a feeling 
of exultation. The former is a confession of 
weakness, in the latter there is an audacity and 
semblance of manliness. For the one he might 
be mocked and ridiculed ; for the other he would 
be feared and scorned, which is the more toler- 
able of the two. In the latter, there is a con- 
scious power and daring, which is some sort of 
compensation for the risk ; for the former, he 
runs a chance of gaining nothing but contempt. 
The little vanities and oddities disclosed by 
Montaigne are, however, accompanied by too 
many amiable qualities to excite anything of this 
feeling. The President Bouhier says of him : 
" It is true that he sometimes avows his defects ; 
but, if we pay attention to them, we shall find 
they are only those which philosophers, or people 
of fashion, are not ashamed to assume, or imper- 
fections which turn upon indifferent things ;" and 
Mallebranche says nearly the same thing of him. 
Montaigne had a natural and invincible repug- 
nance to falsehood ; and, as he assures us that 
he has painted himself as he was, whole and 
entire, it is fair to consider that he had no great 
vices to confess. * * * 

* * His talking discourses are inexpressibly 
taking and agreeable. With a singular power 
of self-investigation, and an acute observation 
of the actions of men, which he discriminated 
with "a learned spirit of human dealing," he 
combined great affluence of thought and excur- 
siveness of fancy. He was, at once, bold and 
trifling — philosophical and inconclusive — bold in 
imagination and free in enquiry — of an open and 
prepossessing demeanour, he was amiable and 
eminently attractive. His style is bold, energetic, 
sententious, and abrupt; and, although provin- 
cial and unrefined, it is original, vivacious, sim- 
ple, and debonair. 



WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
Op the books that show us what we are, there 
have been in many ages better than the " Essays" 
of Montaigne ; but it may be affirmed, without 



CRITICAL OPINIONS UPON MONTAIGNE. 



meaning to offend any one, that, even in our age, 
there are several worse. His book is not the 
widest nor the deepest ; but it is a perfectly 
genuine record of a far livelier, and richer, and 
more honest mind than common. There are 
oracles of loftier and more fiery spirits, belong- 
ing less than this to our time and tendencies ; 
and though immortal as death itself, which will 
outlive all but life, yet not more deserving of 
immortality than these doubts, fancies, endless 
egotisms, of a dead old Gascon gentleman. 
# * » * * 

Great again is the power of a Dante, of a Shak- 
speare, even of a Machiavelli, a De Thou, in 
showing us some shadows and surfaces of many 
men, some leaves of the great tree of man's life. 
But after all they can give us only lines and 
gleams ; lines as of a withered leaf wasted to a 
skeleton lace-leaf; gleams vague as those of for- 
ests seen through mist. To know what really is 
or has been, there is required an insight into the 
thing, such as these writers possessed, but can- 
not give. For it cannot be given, any more than 
a living eye of retina and nerve can be given to 
a head, in the first construction of which it has 
been omitted. The insight must be found or 
won within. Beaming, seeing from the heart, 
into the heart it looks. Now this it is which in 
Montaigne we find, and the reality and meaning 
of which he has exemplified better than almost 
any one. His book, he tells us, is one about 
himself, and only about himself. All else, anec- 
dote, speculation, narrative, is there only for this 
purpose. We have him before us in all his 
relations to others, in all his occupations, all his 
moods, and all his outward actions. 

***** 

He was unquestionably a large-minded, clear, 
and healthy man. For almost every kind of 
human existence he had sympathy and love, and 
understood much of its scheme and tendencies, 
keeping himself unshaken and distinct in the 
midst of it. That was a rare intelligence and 
kindliness of heart which in his age could make 
a man anticipate so much of the practical wis- 
dom of latter times — reprobating torture, and all 
cruel modes of capital punishment; lamenting 
loudly the treatment of savage nations by Euro- 
peans ; seeing through all the pretexts for courtly 
profusion, and condemning it, although himself 
a courtier and holding a place, as mere reckless 
cruelty to the people. He also utterly disbelieved 
the whole train of magical wonders, ghosts, ma- 
terial visions, witchcraft, and such other blun- 
dering modes of representing the supernatural 
by distorting and interrupting nature. This view 
of him, founded on the unquestionable evidence 
of his own writings, which on these points are 
most uniformly consistent, seems to fall in with 
all the other evidence which his whole works 
and life, and his own open-hearted statements, 
furnish of his remarkable and unvarying honesty. 



HALLAM. 

The Essays of Montaigne make in several re- 
spects an epoch in literature, less on account of 
their real importance, or the novel truths they 
contain, than of their influence upon the taste 
and the opinions of Europe. They are the first 
provocalio ad populum, the first appeal from the 
porch and the academy to the haunts of busy 
and of idle men, the first book that taught the 
unlearned reader to observe and reflect for him- 
self on questions of moral philosophy. In an 
age when every topic of this nature was treated 
systematically and in a didactic form, he broke 
out, without connection of chapters, with all the 
digression that levity and garrulous egotism could 
suggest, with a very delightful, but, at that time, 
most unusual, rapidity of transition from serious- 
ness to gaiety. The school of Montaigne em- 
braces a large proportion of French and English 
literature, and especially of that which has bor- 
rowed his title of Essays. No prose writer of 
the sixteenth century has been so generally read, 
nor, probably, given so much delight. Whatever 
may be our estimate of Montaigne as a philoso- 
pher — a name which he was far from arrogating 
— there will be but one opinion of the felicity 
and brightness of his genius. 

***** 

Montaigne is superior to any of the ancients 
in liveliness, in that careless and rapid style, 
where one thought springs naturally, but not 
consecutively, from another, by analogical rather 
than deductive connection; so that, while the 
reader seems to be following a train of argu- 
ments, he is imperceptibly hurried to a distance 
by some contingent association. This may be 
observed in half his Essays, the titles of which 
often give us little insight into their general scope. 
Thus the Apology for Raimond de Sebond is 
soon forgotten in the long defence of moral Pyr- 
rhonism, which occupies the 12th chapter of the 
second book. He sometimes makes a show of 
coming back from his excursions ; but he has 
generally exhausted himself before he does so. 
This is what men love to practise (not advan- 
tageously for their severer studies) in their own 
thoughts ; they love to follow the casual associa- 
tions that lead them through pleasant labyrinths 
— as one riding along the high road is glad to 
deviate a little into the woods, though it may 
sometimes .happen that he will lose his way, and 
find himself far remote from his inn. And such 
is the conversational style of lively and eloquent 
old men. We converse with Montaigne, or rather 
hear him talk ; it is almost impossible to read 
his Essays without thinking that he speaks to 
us ; we see his cheerful brow, his sparkling eye, 
his negligent, but gentlemanly demeanour ; we 
picture him in his arm-chair, with his few books 
round the room, and Plutarch on the table. 



ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, 



(XXV) 



ESSAYS 

OF 

MICHAEL, SEIGNEUR DE MONTAIGNE. 



THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. 



This, reader, is a book without guile. It tells thee, 
at the very outset, that I had no other end in put- 
ting it together but what was domestic and private. 
I had no regard therein either to thy service or my 
glory ; my powers are equal to no such design. It 
was intended for the particular use of my relations 
and friends, in order that, when they have lost me, 
which they must soon do, they may here find some 
traces of my quality and humour, and may thereby 
nourish a more entire and lively recollection of me. 
Had I proposed to court the favour of the world, 
I had set myself out in borrowed beauties ; but 
'twas my wish to be seen in my simple, natural, and 



ordinary garb, without study or artifice, for 'twas 
myself I had to paint. My defects will appear to 
the life, in all their native form, as far as consists 
with respect to the public. Had I been born among 
those nations who, 'tis said, still live in the pleasant 
liberty of the law of nature, I assure thee I should 
readily have depicted myself at full length and 
quite naked. Thus, reader, thou perceivest I am 
myself the subject of my book ; 'tis not worth 
thy while to take up thy time longer with such 
a frivolous matter ; so fare thee well. 

From Montaigne ; this 12th of June, 1580. 



THE FIRST BOOK. 



Different 
modes of moin 
tying the hearl 

of the offended 



CHAPTER I. 

THAT MEN BY VARIOUS WAYS ARRIVE AT 
THE SAME END. 

Ihe most usual way of appeasing the indigna- 
tion of such as we have any way offended, 
when we see them in possession of the power 
of revenge, and find that we absolutely lie at 
their mercy, is, by submission, 
(than which, nothing more flat- 
ters the glory of an adversary,) 
to move them to commisera- 
tion and pity: and yet bravery, 
firmness, and resolution, however quite con- 
trary means, have sometimes served to produce 
the same effect. Edward, Prince of Wales, 1 the 
same who so long governed our province of 
Guienne, a person whose condition and fortunes 
have in them a great deal of the most notable 
parts of grandeur, having, through some mis- 
demeanours of theirs, been highly incensed by 
the Limosins, in the heat of that resentment, 
taking their city by assault, was not, cither by 
the outcries of the people, or the prayers and 
tears of the women and children, abandoned to 
slaughter, and prostrate at his feet for mercy, 



to be stayed from prosecuting his revenge ; till, 
penetrating farther into the body of the town, 
he took notice of three French gentlemen, who, 
with incredible bravery, alone sustained the 
whole power of his victorious army. 2 Then it 
was that consideration and respect for such 
remarkable valour first stopped the torrent of 
his fury; and his clemency, beginning in 
the preservation *of these three cavaliers, was 
afterwards extended to all the remaining 
inhabitants of the city. 

Scanderberg, Prince of Epirus, in great 
wrath, pursuing one of his soldiers with a 
resolute purpose to kill him, and the soldier 
having in vain tried, by all the ways of 
humility and supplication, to appease him, 
seeing him, notwithstanding, obstinately bent 
to his ruin, resolved, as his last resource, to 
face about and await him, sword in hand; 
which behaviour of his gave a sudden check 
to his captain's fury, who, seeing him assumo 
so noble a resolution, received him to favour. 
An example, however, that might suffer another 
interpretation with such as have not read of 
the prodigious strength and valour of that 
Prince. 



Tin- ISI.-iek Prince, son of Kihvnrd the Third. names of the throe gentlemen were John de VihVmur, Hugh 

■ Froissart, vol. i., book iv., nut ii., cl.. CCCZZ. The de la Roche, and Roger de Beaufort. 

(SJ) 



28 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The Emperor Conrad III. having besieged 
Guelph, Duke of Bavaria, 1 would not be pre- 
vailed upon, what mean and unmanly satisfac- 
tions soever were tendered to him, to condescend 
to milder conditions than that the gentlewomen 
only, who were in the town, might go out 
without violation of their honour, on foot, 
and with so much only as they could carry 
about them. Which was no sooner known 

but that, with magnanimity of 
Conjugal love, heart, they presently resolved to 

carry out, upon their shoulders, 
their husbands and children, and the Duke 
himself: a eight at which the Emperor was 
so pleased that, ravished with the generosity 
of the action, he wept for joy, and imme- 
diately extinguishing in his heart the mortal 
and implacable hatred he had conceived against 
this Duke, he' from that time forward treated 
him and his with all humanity and affection. 

The one, or the other, of these two ways 
would, with great facility, work upon my 
nature ; for I have a marvellous propensity to 
mercy and mildness; nay, to such a degree, 
that I fancy, of the two, I should sooner sur- 
render my anger to compassion than to esteem : 

and yet pity is reputed a vice 
Pity reputed a amongst the Stoics, who will that 
the e stoics gSt we succour the afflicted, but not 

that we should be so affected with 
their sufferings as to suffer or sympathize with 
them. Now, I conceived these examples suited 
to the question in hand, and the rather because 
therein we observe these great souls assaulted 
and tried by these two several ways to resist 
the one without relenting, and to be shaken 
and subjected by the other. It is true that to 
suffer a man's heart to be totally subdued by 
compassion may be imputed to facility, effemi- 
nacy, and over-tenderness ; whence it comes to 
pass that the weakest natures, as those of 
women, children, and the common sort of 
people, are the most subject to it: but after 
having resisted, and disdained the power of 
sighs and tears, to surrender a man's animosity 
to the sole reverence of the sacred image of 
virtue — this can be no other than the effect of 
a strong and inflexible soul, enamoured of, and 
doing honour to, a masculine and obstinate 
valour. Nevertheless, astonishment and admi- 
ration may, in less generous minds, beget a 
like effect. Witness the people of Thebes, who, 
having put two of their generals upon trial for 
their lives, for having continued in arms beyond 
the prescribed term of their commission, would 
hardly pardon Pelopidas, who, bowing under 
the weight of so dangerous an accusation, made 
no manner of defence for himself, nor produced 
other arguments than prayers and supplications 
to secure his head ; whereas, on the contrary, 



' Anno 1140. in Weinsberg, a town of Upper Bavaria. 
2 Plutarch : How far a man may praise himself, c. 5. 
s Diodorus Siculus, xiv. 29. 
* Plutarch call him Sthenon in his Instructions for those 



Epaminondas being brought to the bar, and 
falling to magnify the exploits he had performed 
in their service, and, after a haughty and arro- 
gant manner, reproaching them with ingrati- 
tude and injustice, they had not the heart to 
proceed any further in his trial, but broke up 
the court, and departed, the whole assembly 
highly commending the courage and confidence 
of this great man. 2 

Dionysius the Elder, after having, by a tedi- 
ous siege, and through exceeding 
great difficulties, taken the city of The cruelty of 
Rhegium, and in it the governor bK 8WS "* 
Phyton, a great and good man, 
who had made so obstinate a defence, he was 
resolved to make him a tragical example of his 
revenge; in order whereunto, and the more 
sensibly to afflict him, he first told him that he 
had the day before caused his son and all his 
kindred to be drowned: to which Phyton 
returned no other answer but this, that they 
were then, by one day, happier than he. After 
which, causing him to be stripped, and deliver- 
ing him into the hands of the tormentors, he 
was, by them, dragged through the streets of 
the town, and most ignominiously and cruelly 
whipped, and, moreover, vilified with bitter 
and contumelious language. Yet still, in the 
fury of all this persecution, he maintained his 
courage entire all the way, with a strong voice 
and undaunted countenance, proclaiming the 
honourable and glorious cause of his death; 
namely, for that he would not deliver up his 
country into the hands of a merciless tyrant; 
at the same time denouncing against him a 
speedy chastisement from the offended gods. 
At which the tyrant, rolling his eyes about, 
and reading in his soldiers' looks that, instead 
of being incensed at the haughty language of 
this conquered enemy, to the contempt of him, 
their captain, and his triumph, they not only 
seemed struck with admiration of so rare a 
virtue, but, moreover, inclined to mutiny, and 
were even ready to rescue the prisoner out of 
the hangman's hands, he ordered the execution 
to cease, and, afterwards, privately caused him 
to be thrown into the sea. 3 

Man, in sooth, is a marvellous, vain, fickle, 
and unstable subject, and on 
whom it is very hard to form ^ a i ]J 1 ai. variabIe 
any certain or uniform judgment. 
For Pompey could pardon the whole city of 
the Mamertines, though furiously incensed 
against it, upon the single account of the 
virtue and magnanimity of one citizen, Zeno, 
who took the fault of the public wholly upon 
himself; neither intreated other favour but 
alone toundergo the punishment for all. 4 And 
yet Sylla's host having, in the city of Perusia, 
manifested the same virtue, obtained nothing 



who manage state affairs, c. 17; Sthennius, in the Apo- 
thegms ; and Sthenis, in the Life of Pompey ; where, how- 
ever, the anecdote is related of the city of the Himerians, 
not of that of the Mamertines. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



by it, either for himself or his fellow-citizens. 1 
And, directly contrary to my first examples, 
the bravest of all men, and who was reputed so 
gracious and kind to all those he overcame, 
Alexander the Great, having, after many great 
difficulties, forced the city of Gaza, and, on 
entering, found Betis, who commanded there, 
and of whose valour, in the time of this siege, 
he had most noble and manifest proofs, alone, 
forsaken by all his soldiers, his armour hacked 
and hewed to pieces, and his body covered all 
over with blood and wounds, and yet still 
fighting in the crowd of a great number of 
Macedonians, who were laying on him on all 
sides, he said to him (nettled at so dear-bought 
a victory, and at two fresh wounds he had 
newly received in his own person), "Thou 
shalt not die, Betis, so honourably as thou dost 
intend, but shalt assuredly suffer all the tor- 
ments that can be inflicted on a miserable 
captive." To which menaces the other return- 
ing no other answer but only a fierce and 
disdainful look; -"What," says the conqueror 
(observing his obstinate silence), 
Obstinate si- « J s h e too si [ff to b en J a l nlee 1 
lence ot Uet.s. Jg he ^ prQud ^ uUer one ^ 

pliant word! I will assuredly conquer this 
silence ; and, if I cannot force a word from 
his mouth, I will, at least, extract a groan 
from his heart." And, thereupon, converting 
his anger into fury, presently commanded his 
heels to be bored through, and caused him to 
be dragged, alive, mangled, and dismembered, 
at a cart's tail. 2 / Was it that the height of 
courage was so natural and familiar to this 
conqueror that, no longer holding it in admira- 
tion, he had come not even to respect it ! Or 
was it that he conceived valour to be a virtue 
so peculiar to himself that his pride could not, 
without envy, endure it in another! Or was it 
that the natural impetuosity of his fury brooked 
not opposition"! Certainly had it been capable 
of any manner of moderation, it is to be 
believed, that in the sack and desolation of 
Thebes, to see so many valiant men, lost and 
totally destitute of any farther defence, cruelly 
massacred before his eyes, would have appeased 
it. For there were above six thousand put to 
the sword, of whom not one was seen to fly, 
or heard to cry out for quarter ; but, on the 
contrary, every one running here and there to 
seek out and to provoke the victorious enemy 
to help them to an honourable end. There 
was not one who did not, to his last gasp, 
endeavour to revenge himself; and, with all 
the fury of a brave despair, to sweeten his 
own death in the death of an enemy. Yet 
did their valour create no pity, and the length 
of one day was not enough to satiate the con- 



' Plutarch, Instructions for those who manage state affairs, 
c. 17, tells tins story of 1'nunesto, a city ot'Laiium ; and not 
ol'IVrusia, which is in Tuscany. 

" Uuintus Curtius, iv. 6. a Diod. Sic. xvii. 4. 

' Oe la Tristesse, by which Montaigne would seem to 
ccnvcy u sullen habit of sorrow. 

- Tristezza. 

3* 



queror's revenge ; but the slaughter continued 
to the last drop of blood that was capable of 
being shed, and stopped not till it met with 
none but naked and impotent persons, old men, 
women, and children, of whom thirty thousand 
were carried away slaves. 3 



CHAPTER II. 

OF SORROW.'' 

No man living is more free from this passion 
than I, who neither like it in 
myself, nor admire it in others; a contemptible 
and yet, generally, the world is passion, 
pleased to honour it with a 
particular esteem; endeavouring to make us 
believe that wisdom, virtue, and conscience 
shroud themselves under this grave and af- 
fected appearance. Foolish and sordid guise! 
The Italians, however, more fitly apply the 
term 5 to indicate a clandestine nature, a dan- 
gerous and bad nature. And with good reason, 
it being a quality always hurtful, always idly 
and vain, and so cowardly, mean, and base 
that 'tis by the Stoics expressly and particularly 
forbidden their sages. 

But the story, nevertheless, says, that 
Psammenitus, King of Egypt, being defeated 
and taken prisoner, by Cambyses, King of 
Persia, seeing his own daughter pass by him 
habited as a menial, with a bucket to draw 
water, though his friends about him were so 
concerned as to break out into tears and lamen- 
tations at the miserable sight, yet he himself 
remained unmoved, without uttering a word, 
with his eyes fixed upon the ground. And 
seeing, moreover, his son, immediately after, 
led to execution, still maintained the same 
gravity and indifference of countenance ; till 
spying, at last, one of his domestics 6 dragged 
away amongst the captives, he could then hold 
no longer, but fell to tearing his hair and beat- 
ing his breast, with all the other extravagances 
of a wild and desperate sorrow. 7 A story that 
may very fitly be coupled with another of the 
same kind, of a late prince of our own nation, 
who, being at Trent, and having news there 
brought him of the death of his elder brother, 
a brother on whom depended the whole support 
and honour of his house; and, soon after, of 
that of a younger brother, the second hope of 
his family; and, having withstood these two 
assaults with an exemplary resolution, one of 
his servants happening, a few days after, to 
die, he suffered his constancy to be overcome 
by this last accident ; and, parting with his 



Herodotus iii. 14. The word domestic does not here 
mean a servant, but an intimate friend, a domestic friend, 
in which sense th" term was still used even in the reign of 
Louis XIV. Herodotus, indeed, mentions that the old man 
referred to had always had a place at the kins - s table. 

7 Valerius Maximns, viii.ii., cit. ti. ; Cicero Orator.c. 22; 
Pliny, xxxv. 10.; Uuiutilian, ii. 13. 



30 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



courage, so abandoned himself to sorrow and 
mourning, that some, thence, were forward to 
conclude that he was only touched to the 
quick by this last stroke of fortune ; but, in 
truth, it was that, being before brim-full of 
grief, the least addition overflowed the bounds 
of all patience. Which might also be said of 
the former example, did not the story proceed 
to tell us that Cambyses asking Psammenitus 
why, not being moved at the calamity of his 
son and daughter, he should with so great 
impatience bear the misfortune of his friend ] 

"It is," answered he, "because 
Extreme sor- this last affliction was only to 
row is unutter- be manifested by tears, the two 
abIe " first exceeding all manner of 

expression." 
And, peradventure, something like this might 
be working in the fancy of the painter of 
old, who, having, in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, 
to represent the sorrow of the bystanders, pro- 
portionably to the several degrees of interest 
each had in the death of this fair innocent 
virgin; and having, in the other figures, ex- 
hausted the utmost power of his art^ when he 
came to that of her father, he drew him witli 
a veil over his face, meaning thereby that no 
kind of countenance was capable of expressing 
such a degree of sorrow. Which is also the 
reason why the poets feign the miserable 
mother, Niobe, having first lost seven sons, and 
then successively as many daughters, over- 
whelmed with misery, to be at last transformed 
into a rock, 



Dirigu 



: malis,' 



" Hardened with woes— a statue of despair." 

thereby to express that melancholy, dumb, and 
deaf stupidity, which benumbs all our facul- 
ties when oppressed with misfortunes greater 
than we are able to bear; and, indeed, the 
violence and impression of an excessive grief 
must, of necessity, astonish the soul, and wholly 
deprive her of her ordinary functions: as it 
happens to every one of us who, upon any sud- 
den alarm of very ill news, find ourselves sur- 
prised, stupified, and in a manner deprived of 
all power of motion, till the soul, beginning to 
vent itself in sighs and tears, seems a little to 
free and disengage itself from the oppression, 
and to obtain some room to work itself out at 
greater liberty. 

Et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est.' 

" Till sorrow breaks 
A passage, and at once he Weeps and speaks." 

In the war that King Ferdinand made upon 
the widow of King John of Hun- 
pHvelfsof tt g«7. in a battle n ^ar Buda, a man 
use of speech, at arms was particularly taken 
and sometimes notice of by every one, for his sin- 
causes death. gukrly gal]ant behaviour in an 

encounter; and, though unknown, was highly 

i Ovid Met. vi. 304. The text lia? diriguilque malis. 
a Virgil, ^Eneid, ii. 154. * Petrarch, Son. 137. 



commended and lamented when left dead upon 
the spot ; but by none so much as by Raisciac, 
a German lord, who was infinitely enamoured 
of so rare a valour. The body .being brought 
off, the Count, with the common curiosity, came 
to view it; and the armour was no sooner 
taken off, but he immediately knew him to be 
his own son. A thing that added a second 
blow to the compassion of all the beholders; 
he only, without uttering a word or turning 
away his eyes, stood fixedly contemplating the 
body of his son, till the vehemence of sorrow, 
having overcome his vital spirits, made him 
sink down, stone dead, to the ground. 

Chi puo dir com' egli arde, e in picciol fuoco'.s 
" He loves but lightly who his love can tell," 

say the inmoratosa when they would represent 
an insupportable passion. 

Misero quod omnes 
Eripit sensus milii : nam, simul te, 
Lesbia, adspexi, nihil est super mi 

Quod Ioquar aniens : 
Lingua sed torpet ; tenuis sub artus 
Flamma dimanat ; sonitu suopte 
Tinniunt aures; gemina teguntur 
Lumina nocte. 4 
"Thou, Lesbia, robb'st my soul of rest, 
And raisMsi timse tumults in my breast; 
For while I gazed, in transports tost, 
My breath was gone, my voice was lost. 
My bosom glowed, the subtle flame 
Ran quick through all my vital frame; 
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung, 
My ears with hollow murmurs rung." 

So that it is not in the height and greatest fury 
of the fit that we are in a condition to pour out 
our complaints and our persuasions, the soul 
being, at that time, overburthened, and labour- 
ing with profound thoughts, and the body 
dejected and languishing with desire. And 
thence it is that proceed those accidental impo- 
tences that sometimes so unseasonably surprise 
the willing lover, and that frigidity which, by 
the force of an immoderate ardour, seizes him 
even in the very lap of fruition. All passions 
that suffer themselves to be relished and digest- 
ed are but moderate. 

Curs leves lo quuntur, ingentes stupent.s 
"Light griefs are plaintive, but the great are dumb." 

The surprise of unexpected joys often pro- 
duces the same effect. 

Ut me conspexit venientem, et Troia circum 
Arma aniens vidit, magnis exterrita monstris, 
Diriguit visu in medio ; r.alor ossa reliquit ; 
Labitur, et longo vix tandem tempore fatur. 6 
" But when, at nearer distance, she beheld 
My Trojan armour and my Tro.jan shield, 
Astonished at (lie sinlit, the vital heat 
Forsakes her limb?, her veins no longer beat : 
She faints, she falls, and, scarce recovering strength 
Thus, with a faltering tongue, she speaks at length." 

Besides the examples of the Roman lady 
who died for joy to see her son safe other effects 
returned from the defeat of Cannes ; 7 of grief, 
of Sophocles, and Dionysius the tyrant, who 
died of joy ; s and of Talva, who died in Cor- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



31 



sica, on reading the news of the honours the 
Roman senate had decreed him, 1 we have, 
moreover, one in our own time, of Pope Leo the 
Tenth, who, upon news of the taking of Milan, 
a thing he had so ardently desired, was wrapt 
with so sudden an ex-cess of joy that he imme- 
diately fell into a fever and died. 2 And, for a 
more notable testimony of the imbecility of 
human nature, it is recorded, by the ancients, 3 
that Diodorus the Dialectician, died on the 
spot, out of an extreme passion of shame, for 
not having been able, in his own school, and in 
the presence of a great auditory, to disengage 
himself from a nice argument that was pro- 
pounded to him. I, for my part, am very 
little subject to these violent passions; I am 
naturally of a stubborn apprehension, which, 
by reason, I every day harden and fortify more 
and more. 



CHAPTER III. 

THAT OUR AFFECTIONS CARRY THEMSELVES 
BEYOND US. 

Such as accuse mankind of always gaping 
after future things, and advise us 
Mankind wo to ma ^ e the most of the good 
lUmrity. fir which is present, and to set up 
our rest upon that, as having no 
•hold upon that which is to come, even less 
than that we have upon what is past, have 
hit upon the most universal of human errors, 
if that may be called an error to which nature 
itself has disposed us, who, in order to the sub- 
sistence and continuation of her own work, has, 
amongst several others, prepossessed us with 
this deceiving imagination, as being more jealous 
of our action than afraid of our knowledge. 

We are never present with, but always 
beyond, ourselves. Fear, desire, and hope, are 
still pushing us on towards the future, depriving 
us, in the mean time, of the sense and considera- 
tion of that which is, to amuse us with the 
thought of what shall be, even when we shall 
be no more. Calamitosus est animus futuri 
anxius. 4 " 'Tis a great calamity to have a mind 
anxious about things to come." We find this 
great precept often repeated in Plato, "Do 
thine own work, and know thyself." Of 
which two parts, both the one and the other, 
generally comprehends our whole duty, and, 
in like manner, do each of them involve 
the other. He who will do his own work 
aright will find that his first lesson is to 
know himself, and what is proper for him; and 
he who rightly understands himself will never 
mistake another man's work for his own, but 
will love and improve himself above all other 



' Valerius Maximus, ix. 13. The name is not Talva, but 
Thalna. 

a Guiccinrdini, xiv. 3 Pliny, m supra. 

* Seneca, fipist. !>d. "La Prevoyance qui no 
sans cesse au dela de nous, et suuvent nous place ou 



thing3, will refuse superfluous employments, 
and reject all unprofitable thoughts and propo- 
sitions. As folly on the one side, though it 
should enjoy all it can desire, would, notwith- 
standing, never be content; so, on the other, 
wisdom ever acquiesces with the present, and 
is never dissatisfied with its immediate condi- 
tion; and that is the reason why Epicurus 
dispenses his sages from all forecast and care of 
the future. 

Amongst those laws that relate to the dead, 
I look upon that to be a very sound one, by 
which the actions of princes are to be examined 
and sifted after their decease. 5 While living, 
they are equal with, at least, if 
not above, the laws, and, therefore, duct f pr j nce g 
what justice could not inflict upon should be can- 
their persons it is but reason ^^ d after 
should be executed upon their 
reputations and the estates of their successors; 
things that we often value above life itself. 
It is a custom of singular advantage to those 
countries where it is in use, and much to be 
desired by all good princes who have reason to 
take it ill, that the memories of the tyrannical 
and wicked should be treated with the same 
respect as theirs. We owe, it is true, subjec- 
tion and obedience to all our kings, whether 
good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto 
their office; but, as to affection and esteem, 
these are only due to their virtue. Let it be 
granted that, for the sake of political order, we 
are, with patience, to endure unworthy princes, 
to conceal their vices, and to assist them in 
their indifferent actions, whilst their authority 
stands in need of our support ; yet, the relation 
of prince and subject being once at an end, there 
is no reason we should deny the expression of 
our resentment to our own liberty, and to com- 
mon justice; or, more especially, deprive good 
subjects of the glory of having submissively 
and faithfully served a prince whose imperfec- 
tions were, to them, so well known ; this were 
to rob posterity of a most useful example ; and 
those who, out of respect to some private obli- 
gation, iniquitously vindicate the memory of a 
faulty prince, do a private right at the expense 
of public justice. Livy very truly says : "That 
the language of men bred up in courts is 
always full of vain ostentation and false testi- 
mony," 8 every one indifferently magnifying his 
own master, and stretching his commendation 
to the utmost extent of virtue and sovereign 
grandeur. And it is not impossible but some 
may condemn the magnanimity of those two 
soldiers, who so roundly answered Nero to his 
face; the one being asked, by him, Why he 
bore him ill-will? "I loved thee," answered 
he, "whilst thou wert worthy of it; but since 
thou art become a parricide, an incendiary, a 
player, and a coachman, I hate thee as thou 



itable source de toules 



° Cicero, Tusc. Quais. 
Livy XXXV. 43. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



And the other, Why he 
should attempt to kill him ? " Because," said 
he, " I could think of no other remedy against 
thy perpetual mischiefs." 1 But the public and 
universal testimonies that were given against 
him, after his death (and will be to all pos- 
terity, both against him and against all other 
wicked princes like him), of his tyrannies and 
abominable conduct, who, of a sound judgment, 
can reprove them 1 

I am scandalized, I confess, that in so sacred 

a government as that of the La- 
tife^Lacedemo- cedemonians, there should have 
nians at the in- been mixed that hypocritical cere- 
k ™£ nt of their mony at the death of their kings ; 

where all their confederates and 
neighbours, and all sorts and degrees of men 
and women, as well as their slaves, cut and 
slashed their foreheads in token of sorrow, 
repeating in their cries and lamentations that 
that king (let him have been as wicked as the 
devil,) was the best that ever they had ; thus 
attributing to his quality the praises that only 
belong to merit, and that of right are due to 
desert, though lodged in the lowest and most 
inferior subject. 2 
Aristotle (who will still have a hand in every 

thing,) makes a query upon the 
No man is saying of Solon, " That none can 
happy till he is , J 9, . , / .-, , • 

dead. be said to be happy until he is 

dead;" whether, then, any one 
who has lived and died according to his heart's 
desire, if he have left an ill repute behind him, 
and that his posterity be miserable, can be said 
to be happy] 3 Whilst we have life and mo- 
tion, we convey ourselves, by fancy and antici- 
pation, whither and to what we please; but 
once out of being, we have no more any manner 
of communication with what is in being ; and 
Solon, therefore, had better have said, "That 
man is never happy at all, since he is never so 
till after he is no more." 



Vix radicitus e vita se tollit, et ejicit: 
Sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse. 
Nee reinovet satis a piojecto corpore sese, et 
Vindicate 

" No dying man can truss his baggage so, 
But something of him he must leave below; 
Nor from his carcase, that doth prostrate lie, 
Himself can clear, or far enough can fly." 

Bertrand du Glesquin dying before the 
castle of Randon, 5 near unto 
The dead treat- p U y ) j n Auvergne, the besieged 
alive* 8 th ° Ugh were afterwards, upon surrender, 
enjoined to lay down the keys of 
the place upon the corpse of the dead general. 
Bartholomew d'Alviano, the Venetian general, 
dying in the service of the Republic, in their 
wars in Brescia, and his corpse being to be 
carried to Venice, througli the territory of 



i Tacitus, Annal. xv. 67. 'Herod, vi. 68. 

s Herod, i. 32. Aristotle, EtMcs, i. 10. 
« Lucretius iii. 890 and 895. Montaigne lias slightly 
altered the text of the author. 



Verona, an enemy's country, most of the army 
were of opinion to demand safe conduct from 
the Veronese : but Theodore Trivulsio opposed 
the motion, rather choosing to make way for 
the body by force of arms, and to run the 
hazard of a battle ; saying, it was not fit that 
he, who in his life was never afraid of his ene- 
mies, should seem to apprehend them when he 
was dead. 6 And, in truth, in cases of the 
same nature, by the Greek laws, he who made 
suit to an enemy for a body to give it burial, 
did, by that act, renounce his victory, and had 
no longer the right to erect a trophy ; and he 
to whom such suit was made was ever, what- 
ever otherwise the success had been, reputed 
victor. By this means it was that Nicias lost 
the advantage he had visibly obtained over the 
Corinthians, 7 and that Agesilaus, on the con- 
trary, assured that which he had before very 
doubtfully gained over the Baeotians. 8 

These things might appear very odd had it 
not been a general practice in all ages not only 
to extend the concern of our persons beyond 
this life, but, moreover, to fancy that the 
favours of heaven accompany us to the grave, 
and continue, even after life, to our ashes. Of 
which there are so many examples among the 
ancients, waiving those of our times, that it is 
not necessary I should insist upon it. Edward 
the First, King of England, having, jn the 
long wars between him and Robert, Ring of 
Scotland, had sufficient experience of how 
great importance his own immediate presence 
was to the success of his affairs, having ever 
been victorious in whatever he undertook in his 
own person ; when he came to die, bound his 
son in a solemn oath, that so soon as lie should 
be dead, he should boil his body till the flesh 
parted from the bones, and, having burned the 
flesh, preserve the bones to carry continually 
with him in his army so often as he should be 
obliged to go against the Scots ; as if destiny 
had attached victory even to those miserable 
remains. John Zisca, the same who so often, 
in vindication of Wickliffe's errors, overran 
Bohemia, left order that they should flay him 
after his death, and of his skin make a drum, 
to carry in the war against his enemies, fancying 
this would contribute to the continuation of the 
successes he himself had always obtained in 
the war against them. In like manner some 
Indians, in a battle with the Spaniards, carried 
with them the bones of one of their captains, 
in consideration of the victories they had 
formerly obtained under his conduct. And 
other people, in the same new world, carry 
about with them, in their wars, the relics of 
valiant men, who have died in battle, to incite 
their courage and advance their fortune. Of 
which examples the first reserve nothing for the 
tomb but the reputation they have acquired by 



■< July 13, 1380. 

< Brantome ii. Guicciard. xii. 
Plutarch, in vita, c. ii. 
1 Id., in vita, c. vi. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Maximilian the 



their former achievements ; while these assign 
to these great men, even in the grave, a certain 
power of operation. 

The last act of the captain Bayard is of a 
much better composition ; who, finding himself 
wounded to death with a harquebuss shot, and, 
being by his friends importuned to retire out 
of the fight, made answer, " That he would not 
begin, at the last gasp, to turn his back to the 
enemy ;" and, accordingly, still fought on, till, 
feeling himself too faint and no longer able to 
sit his horse, he commanded his steward to set 
him down against the root of a tree, but so that 
he might die with his face towards the enemy, 
which he did. 1 

I must yet add another example, equally 
remarkable, for the present consideration, with 
any of the former. The Emperor Maximilian, 
great grandfather to the present King Philip, 2 
was a prince endowed with great qualities, and, 
amongst the rest, with a singular beauty of 
person; but had, withal, a humour very con- 
trary to that of other princes, who, for the 
dispatch of their most important affairs, con- 
vert their close-stool into a chair of state; 
which was that he would never permit any of 

his bed-chamber, in what familiar 
Modesty of degree of favour soever, to see 

him in that posture; and would 

steal aside to make water, as re- 
ligiously shy as a virgin, not to discover either 
to his physician, or any other person, those 
parts that we are accustomed to conceal. And 
I myself, who have so impudent a way of talk- 
ing, am, nevertheless, so modest this way that, 
unless at the great importunity of necessity or 
pleasure, I very rarely and unwillingly com- 
municate to the sight of any, those parts or 
actions, that custom orders us to conceal; 
wherein I suffer more constraint than I conceive 
is very well becoming a man, especially of my 
profession. But he nourished this modest 
humour to such a degree that he gave express 
orders in his last will that they should put him 
on drawers so soon as he should be dead ; to 
which, methinks, he would have done well to 
.have added, by way of codicil, that he should 
be hoodwinked, too, who put them on. The 
charge that Cyrus left with his children, that 

neither they nor any other should 

ren'retVrdi" eitner see or touch his Dod y after 
gion. the soul was departed from it, 3 I 

attribute to some superstitious 
devotion of his ; both his historian and himself, 
amongst their other great qualities, having 
strewed the whole course of their lives 
with a singular attention and respect to re- 
ligion. 

I was by no means pleased with a story 
that was told me by a man of great quality, 



1 Mem. of Martin du Bellay, iv. 
" Philip II. of Spain. 
8 Xenophnn, Cyrop. viii. 7. 
4 Livy, Epit. xlviii. 



of a relation of mine, one who 
had given a very good account The foolish- 
of himself both in peace and funeral p"'mp! 
war ; that, coming to die in a 
very old age, tormented with an excessive 
pain of the stone, he spent the last hours of 
his life in an extraordinary solicitude about 
ordering the pomp and ceremony of his funeral, 
pressing all the men of condition who came to 
see him to engage their word to attend him to 
his grave; importuning this very prince, who 
came to visit him at his last gasp, with a most 
earnest supplication, that he would order his 
family to be assisting there, alleging several 
reasons and examples to prove that it was a 
respect due to a man of his condition; and 
seemed to die content, having obtained this 
promise, and appointed the method and order 
of his funeral parade. I have seldom heard of 
so long-lived a vanity. The contrary solicitude, 
of which also I do not want domestic example, 
seems to be somewhat a-kin to this ; that a man 
shall cudgel his brains, at the last moments of 
his life, to contrive his obsequies to some parti- 
cular and unusual a parsimony, to one single 
servant with a candle and lanthorn ; yet I see 
this humour commended, and the appointment 
of Marcus iEmilius Lepidus, who forbad his 
heirs to bestow upon his corpse even the com- 
mon ceremonies in use upon such occasions. 4 Is 
it temperance and frugality to avoid expense 
and pleasure, of which the use and knowledge 
is imperceptible to usl This were an easy and 
cheap reformation. If instructions were at all 
necessary in this case, I should be of opinion 
that in this, as in all other actions of life, the 
ceremony and expense should be regulated by 
the condition of the person deceased ; and the 
philosopher Lycon prudently ordered his execu- 
tors to dispose of his body where they should 
think most fit, and as to his funeral, to order it 
to be neither too superfluous, nor too mean. 5 
For my part, I shall wholly refer the ordering 
of this ceremony to custom, and leave the 
whole matter to the discretion of those to whose 
lot it shall fall to do me that last office. Totus 
hie locus est contemnendus in nobis, non negli- 
gendus in nostris. 6 " The place of our sepul- 
ture is wholly to be contemned by us, but not 
to be neglected by our friends." And it was a 
holy saying of a saint, Curatio funeris, conditio 
sepultures, pornpa exsequinrum, magis sunt 
vivorum solatia, qutim, subsidia mortuorum. 7 
" The care of funerals, the place of sepulture, 
and the pomp of obsequies, are rather consola- 
tions to the living than any benefit to the 
dead." Which made Socrates answer Criton, 
who, at the hour of his death, asked him, 
how he would be buried ? " How you will," 
said he. 8 If I were to concern myself farther 



& Diog. Laert., in vita. 

« Cicero, Tusc. Quits., 45. 

' St. August, dc Civitate Dei. 1. L2. 

• Plato, Phteiio. 

O 



34 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



about this affair, I should be most tempted, 
as the greatest satisfaction of this kind, to 
imitate those who in their life-time enter- 
tain themselves with the ceremony of their 
own obsequies before-hand, and are pleased 
with viewing their own monument, and behold- 
ing their own dead countenance in marble. 
Happy are they who can gratify their senses 
by insensibility, and live by their death ! I can 
hardly keep from an implacable hatred against 
all popular government, though I cannot but 
think it the most natural and equitable of all 
others, so often as I call to mind the inhuman 
injustice of the people of Athens, who, without 
remission, or once vouchsafing to hear what 
they had to say for themselves, put to death 
their brave captains, newly returned triumphant 
from a naval victory they had obtained over 
the Lacedaemonians near the Arginusian Isles, 
the most bloody and obstinate engagement that 
ever the Greeks fought at sea, for no other 
reason but that they had followed up their blow 
and pursued the advantages presented to them 
by the rule of war, instead of staying to gather 
up and bury their dead; an execution that is 
yet rendered more odious by the behaviour of 
Diomedon, one of the condemned, and a man 
of eminent virtue, both political and military, 
who, after having heard their sentence, advanc- 
ing to speak, no audience till then having been 
allowed, instead of pleading his cause, and re- 
presenting the evident injustice of so cruel a 
sentence, only expressed a solicitude for his 
judges' preservation, beseeching the gods to 
convert this sentence to their good, and praying 
that for neglecting to fulfil those vows which 
he and his companions had made (which he 
also acquainted them with,) in acknowledgment 
of so glorious a success they might not pull 
down the indignation of the gods upon them ; 
and so without more words went courageously 
to his death. 1 But fortune a few years after 
punished the Athenians in a suitable way. For 
Chabrias, captain-general of their naval forces, 
having got the better of Pollis, admiral of 
Sparta, off the Isle of Naxos, totally lost the 
fruits of his victory, of very great importance 
to their affairs, in order not to incur the danger 
of this example, and in his anxiety not to lose a 
few bodies of his dead friends that were floating 
in the sea, gave opportunity to a world of liv- 
ing enemies to sail away in safety, who after- 
wards made them pay dear for this unseasonable 
superstition. 

Quaoris, quo jaceas, post obitum, loco? 
Quo lion nata jacent. 2 

"Dost ask where thou shalt lie when dead? 
With those that never being had." — 

The other restores the sense of repose to a 
body without a soul. 



i Diod. Sic. xiii. 31. 
a Senec. Troad, Chor. 



Just as nature demonstrates to us that several 
dead things retain yet an occult sympathy and 
relation to life; wine changes its flavour and 
complexion in cellars, according to the changes 
and seasons of the vine whence it came; and 
the flesh of venison, 'tis said, alters its con- 
dition and taste in the powdering tub, according 
to the seasons of the living flesh of its kind. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THAT THE SOUL DISCHARGES ITS PASSIONS 
UPON FALSE OBJECTS, WHERE THE TRUE 
ARE WANTING. 

A gentleman of my country, who was very 
subject to the gout, being importuned by his 
physicians totally to abstain from all manner 
of salt meats, was wont pleasantly to reply, 
that he must needs have something to quarrel 
with in the extremity of his pain, and that he 
fancied that railing at and cursing, one while 
the Bologna sausages, and at another the dried 
tongues and the hams, was some mitigation to 
his torments. And, in good earnest, as one's 
arm when it is advanced to strike, if it fail of 
meeting with that upon which it was designed 
to discharge the blow, and spends itself in vain, 
does offend the striker himself; and as, also, 
to make a pleasant prospect the sight should 
not be lost and dilated in a vast extent of empty 
air, but have some bounds to limit and circum- 
scribe it at a reasonable distance — 



Ventus ut amittit vires, nisi robore denate 
Occurrunt Silvae, spatio diffusus inani ; 4 



so it appears that the soul, being transported 
and discomposed, turns its violence upon itself, 
if not supplied with something to oppose it, and^ 
therefore always requires an object at which to" 
aim, and to keep it in action. Plutarch says 
of those who are delighted with monkeys and 
lap dogs, that the amorous part which is in 
us, for want of a legitimate object, rather than 
be idle, does after that manner forge and create 
one frivolous and false: 5 and we see that the 
soul, in the exercise of its passions, inclines 
rather to deceive itself, by creating a false and 
fantastical subject, even contrary to its own 
belief, than not to have something to work 
upon. And after this manner brute beasts 
direct their fury to fall upon the stone or weapon 
that has hurt them, and with their teeth even 
execute their revenge upon themselves, for the 
injury they have received from another. 



3 Ennius, apud Cicer. Tusc. Quas, i. 44. 

« Lucan, iii. 362. « Life of Pericles, at the beginning. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



35 



Pannonis haud aliter post ictum srevior ursa, 
Quum jaculum parva Lybis amentavit habena, 
Se rotat in vulnus, telumque irata receptum 
Impetit, et secum fugientem circuit hastam. 1 

" So the fierce bear, made fiercer by the smart 
Of the bold Lybian's mortal wounding dait, 
Turns round upon the wound, and the tough spear 
Contorted o'er her breast doth, flying, bear." 

What causes of the misadventures that befall 
us do we not invent? What is it that we do 
not lay the fault to, right or wrong, that we 
may have something to quarrel with 1 'Tis not 
those beautiful tresses, young lady, you so 
liberally tear off, nor is it the whiteness of that 
delicate bosom you so unmercifully beat, that, 
with an unlucky bullet, have slain your beloved 
brother; quarrel with something else. Livy, 
speaking of the Roman army in Spain, says, 
that for the loss of the two brothers, 2 their 
great captains, Flere omnes repente, et offen- 
sare capita. 3 "They all wept and tore their 
hair." 'Tis the common practice of afflic- 
tion. And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly 
of the king, who by handfuls pulled his hair, 
off his head for sorrow, " Does this man think 
that baldness is a remedy for grief]" 4 Who 
has not seen peevish gamesters tear the cards 
with their teeth, and swallow the dice in revenge 
for the loss of their money 1 Xerxes whipped 
the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos. 5 
Cyrus employed a whole army several days at 
work, to revenge himself of the river Gnidus, for 
the fright it had put him into in passing over 
it; 6 and Caligula demolished a very beautiful 
palace for the discomfort his mother had onc.e 
had there. 7 

There was a story current, when I was a boy, 
that one of our neighbouring kings, 8 having 
received a blow from the hand of God, swore 
he would be revenged, and, in order to it, made 
proclamation that, for ten years to come, no 
one throughout his dominions should pray to 
him, nor mention him, nor believe in him ; by 
which we are not so much to take measure of 
the folly, as of the vain-glory of the nation of 
which this tale was told. These are vices that 
indeed always go together ; but such actions as 
these have in them more of presumption than 
want of sense. Augustus Ceesar, having been 
tost with a tempest at sea, fell to defying Nep- 
tune, and in the pomp of the Circensian games, 
to be revenged of him, deposed his statue from 
the place it had amongst the other deities. 9 
Wherein he was less excusable than the former, 
and less than he was afterwards, when, having 
lost a battle under Quintilius Varus in Germany, 
in rage and despair, he went running his head 
against the walls, and crying out, "O Varus ! give 
me my men again !" 10 for those exceed all folly, 
forasmuch as impiety is joined with it, who in- 



. > Lucan, vi. 220. 

4 Publius and Cneius Scipio. * Livy, xxv. 37. 

* Cicero, Tusc. Quces, iii. 26. 
1 » Herodotus, vii. 24, 35. Plutarch, on Anger. 

« Herodotus, i. 189, who calls the river Gyndes, not 
Gnidus, says that Cyrus spent a whole summer on this fine 
occupation. 



vade God himself, or at least Fortune, as if she 
had ears that were subject to our batteries; 
like the Thracians, who, when it thunders or 
lightens, fall to shooting against heaven with 
Titanian fury, 11 as if by flights of arrows they 
intended to reduce God to reason. The ancient 
poet in Plutarch tells us, 

We must not quarrel heaven in our affairs, 
That nothing for a mortal's anger cares. 1 * 

But we can never enough condemn the sense- 
less and ridiculous sallies of our passious. 



CHAPTER V. 

WHETHER THE GOVERNOR OF A PLACE BE- 
SIEGED OUGHT HIMSELF TO GO OUT TO 
PARLEY. 

Lucius Marcius, 13 the Roman Legate, in the 
war against Perseus, king of 
Macedon, to gain time wherein Deceit in 

• *.«_■ c «. warfare con- 

to re-inforce his army, set on foot demned. 
some overtures of accommodation, 
with which the king being lulled asleep, con- 
cluded a cessation for certain days; by this 
means giving his enemy opportunity and leisure 
to repair his army, which was afterwards the 
occasion of his own ruin. The elder sort of 
senators, notwithstanding, mindful of their fore- 
fathers' virtue, were by no means satisfied with 
this proceeding ; but on the contrary condemned 
it, as degenerating from their ancient practice, 
which they said was by valour, and not by 
artifice, surprises, and night encounters, or by 
pretended flight, ambuscades, and deceitful 
treaties, to overcome their enemies; never 
making war till having first denounced it, and 
very often assigned both the hour and place of 
battle. Out of this generous principle it was 
that they delivered up to Pyrrhus his treacherous 
physician, and to the Phaliscians their disloyal 
school-master. And this was indeed a proce- 
dure truly Roman, and nothing allied to the 
Groecian subtilty, or Punic cunning, where it 
was reputed a victory of less glory to over- 
come by force than by fraud. Deceit may serve 
for a need, but he only confesses himself over- 
come who knows he is neither subdued by 
policy nor misadventure, but by dint of valour, 
in a fair and manly war. And it very well 
appears by the discourse of these good old sena- 
tors, that this fine sentence was not yet received 
amongst them, 

Dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?" 



' She had been imprisoned in it. Seneca, on Anger, i 

» Alphonzo XI. king of Castile; died, 1350. 

» Suetonius, in VUG., c. 16. 

io Id. ib. c. 23. " Herod., iv. 94. 

" Plutarch, on Contentment, c. iv. 

is Livy, xlii. 37, calls him Quintus Marcius. 

» Mncid ii. 390. 



36 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The Achaians, says Polybius, abhorred all 
manner of double-dealing in war, not reputing 
it a victory unless where the courage of the 
enemy was fairly subdued. Earn vir sanctus 
et sapiens sciet veram esse victoriam, qua, salva 
fide et integra dignitate, parabitur. 1 "An 
honest and wise man will acknowledge that 
only to be a true victory which is obtained 
without violation of faith, or blemish upon 
honour," says another. 

Vosne velit, an me, regnare hera, quidve ferat, fors, 
Virtute experiamur.s 

" If you or I shall rule, let 's fairly try, 
And force or fortune give the victory." 

In the kingdom of Ternate, amongst those 
nations which we so roundly call barbarian, 
they have a custom never to commence war 
till it be first denounced; adding withal, an 
ample declaration of what they have to carry 
it on withal, how many men, what supplies, 
and what arms, both offensive and defensive; 
but, that being done, if their enemies do not 
yield, they afterwards deem it lawful to employ 
this power without reproach, by any means that 
may best conduce to their own ends. 

The ancient Florentines were so far from 
wishing to obtain any advantage over their 
enemies by surprise that they always gave 
them a month's warning before they drew their 
army into the field, by the continual tolling of 
a bell they call Martinella. 8 

As to us, who are not so scrupulous in this 
matter, who attribute the honour of the war to 
him who has the better of it, after what man- 
ner soever obtained, and who, after Lysander, 
say, " Where the lion's skin is too short, we 
must eke it out with the fox's case," 4 the most 
usual occasions of surprise are derived from this 
practice, and we hold that there are no moments 
wherein a chief ought to be more circumspect, 
and to have his eye so much at watch, as those 
of parlies and treaties of accommodation ; and 
it is therefore become a general rule amongst 
the military men of these latter times that a 
governor of a place never ought in a time of 
siege to go out himself to parley. It was for 
this that in our fathers' days the Seigneurs de 
Montmord and de l'Assigni defending Mousson 
against the Count de Nassau, were so highly 
censured ; yet in this case it would be excusable 
in that governor who, going out for this pur- 
pose, should do it in such a manner that the 
safety and advantage should be on his side ; as 
Count Guido de Rangoni did at Reggio, (if we 
are to believe du Bellay, for Guicciardin says it 
was he himself,) when Monsieur de 1' Escut ap- 
proached to parley ; for he went so little a way 
from the wall of his fortress that, a disorder 
happening during the parley, not only Monsieur 
de 1' Escut and his party, who were advanced 



i Florus, i. 12. s Ennius apud Cicero de Officiis, i. 12. 

5 From the name of St. Martin, derived ftom that of 
Mara, the God of war. 

« Plutarch, in VM, c. 4. 

6 Mem. of Martin du Bellay, i. Guicciard. xiv. 



with him, found themselves by much the 
weaker (insomuch that Alessandro de Trivul- 
cio was there slain), but he himself was con- 
strained, as the safest way, to follow the Count, 
and relying upon his honour to secure himself 
from the danger of the shot within the very 
walls of the town. 6 

Eumenes, being shut up in the city of Nora, 
by Antigonus, and by him importuned to come 
out to speak with him, as he sent him word it 
was fit he should to a better man than himself, 
who had the advantage over him, returned this 
noble answer, "I never shall think any man 
better than myself, whilst I have my sword in 
my hand ;" and would not consent to come out 
to him, till first, according to his own demand, 
Antigonus had delivered his own nephew 
Ptolemy in hostage. 8 

And yet some have done well in going out 
in person to parley with the assailant on his 
word of honour; witness Henry de Vaux, a 
cavalier of Champagne, who being besieged 
by the English in the castle of Courmicy, 7 and 
Bartholomew de Bruwes,* who commanded 
at the siege, having so sapped the greatest part 
of the castle without that nothing remained 
but setting fire to the props to bury the besieged 
under the ruins, he required the said Henry to 
come out to speak with him for his own good ; 
which the other accordingly doing, with three 
more in company with him, and his own evident 
ruin being made apparent to him, he conceived 
himself singularly obliged to his enemy, to 
whose discretion he and his garrison then sur- 
rendered themselves ; and, fire being presently 
applied to the mine, the props no sooner began 
to fail but the castle was immediately turned 
topsy-turvy, no one stone being left upon 
another. 9 

I could, and do, with great facility, rely upon 
the faith of another ; but I should very unwill- 
ingly do it in any case where it might be 
judged that it was rather an effect of my despair 
and want of courage than voluntarily and out 
of confidence and security in the faith of him 
with whom I had to do. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THAT THE HOUR OF PARLEY IS DANGEROUS. 

Yet I saw, lately at Mussidan, 10 a place not 
far from my house, that those who were driven 
out thence by our army, and others of their 
party, highly complained of treachery, for that, 
during a treaty of accommodation, and in the 
very interim that their deputies were treating, 
they were surprised and cut to pieces : a thing 
that, peradventure, in another age, might have 



« Plut. in vita, c. v. 

' Most of the editions have it Commercy. 

8 Or as it is now written Burgliersh. 

» Froissart, i. c. 118. 

»» Or Mucidan. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



37 



had some colour of foul play ; but, as I said 
before, the practice of arms in these days is 
quite another thing, and there is now no confi- 
dence in an enemy excusable till after the last 
seal of obligation is fixed ; and even then the 
conqueror has enough to do to keep his word ; 
so hazardous a thing it is to intrust the observa- 
tion of the faith a man has engaged to a town 
that surrenders upon easy and favourable con- 
ditions, to the necessity, avarice, and license of 
a victorious army, and to give the soldiers free 
entrance into it in the heat of blood. 

Lucius ^Emilius Regillus, a Ro- 
Hta e r fa inen ver" man Prffitor ' having lost his time 
uncertain" Very in attempting to take the city of 
Phocsea by force, by reason of 
the singular valour wherewith the inhabitants 
defended themselves against him, conditioned at 
last to receive them as friends to the people of 
Rome, a nd to enter the town, as into a confederate 
city, without any manner of hostility ; of which 
he gave them all possible assurance : but, hav- 
ing, for the greater pomp, brought his whole 
army in with him, it was no more in his power, 
with all the endeavour he could use, to com- 
mand his people ; so that, avarice and revenge 
despising and trampling under foot both his 
authority and all military discipline, he there 
at once saw his own faith violated, and a con- 
siderable part of the city sacked and ruined 
before his face. 1 

Cleomenes was wont to say that, whatever 
mischief a man could do his enemy in time of 
war was above justice, and nothing accountable 
to it in the sight of Gods and men. And, ac- 
cording to this principle, having concluded a 
cessation with those of Argos for seven days, the 
third night after he fell upon them when they 
were all buried in security and sleep, and put 
them to the sword; alleging, for his excuse, 
that there had no nights been mentioned in the 
truce. But the Gods punished his subtle per- 
fidy. 2 In a time of parley also, and while the 
citizens were intent upon their capitulation, 
the city of Casilinum was taken by surprise, 3 
and that even in the age of the justest captains, 
and the most perfect discipline of the Roman 
army; for it is not said that it is not lawful 
for us in time and place to make advantage of 
our enemies' want of understanding, as well as 
their want of courage. And doubtless war 
has naturally a great many privileges that 
appear reasonable, even to the prejudice of 
reason. And therefore here the rule fails, 
Neminem id agere, ut ex alterius pradelur 
inscitia.* " No one should prey upon another's 
folly." But I am astonished at the great 
liberty allowed by Xenophon in such cases, 5 
and that both by precept and the example of 



1 Livy, xxxvii. 32. • Plutarch, Apothegms. 

1 Livy, xxiv. 19. 
1 Cicero, de Offic. iii. 17. 
> In his Cympadia. 

1 Or Carignan, a small town of old French Luxembourg, 
the river Otters, lour leagues from Sedan. 
4 



several exploits of his complete general; an 
author of very great authority, I confess, in 
those affairs, as being in his own person both a 
great captain and a philosopher of the first 
form of Socrates' disciples; and yet I cannot 
consent to such a measure of license as he dis- 
penses in all things and places. 

Monsieur d'Aubigny besieging Capua, after 
having played a furious battery against it, 
Signior Fabricio Colonna, governor of the town, 
having from a bastion begun to parley, and his 
soldiers in the mean time being a little more 
remiss in their guard, our people took advan- 
tage of their security, entered the place at 
unawares, and put them all to the sword. And 
of later memory, at Yvoy, 6 Signior Juliano 
Rommero having played that part of a novice 
to go out to capitulate with Monsieur the Con- 
stable, at his return found his place taken. 
But, that we might not escape scot free, the 
Marquis of Pescara having laid siege to Genoa, 
where Duke Ottavio Fregosa commanded under 
our protection, and the articles betwixt them 
being so far advanced that it was looked upon 
as a done thing, and upon the point to be con- 
cluded, the Spaniards, in the mean time, being 
slipped in under the privilege of the treaty, 
seized on the gates, and made use of this treach- 
ery as an absolute and fair victory. 7 And 
since, at Ligny in Barrois, where the Count de 
Brienne commanded, the Emperor having in 
his own person beleagured that place, and 
Bartheville, the said Count's lieutenant, going 
out to parley, while he was capitulating the 
town was taken. 8 



" Fame ever doth the victor's praises ring, 
And conquest aye was deem'd a glorious thing, 
Which way soe'er the conqu'ror purchas'd it. 
Whether by valour, fortune, or by wit," 

say they. But the philosopher Chrysippus was 
of another opinion, wherein I also concur; for 
he was used to say that those who run a race 
ought to employ all the force they have in 
what they are about, and to run as fast as they 
can ; but tliat it is by no means fair in them to 
lay an hand upon their adversary to stop him, 
nor to set a leg before him to throw him 
down. 10 And still more generous was the an- 
swer of the Great Alexander to Polypercon, who 
was persuading him to take the advantage of 
the night's obscurity to fall upon Darius ; " no," 
said he, " it is not for such a man as I to steal 
a victory :" malo me forluntB poeniteat, quam 
victoria pudeat. 11 "I had rather have to 
lament my fortune than be ashamed of my 
victory." 



* Mem. of Martin du Bellay, ii. 
e Mem. of William du Bellay, ix. 
6 Ariosto, Cant. xv. 1. 
>° Cicer. de Offic. iii. 10. 
" Quint. Curt. iv. 13. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Atque idem fugientem haud est dignatus Oroden 
Sternere, nee jacta caecum dare cuspide vulnus, 
Obvius, adversoque occurrit, seque viro vir 
Contulit, haud furto melior, sed fortibus armis.i 

Then with disdain, the haughty victor viewed 
Orodes flying, nor the wretch pursued; 
Nor thought the dastard's back deserved a wound, 
But, hastening to o'ertake him, gained the ground; 
Then, turning short, he met him face to face, 
To give his victory the better grace." 



CHAPTER VII. 

THAT THE INTENTION IS JUDGE OF OUR 
ACTIONS. 

'Tis a saying, that death discharges us of all 

our obligations. However, I know 

Whether death so e who have ^en it in an- 

,'L'S us of , , „ TTTT , . 

an obligation, other sense. Henry VII., king 
of England, articled with Don 
Philip, son to Maximilian the emperor, or, to 
give him the more honourable title, father to 
the Emperor Charles V., that the said Philip 
should deliver up into his hands the duke of 
Suffolk, of the White Rose, his mortal enemy, 
who was fled into the Low Countries ; which 
Philip (not knowing how to evade it) accord- 
ingly promised to do, but upon condition, never- 
theless, that Henry should attempt nothing 
against the life of the said duke, which during 
his own life the king kept to ; but, coming to 
die, in his last will, he commanded his son to 
put him to death immediately after his decease. 2 
And lately, in the tragedy that the duke of 
Alva presented to us at Brussels, in the persons 
of Count Egmont and Home, there were many 
very remarkable passages, and one amongst the 
rest, that Count Egmont, upon the security of 
whose word and faith Count Home had come 
and surrendered himself to the duke of Alva, 
earnestly entreated that he might first mount 
the scaffold, to the end that death might dis- 
engage him from the obligation he had passed 
to the other. In these cases, methinks death 
did not acquit the king of his promise, and 
the Count was freed from his, even though 
he had not died. For we cannot be obliged 
beyond what we are able to perform, by 
reason that effects and performances are not 
at all in our power, and that indeed we are 
masters of nothing but the will, in which, by 
necessity, all the rules and whole duty of man- 
kind are founded and established. And there- 
fore Count Egmont, holding his soul and will 
bound and indebted to his promise, although 
he had not the power to make it good, had 
doubtless been absolved of his obligation, even 
though he had out-lived the other; but the 
king of England, premeditatedly breaking his 
faith, was no more to be excused for deferring 
the execution of his infidelity till after his death 
than Herodotus' mason, who having inviolably, 
during the time of his life, kept the secret of 



of Martin du Bellay, 



the treasure of the king of iEgypt his master, 
at his death discovered it to his children. 3 

I have noticed several, in my time, who, 
plagued by their consciences for unjustly detain- 
ing the goods of another, have thought to make 
amends by their will, and after their decease ; 
but they had as good do nothing as delude 
themselves both in taking so much time in so 
pressing an affair, and in going about to repair 
an injury with so little damage to themselves. 
They owe, over and above, something of their 
own, and by how much their payment is more 
strict and incommodious to themselves, by so 
much is their restitution more perfect, just, and 
meritorious; for penitence requires penance. 
But they do yet worse than these, who reserve 
the declaration of their animosity against their 
neighbour to the last gasp, having concealed it 
all the time of their lives before, wherein they 
declare themselves to have little regard for their 
own honour, irritating the party offended against 
their memory only ; and less for their conscience, 
not having the power, even out of respect to 
death itself, to make their malice die with them ; 
but extending the life of their hatred even 
beyond their own. Unjust judges, who defer 
judgment to a time wherein they can have no 
cognizance of the cause ! For my part I shall 
take care, if I can, that my death discover 
nothing that my life has not first declared, and 
that openly. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



OF IDLENESS. 

As we see ground that has long lain idle and 
untitled, if it be rich and naturally fertile, 
abound with innumerable sorts of weeds and 
unprofitable wild herbs ; and that, to make it 
perform its true office, we must cultivate and 
prepare it for such seeds as are proper for our 
service ; and as we see women that, without the 
knowledge of men, do sometimes of them- 
selves bring forth inanimate and formless lumps 
of flesh, but that to cause a natural and perfect 
generation they are to be husbanded with ano- 
ther kind of seed ; even so it is with our minds, 
which if not applied to some certain study that 
may fix and restrain them, run into a thousand 
extravagances, and are eternally roving here 
and there in the inextricable labyrinth of rest- 
less imagination. 

Sicut aqilie tremulum labris ubi lumen ahenis, 
Sole repercussum, aut radiantis imagine lunee 
Omnia pervolitat late loca ; 'jamque sub auras 
Erigitur summique ferit laquearia tecti.* 

" Like as the quivering reflection 
Of fountain waters, when the morning sun • 
Sheds on the bason, or the moon's pale beam 
Gives light and colour to the captive stream, 
Darts with fantastic motion round the place. 
And walls and roof strikes with its trembling rays." 



a Herod, ii. 121. 



i jEneid, viii. 22. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



In which wild and irregular agitation, there 
is no folly, nor idle fancy they do not light 



The soul that has no established limit to cir- 
cumscribe it, loses itself; for as the Epigram- 
matist says: He that is every where is no 
where. 

Quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat.' 

When I lately retired myself to my own 
house, with a resolution, as much as possibly I 
could, to avoid all manner of concern in affairs, 
and to spend in privacy and repose the little 
remainder of time I have to live, I fancied I 
could not more oblige my mind than to suffer 
it at full leisure to entertain and divert itself, 
which I hoped it might now the better be 
entrusted to do, as being by time and observa- 
tion become more settled and mature ; but I find, 
Variam semper dant otia mentem.s 



that, quite the contrary, it is like a horse that 
has broken from his rider, who voluntarily runs 
into a much wilder career than any horseman 
would put him to, and creates me so many 
chimaeras and fantastic monsters, one upon 
another, without order or design, that, the 
better at leisure to contemplate their strange^ 
ness and absurdity, I have begun to commit 
them to writing, hoping in time to make them 
ashamed of themselves. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF LIARS. 

There is not a man living whom it would 
so little become to speak of me- 

Kfemory. mol 7 as m y self ' for l have scarcel 7 
any at all ; and do not think that 
the world has again another so marvellously 
treacherous as mine. My other faculties are 
all very ordinary and mean; but in this I think 
myself so singular, and to have the defect to 
such a degree of excellence, that I deserve, 
methinks, to be famous for it, and to have more 
than a common reputation. Besides the na- 
tural inconveniences which I experience from 
this cause, (for, in truth, the use of memory con- 
sidered Plato had reason when he called ita great 
and powerful Goddess ; 4 ) in my country, when 
they would describe a man that has no sense, 
they say, such an one has no memory ; and when 



I complain of mine, 5 they seem not to believe I 
am in earnest, and presently reprove me, as 
though I accused myself for a fool, not discern- 
ng the difference betwixt memory and under- 
standing ; wherein they are very wide of my 
intention, and do me wrong, experience rather 
daily showing us, on the contrary, that a strong 
memory is commonly coupled with infirm judg- 
ment. And they do me, moreover, who am so 
perfect in nothing as in friendship, a greater 
wrong in this, that they make the same words, 
which accuse my infirmity, represent me for an 
ungrateful person; bringing my affection into 
question, upon the account of my memory, and, 
from a natural imperfection, unjustly derive a 
defect of conscience. "He has forgot," says 
one, "this request, or that promise; he no 
longer remembers his friends, he has forgot to 
say or do, or to conceal, such and such a thing 
for my sake." And truly, I am apt enough to 
forget many things, but to neglect any thing 
my friend has given me in charge, I never do 
it. And it should be enough, methinks, that I 
feel the misery and inconvenience of it without 
being branded with malice, a vice so contrary 
to my nature. 

However, I derive these comforts from my 
infirmity ; first, that it is an evil 
from which, principally, I have T he advantages 
found reason to correct a worse, of a defective 
that would easily enough have memor y- 
grown upon me, namely ambi- 
tion ; this defect being intolerable in those who 
take upon them the negociations of the world. 
That, as several like examples in the progress of 
nature demonstrate to us, she has fortified me 
in my other faculties proportionably as she has 
left me unfurnished in this ; I should otherwise 
have been apt, implicitly, to have reposed my 
understanding and judgment upon the bare 
report of other men, without ever setting them 
to work for themselves upon any inquisition 
whatever, had the inventions and opinions of 
others been ever present with me by the benefit 
of memory. That by this means I am not so 
talkative, for the magazine of the memory is 
ever better furnished with matter than that of 
the invention ; and had mine been faithful to 
me, I had, e'er this, deafened all my friends with 
my eternal babble, the subjects themselves 
rousing and stirring up the little faculty I have 
of handling and applying them, and heating and 
extending my discourse. 'Tis a great imper- 
fection, and what I have observed in several of 
my intimate friends who, as their memories 
supply them with a present and entire review 
of things, carry back their narratives so far, 
and crowd them with so many irrelevant cir- 
cumstances, that, though the story be good in 
itself, they make a shift to spoil it; and if 



' Horace, de Arte Poet. 7. * Martial, vii. 73. 

» Lucan, iv. 704. « Plato, Critiat. 

6 He complains of this defect again in the 17th chapter of 
the second hunk. iWalobratirho, ami others, charge him with 
falsehood, in this respect, (see particularly liaiiilius, Not. ad 
Jamb. II.) and they alledge, as a proof of this, his numerous 



quotations. But besides that these quotationsare frequently 
inexact, and that he occasionally contradicts himself, even 
when not qnotniu'. persons accustomed to authorship know 
that it requires no groat memory to quote, and this fre- 
quently. A faults de memoirc naiurelle. says the forgetful 
Montaigne, fen forge de papier (book 3. c. 13.) and this is 
the whole secret. 



40 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



otherwise, you are either to curse the strength 
of their memory, or the weakness of their judg- 
ment. And it is a hard thing to close up a 
discourse and to cut it short, when you are once 
in, and have a great deal more to say. There 
is nothing wherein the strength and breeding of 
a horse is so much seen as in a round, graceful, 
and sudden stop. I see some, even among 
those who talk pertinently enough, who would, 
but cannot, stop short in their career ; for whilst 
they are seeking out a handsome period to 
conclude with, they go on talking at random, 
and are so perplexed and entangled in their 
own eloquence that they know not what they 
say, but go on staggering amidst unmeaning 
sentences, as men stagger and totter on their 
feet from weakness. But, above all, old men, 
who yet retain the memory of things past, and 
forget how often they have told them, are the 
most dangerous company for this fault; and I 
have known stories from the mouth of a man 
of very great quality, otherwise very pleasant 
in themselves, become very troublesome by 
being a hundred times repeated over and over 
again. 

The second obligation I have to this infirm 
memory of mine is that, by this means, I less 
remember the injuries I have received; inso- 
much that (as one of the ancients 1 said,) I 
should have a protocol, a register of injuries, or 
a prompter, like Darius, who, that he might 
not forget the offence he had received from 
those of Athens, so often as he sat down to 
dinner, ordered one of his pages three times to 
bawl in his ear, " Sir, remember the Athe- 
nians." 2 And, besides, the places which I 
revisit, and the books I read over again, still 
smile upon me with a fresh novelty. 

It is not without good reason said that he who 
has not a good memory should 

hive 9 o h o°d Uld never teke u P on him the trade 
memories. of lying. I know very well that 

the grammarians distinguish be- 
twixt an untruth and a lie, and say that to tell 
an untruth is to tell a thing that is false, but 
which we ourselves believe to be true; 3 but that 
the definition of the Latin verb, to lie, 4 whence 
our French verb is taken, signifies the going 
against our conscience; and that, therefore, 
this touches only those who speak against their 
own knowledge ; and it is to this last sort of 
liars only that I now refer. Now, these either 
wholly contrive and invent the untruths they 
utter, or so alter and disguise a true story, that 
it always end in a lie; and when they disguise 
and often alter the same story according to their 
own fancy, 'tis very hard for them at one time 
or another to escape being trapped, by reason 
that the real truth of the thing having first 
taken possession of the memory, and being 
there lodged, and imprinted by the way of 



1 Cicero, pro Lig. 
injurias." 
a Herod, v. 105. 



bl isci niliil soles, nisi 



knowledge and fact, it will be ever ready to 
present itself to the imagination, and to shoulder 
out any falsehood of their own contriving, 
which cannot there have so sure and settled 
footing as the other ; and the circumstances of 
the first true knowledge evermore running in 
their minds, will be apt to make them forget 
those that are illegitimate, and only forged by 
their own fancy. In what they wholly invent, 
forasmuch as there is no contrary impression to 
justle their invention, there seems to be less 
danger of tripping; and yet, even this also, by 
reason it is a vain body, and without any other 
foundation than fancy only, is very apt to 
escape the memory, if they be not careful to 
make themselves very perfect in their tale. 
Of which I have often had very pleasant expe- 
rience at the expense of such as profess only to 
form and accommodate their speech to the 
affair they have in hand, or to the humour of 
the personage with whom they have to do; for 
the circumstances to which these men stick not 
to enslave their consciences and their faith, 
being subject to various changes, their language 
must vary accordingly. Whence it happens, 
that of the same thing they tell one man that 
it is this, and another that it is that, giving 
it several forms and colours.; but if these seve- 
ral men once come to compare notes and find 
out the cheat, what becomes of this fine art 1 
Besides which they must, of necessity, very 
often ridiculously trap themselves; for what 
memory can be sufficient to retain so many dif- 
ferent shapes as they have forged upon one and 
the same subject 1 I have known many in my 
time very ambitious of the reputation of this 
fine sort of cleverness; but they do not see 
that he who has the reputation of it can do 
nothing with it. 

In plain truth, lying is a hateful and an 
accursed vice. We are not men, we have no 
other tie upon one another but our word. If 
we did but perceive the horror and ill conse- 
quences of it, we should pursue it with fire and 
sword, and more justly than other crimes. I 
see that parents commonly, and with indiscre- 
tion enough, correct their children for little 
innocent faults, and torment them for wanton 
childish tricks that have neither impression, 
nor tend to any consequence ; whereas, in my 
opinion, lying only, and, what is of something 
a lower form, wilful obstinacy, are the faults 
which ought, on all occasions, to be combatted, 
both in the infancy and progress of these vices, 
which will otherwise grow up and increase with 
them ; and, after a tongue has once got the 
knack of lying, 'tis not to be imagined how 
impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence 
it comes to pass that we see some, who are 
otherwise very honest men, so subject to this 
vice. I have a good fellow for my tailori 



s, apud Aul. Oell. xi. 2. Nonius, v. 
, quasi, contra mentem ire. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



41 



who, yet, I never knew guilty of one truth ; 
no, not even when it had been to his advan- 
tage. If falsehood had, like truth, but one 
face only, we should be upon better terms ; for 
we should then take the contrary to what the 
liar says for certain truth ; but the reverse of 
truth has a hundred thousand shapes, and a 
field indefinite, without bound or limit. The 
Pythagoreans make good to be certain and 
finite evil, infinite and uncertain ; there are a 
thousand ways to miss the white, there is only 
one to hit it. For my own part, I have this 
vice in so great horror, that I am not sure I 
could prevail with my conscience to secure 
myself from the most manifest and extreme 
danger by an impudent and solemn lie. An 
ancient father says that a dog we know is 
better company than a man whose language we 
do not understand. Ut externus alieno non 
sit hominis vice. 1 And how much less sociable 
is false speaking than silence 1 

King Francis the First bragged that he had, 
by this means, nonplussed Francis Taverna, 
the Ambassador of Francis Sforza, Duke of 
Milan, a man very famous tor his eloquence in 
those days. This gentleman had been sent to 
excuse his master to his Majesty about a thing 
of very great consequence, which was this: 
King Francis, to maintain some correspondence 
in Italy, out of which he had been lately driven, 
and particularly in the duchy of Milan, had 
thought it, to that end, convenient to have a 
gentleman, on his behalf, reside at the Court of 
that Duke; an Ambassador in effect, but in 
outward appearance no other than a private 
person, who pretended to be there upon the 
single account of his own particular affairs; 
for the Duke, much more depending upon the 
Emperor, especially at that time, when he was 
in a treaty of a marriage with his niece, 
daughter to the King of Denmark, and since 
Dowager of Lorraine, could not own any friend- 
ship or intelligence with us, but very much to 
his own prejudice. For this commission then, 
one Merveille, a Milanese gentleman, and 
equerry to the King, being thought very fit, 
he was accordingly dispatched thither, with 
private letters of credence and his instructions 
of Ambassador, and with other letters of re- 
commendation to the Duke about his own 
private concerns, the better to colour and cloak 
the business ; and he so long continued in that 
Court that the Emperor, at last, had some 
notion of his real employment there, and com- 
plained of it to the Duke, which was the occa- 
sion of what followed after, as we suppose; 
which was, that under pretence of a murder by 
him said to be committed, his trial was in two 



days dispatched, and his head, in the night, 
struck off in prison. Signor Francisco then, 
being upon this account come to the Court of 
France, prepared with a long counterfeit story 
to excuse a thing of so dangerous example, (for 
the King had applied himself to all the Princes 
of Christendom, as well as to the Duke him- 
self, to demand satisfaction for this outrage 
upon the person of his minister,) had his audi- 
ence at the morning council, where, after he 
had, for the support of his cause, in a long 
premeditated oration, laid open several plausible 
justifications of the fact, he concluded with 
roundly saying that the Duke, his master, had 
never looked upon this Merveille for other than 
a private gentleman, and his own subject, who 
was there only in order to his own business, 
and who had lived there under no other cha- 
racter ; absolutely disowning that he had ever 
heard he was one of the king's servants, or 
that his Majesty so much as knew him, so far 
was he from taking him for an Ambassador. 
When he had made an end, the King, pressing 
him with several objections and assertions, and 
sifting him on all hands, gravelled him at last 
by asking, why then the execution was per- 
formed by night, and as it were by stealth] 
At which the poor confounded Ambassador, the 
more handsomely to disengage himself, made 
answer that the Duke would have been very 
loth, out of respect to his Majesty, that such 
an execution should have been performed in the 
face of the sun. Any one may guess if he was 
not well schooled when he came home, for 
having so grossly tripped in the presence of a 
prince of so delicate a nostril as King Francis.* 
Pope Julius the Second having sent an A m_ 
bassador to the King of England, to animate 
him against King Francis, the Ambassador 
having had his audience, and the King, before 
he would give a positive answer, insisting upon 
the difficulties he found in setting on foot so 
great a preparation as would be necessary to 
attack so potent a king, and, urging some 
reasons to that effect, the Ambassador very un- 
seasonably replied that he had also himself con- 
sidered the same difficulties, and had represented 
as much to the Pope. From which speech of 
his, so directly opposite to the thing propounded, 
and the business he came about, which was 
immediately to incite him to war, the King 
first derived argument to conceive, which he 
afterwards found to be true, that this Ambas- 
sador, in his own private bosom, was a friend 
to the French; of which, having advertised 
the Pope, his estate, at his return home, was 
confiscated, and himself very narrowly escaped 
the losing his head. 3 



» " As a foreigner, to one that understands not what he 
says, cannot be said to supply the place of a man." Pliny, 
Nat. Mist. vii. where, however, the text is pene non sit, 
scarcely is, &c. 

4* 



» Mem. of Martin du Bellay, i. The incident occurred 
in 1534. 

» Erasmus, in his Lingun, relates this circumstance as 
havinj; occurred when lie was iu England. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER X. 

OF QUICK OR SLOW SPEECH. 

One ne feurent a tous toutes graces donnees.» 

" All graces were never yet to all men given," 

as we see in the gift of eloquence, wherein 
some have such a facility and promptness, and 
that which we call a present wit, so easy that 
they are ever ready upon all occasions, and 
never to be surprised : and others, more heavy 
and slow, never venture to utter anything but 
what they have long premeditated, and taken 
great care and pains to fit and prepare. Now, 
as we teach young ladies those sports and 
exercises which are the most proper to set out 
the grace and beauty of those parts wherein 
their chief ornament and perfection lie; so in 
these two different advantages of eloquence, of 
which the lawyers and preachers of our age 
seem principally to make profession, if I were 
worthy to advise, the slow speakers, methinks, 
should be more proper for the 

Mrt/ofeio. 1 P" 1 ?' 1 ' and the other for the bar 5 
quence. and this because the employ- 

ment of the first does naturally 
allow him all the leisure he can desire to pre- 
pare himself, and, besides, his career is performed 
in an even and unintermitted line, without stop 
or interruption ; whereas, the pleader's business 
and interest compels him to enter the lists upon 
all occasions, and the unexpected objections and 
replies of his adverse party often justle him out 
of his course, and put him, upon the instant, 
to pump for new and extempore answers and 
defences. Yet, at the interview betwixt Pope 
Clement and King Francis, at Marseilles, it 
happened, quite contrary, that Monsieur Poyet, 
a man bred up all his life at the bar, and in the 
highest repute for eloquence, having the charge 
of making the harangue to the Pope committed 
to him, and having so long meditated on it 
beforehand, as, it was said, to have brought it 
ready along with him from Paris; the very 
day it was to have been pronounced, the Pope, 
fearing something might be said that might 
give offence to the other Prince's Ambassadors 
who were there attending on him, sent to ac- 
quaint the King with the argument which he 
conceived most suiting to the time and place, 
which, by chance, was quite another thing 
to that Monsieur Poyet had taken so much 
pains about; so that the fine speech he had 
prepared was of no use, and he had, upon the 
instant, to contrive another; which, finding 
himself unable to do, Cardinal du Bellay was 
constrained to perform that office. 2 The 
pleader's part is, doubtless, much harder than 
that of the preacher; and yet, in my opinion, 
we see more passable lawyers than preachers, 
at least in France. It should seem that the 



1 Etienne de la Boetie ; in the Collection of Vers Fran- 
cois published by Montaigne in 15,2. Sonnet xiv. 



nature of wit is to have its operation prompt 
and sudden, and that of judgment, to have it 
more deliberate and more stow: but he who 
remains totally silent for want of leisure to 
prepare himself to speak well, and he also 
whom leisure does no ways benefit to better 
speaking, are equally unhappy. 

'Tis said of Severus Cassius, that he spoke 
best extempore, that he stood more obliged 
to fortune than his own diligence, that it was 
an advantage to him to be interrupted in 
speaking, and that his adversaries were afraid 
to nettle him, lest his anger should redouble 
his eloquence. 3 I know, by experience, a 
disposition so impatient of a tedious and elabo- 
rate premeditation, that if it do not go frankly 
and gaily to work, can do nothing to the 
purpose. We say of some compositions that 
they smell of the lamp, by reason of a certain 
rough harshness that laborious handling im- 
prints upon those where it has been employed. 
But, besides this, the extreme solicitude of 
doing well, and the striving and contending of 
a mind too far strained and over-bent upon its 
undertaking, breaks and hinders itself, like 
water that, by force of its own pressing violence 
and abundance, cannot find a ready issue 
through the neck of a bottle, or a narrow sluice. 
In this condition of nature, of which I now 
speak, there is this also, that it would not be 
disordered and stimulated with such a passion 
as the fury of Cassius ; for such a motion would 
be too violent and rude ; it would not be 
justled, but solicited; it would be roused and 
heated by unexpected, sudden, and accidental 
occasions. If it be left to itself, it flags and 
languishes; agitation only gives it grace and 
vigour. I am always worst in my own posses- 
sion ; and when wholly at my own disposition, 
accident has more title to any thing'that comes 
from me, than I; occasion, company, and even 
the very rising and falling of my own voice, 
extract more from my fancy than I can find 
when I examine and employ it by myself, so 
that the things I say are better than those I 
write, if either were to be preferred where 
neither is worth any thing. This also befals 
me, that I am at a loss when I seek, and light 
upon things more by chance than by any in- 
quisition of my own judgment. I, perhaps, 
sometimes hit upon a good point, when I am 
writing (I mean that seems so to me, though 
it may appear dull and heavy to another — but 
no more of these complimentaries — every one 
says this sort of thing about himself,) but when 
I come to read it, afterwards, I cannot make 
out what I meant to say, and, in such cases, a 
stranger often finds it out before me. If I were 
always to scratch out such parts, I should make 
clean work of my book ; but then, some other 
time, chance shows me the meaning as clear as 
the sun at noon-day, and makes me wonder 
what I should stick at. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



43 



CHAPTER XI. 

OF PROGNOSTICATIONS. 

As to oracles, it is certain that, long before the 
coming of Jesus Christ, they be- 
Decayof gan to lose their credit; for we 

oracles. se e that Cicero is troubled to rind 

out the cause of their decay, in 
these words: Cur isto modo jam oracula 
Delphis eduntur, non modo nostra setate, 
Bed jamdiu, ut nihil possit esse contemptius. 1 
" What should be the reason that the oracles 
at Delphos are so uttered, not only in this age 
of ours, but for a great while since, that 
nothing can be more contemptible V But as 
to the other prognostics, calculated from the 
anatomy of beasts at sacrifices, which Plato 
does, in part, attribute to the natural constitu- 
tion of the intestines of the beasts themselves, 
from the scraping of poultry, the flight of 
birds, {Aves quasdam, rerum augur andarum 
causa natas esse putamus ,- 2 " We think 
some sorts of birds were purposely created for 
the purposes of augury ;") claps of thunder, 
the winding of rivers, multa cernunt arus- 
pices, multa augures provident, multa oraculis 
declarantur, multa vaticinationibus, multa 
somniis, multa portends? " Soothsayers and 
augers conjecture and foresee many things, and 
many things are foretold in oracles, prophecies, 
dreams, and portents;" and others of the like 
nature, upon which antiquity founded most of 
their public and private enterprizes, our Chris- 
tian religion has totally abolished, although 
there yet remain amongst us some practices of 
divination from the stars, from spirits, from the 
shapes and complexions of men, from dreams 
and the like (a notable proof of the wild curi- 
osity of our nature grasping at, and anticipating, 
future things, as if we had not enough to do to 
digest the present). 

Cur hanc tibi, rector Olvmpi, 
Solicitis visum mortalibus addere curam, 
Noscant Venturas ut dira per omnia clades? 



Sit subitum quodcuuque paras; sit creca futuri 
Mens hominum fati ; liceat sperare tiinenti.* 

11 Why, sov'reign ruler of Olympus, why 
To human breasts, which breathe the anxious sigh, 
Add'st thou this care, that men should be so wise 
To know, by omens, future miseries? 



Unlook"d for send the ills thou hast design'd; 

Let human eyes to future fate be blind, 

That hope, amidst our fears, some place may find." 

iVe utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit ; 
miserum est enim nihil proficientem angi. 6 " It 
is of no avail to know what shall come to pass, 
for it is a miserable thing to be vexed and tor- 
mented to no purpose." Yet are they of much 
less authority now than heretofore. Which 
makes the example of Francis, Marquis 

» Cicer. de Divin. ii. 57. 

» Cicer. de JVat. Deorum, ii. 64. 

» Cic. de A"«(. Deo. iii. u. 

* Id. Hi. 65. 

» Lucau ii. 4. 



of Saluzzo, so much more remarkable; who? 
being lieutenant to King Francis the First, 
in his army beyond the mountains, infinitely 
favoured and esteemed in our Court, and 
obliged to the king's bounty for the Marqui- 
sate itself, which had been forfeited by his 
brother; and, as to the rest, having no manner 
of provocation given him to do it, and even 
his own affection opposing any such disloyalty ; 
suffered himself to be so terrified, as it was 
confidently reported, with the fine prognostics 
that were spread abroad in favour of the Em- 
peror Charles the Fifth, and, to our disadvan- 
tage, especially in Italy; where these foolish 
prophecies were so far believed that, at Rome, 
great sums of money were ventured out upon 
return of greater when they came to pass, so 
certain they made themselves of our ruin ; that, 
having bewailed, to those of his acquaintance 
who were most intimate with him, the mischiefs 
that he saw would inevitably fall upon the 
Crown of France, and the friends he had in 
that Court, he revolted and turned to the other 
side ; but to his own misfortune, however, what 
constellation soever governed at that time. But 
he carried himself in this affair like a man 
agitated with divers passions ; for, having both 
towns and forces in his hands, the enemy's 
army, under Antonio de Leyva, close by him, 
and we not at all suspecting his design, it had 
been in his power to have done more than he 
did ; for we lost no men by this treason of his, 
nor any town but Fossan only, and that after a 
long siege and a brave defence. 6 

Prudens futuri temporis exitum 
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus; 
Ridetque, si mortalis ultra 
Fas trepidat. 7 

" The God of wisdom has, in shades of night, 
Future events conceal'd from human sight; 
And laughs when he beholds the tiin'roijs ass 
Tremble at what shall never come to pass." 
Ille potens sui, 
Laetusque deget, cui licet in diem 

Dixisse, vixi ; eras vel atra 
Nube polum pater occupato, 
Vel sole puro.' 

"He's master of himself alone. 
He lives, that makes each day his own ; 
Who for to-morrow takes no care. 
Whether the day prove foul or fair." 



And, on the contrary, those who believe this 
saying are in the wrong : Ista sic reciprocantur, 
vt el, si divinalio sit, dii sint ; et, si dii sint, 
sit divinalio? "These things have that mutual 
relation to one another that, if there be such 
a thing as divination, there must be deities; 
and if deities, divination." Much more wisely 
Pacuvius: 

« Anno. 1536. Mem. of William du Bellay, vi. 

' Horace, iii. 29. 

8 Id. lb. ii. 16. 

Cic. de Divin. i. 6. 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Nam istis, quilinguam avium intelligent, 
Flusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt, quam ex suo, 
Magis audiendum, quam auscultandum censeo. 1 

"Those who birds' language understand, and v/ho 
More from brutes' livers than themselves do know, 
Are rather to be heard than hearkened to." 

The so celebrated art of divination, amongst 
the Tuscans, took its beginning 
art g of divi he thus: a labourer ' striking deep 
nation. with his coulter into the earth, 

saw the Demi-God Tages to 
ascend with an infantile aspect, but endued 
with a mature and senile wisdom. Upon the 
rumour of which all the people ran to see the 
sight, by whom his words and knowledge, 
containing the principles and means to attain 
to this art, were collected and kept for many 
ages. 2 A birth suitable to its progress ! I, for 
my part, should sooner regulate my affairs by 
the chance of a die than by such idle and vain 
dreams. And indeed, in all Republics, a good 
share of the government has ever been referred 
to chance. Plato, 3 in the system that he models 
according to his own fancy, leaves the decision 
of several things, of very great importance, 
wholly to it; and will, amongst other things, 
that marriages, of the better sort, as he reputes, 
be appointed by lot, attributing so great virtue 
and adding so great a privilege to this accidental 
choice as to ordain that the children begot in 
such wedlock be brought up in the country, 
as those begot, in any other to he thrust out as 
spurious and base ; yet so that if any of those 
exiles, notwithstanding, should, peradventure, 
in growing up, give any early hopes of future 
ability, they might be recalled, as, on the other 
hand, those who had been retained were to be 
exiled in case they gave little promise of them- 
selves in their greener years. 

I see some, who are mightily given to study, 
pore and comment upon their almanacs, and 
produce them for authority when any thing has 
fallen out; and, indeed, it is hardly possible 
but that, in saying so much, they must some- 
times stumble upon some truth amongst an 
infinite number of lies. Qiiis est enim qui 
totum diem jaculans non aliquando collineet ? 4 
" For who shoots all day at buts that does not 
sometimes hit the white?" I think never the 
better of them for some accidental hits. There 
would be more certainty in it if there were a 
rule and a truth in always lying. Besides, 
nobody records their flim-flams and false prog- 
nostics, forasmuch as they are infinite and 
common ; but if they chop upon one truth, that 
carries a mighty report, as being rare, incredible, 
and prodigious. So Diagoras, surnamed the 
Atheist, answered him in Samothrace, who 
showing him, in the Temple, the several offer- 



i Pacuvius apud Cic. tit supra, i. 57. 

2 Ovid. Met. xv. Cicero, ut svpra, ii. 25. 

a Republic, v.; where he requires that the chiefs of 
his commonwealth should so order it that the men of the 
greatest excellence should be matched with the most ex- 
cellent women; and, on the contrary, that the most 
contemptible men should be married to women of their 



ings and stories, in painting, of those who had 
escaped shipwreck, said to him, " Look, you who 
think the Gods have no care of human things, 
what do you say to so many persons preserved 
from death by their especial favour?" 6 "Why, 
I say," answered he, " that their pictures are 
not here who were cast away, which were by 
much the greater number." 

Cicero observes that, of all the philosophers 
who nave acknowledged a Deity, only Xeno- 
phanes, the Colophonian, has endeavoured to 
eradicate all manner of divination. 6 Which 
makes it the less a wonder if we have sometimes 
seen some of our princes, to their own cost rely 
too much upon these fopperies. I had given 
any thing, that I had, with my own eyes, seen 
those two great rarities, the book of Joachim, 
the Calabrian Abbot, which foretold all the 
future Popes, their names, and figures; and 
that of the Emperor Leo, which prophesied 
all the Emperors and Patriarchs of Greece. 
This I have been an eye-witness of, that, in 
public confusions, men, astonished at their 
fortune, have abandoned their own reason, 
superstitiously to seek out, in the stars, the 
ancient causes and menaces of their present 
mishaps, and, in my time, have been so 
strangely successful in it as to make me believe 
that, as this study is the amusement for men of 
leisure and penetration, those who have been 
versed in this knack of unfolding and untying 
riddles are able, in any writing, to find out 
what they want to find there. But, above all, 
that which gives them the greatest room to play 
in is the obscure, ambiguous, and fantastic gib- 
berish of their prophetic canting, where the 
authors deliver nothing of clear sense, but 
shroud all in riddle, to the end that posterity 
may interpret and apply it according to their 
own fancy. 

Socrates' Daemon, or Familiar, might per- 
haps be no other but a certain 
impulsion of the will, which ob- D ™mon! 
truded itself upon him without 
the advice or consent of his judgment; and, in 
a soul so enlightened as his was, and so pre- 
pared by a continual exercise of wisdom and 
virtue, 'tis to be supposed those inclinations of 
his, though sudden and undigested, were ever 
very important and worthy to be followed. 
Every one finds in himself some image of such 
agitations, of a prompt, vehement, and fortui- 
tous opinion ; and I must needs allow them 
some authority who attribute so little to our 
own prudence, and who also myself have had 
some, weak in reason, but violent in persuasion 
or dissuasion (which were most frequent with 
Socrates), 7 by which I have suffered myself to 
be carried away so fortunately, and so much to 



own low character; but that the thin? should he dciiled 
by a sort of lottery, so artfully managed (/cXSpoi noifiTtut 
KOfiiloi) that the latter may blame fortune for it, and not 
their governors. 

4 Cicero de Divinat. ii. 59. 

6 Cicero de JVat. Dear. i. 37. 

6 Id. de Divinat. i. 3. ' Plato, Tluages. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



43 



my own advantage, that they might have been 
judged to have had something in them of a 
divine inspiration. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OF CONSTANCY, OR FIRMNESS. 

The law of resolution and constancy does not 
imply that we ought not, as much 
in what con- a s in us lies, to decline, and to 
resXion secure ourselves from, the mis- 

consists, chiefs and inconveniences that 

threaten us; nor, consequently, 
that we shall not fear lest they should surprise 
us; on the contrary, all decent and honest 
ways and means of securing ourselves from 
harm are not only permitted, but moreover 
commendable, and the business of constancy 
chiefly is bravely to stand to, and stoutly to 
suffer those inconveniences which are not to be 
avoided. There is no motion of body nor any 
manner of handling arms, how irregular or 
ungraceful soever, that we condemn, if it 
serve to defend us from the blow that is made 
against us. 

Several very warlike nations have made use 
of a retiring and flying way of fight, as a 
thing of singular advantage, and, by so doing, 
have made their backs more dangerous than 
their faces to their enemies. Of which kind of 
fighting the Turks yet retain something in their 
practice of arms to this day ; and Socrates, in 
Plato, laughs at Laches, who had defined 
fortitude to be standing firm in the ranks 
against the enemy : " What," says he, " would 
it then be reputed cowardice to overcome them 
by giving ground V ' urging, at the same 
time, the authority of Homer, who commends 
iEneas for his skill in running away. And 
whereas Laches, considering better of it, admits 
'twas the practice of the Scythians, and in 
general of all cavalry whatever, he again 
attacks him with the example of the Lacede- 
monian foot (a nation, of all others, the most 
obstinate in maintaining their ground), who, in 
the battle of Platea, not being able to break 
into the Persian phalanx, bethought themselves 
to disperse and retire, that, by the enemies' sup- 
posing they fled, they might break and disunite 
that vast body of men in the pursuit, and, by 
that stratagem obtained the victory. 

As for the Scythians, 'tis said of them that, 
when Darius went on his expedition to subdue 
them, he sent, by a herald, highly to reproach 
their King that he always retired before him 
and declined a battle; to which Indathyrsis, 2 
for that was his name, returned answer, "That 
it was not for fear of him or of any man living, 
that he did so, but that it was the way of 
marching in practice with his nation, who had 



neither tilled fields, cities, nor houses to defend, 
or to fear the enemy should make any advan- 
tage of; but that if he had such a stomach to 
fight, let him come but to view their ancient 
place of sepulture, and there he should have 
his fill." 

Nevertheless, as to what concerns cannon 
shot, when a body of men are drawn up in the 
face of a train of artillery, as the occasion of 
war does often require, 'tis unhandsome to quit 
their post to avoid the danger, and a foolish 
thing to boot, forasmuch a3 by reason of its 
force and swiftness we account it inevitable, 
and many a one, by ducking, stepping aside, 
and such other motions of fear, has, if no 
worse, got laughed at by his companions. And 
yet, in the expedition that the Emperor Charles 
the Fifth made against us into Provence, the 
Marquis de Guasto going to reconnoitre the 
city of Aries, and venturing to advance out of 
the shelter of a wind-mill, under favour of 
which he had made his approach, was perceived 
by the Seigneurs de Bonneval and the Sene- 
schal d'Agenois, who were walking upon the 
Theatre aux arenes ; 3 who, having showed him 
to the Sieur de Villiers, commissary of the ar- 
tillery, he traversed a culverine so admirably 
well, and levelled it so exactly right at hirn, 
that had not the Marquis, seeing fire put to it, 
slipped aside, it was certainly concluded the 
shot had taken him full in the body. 4 And, in 
like manner, some years before, Lorenzo de 
Medici, Duke of Urbino, and father to the 
Queen-mother, 6 laying siege to Mondolpho, a 
place in the territories of the Vicariat, in Italy, 
seeing the cannoneer give fire to a piece that 
pointed directly against him, ducked, and it 
was well for him, for otherwise the shot, that 
only razed the top of his head, had, doubtless, 
hit him full in the breast. To say truth, I do 
not think that these dodgings are at all a matter 
of judgment or reflection ; for how is a man to 
judge of high or low aim on so sudden an 
occasion? It is much more easy to believe 
that fortune favoured their fear, and that the 
same movement, that at one time saves a man, 
may, at another, make him step into danger. 
For my own part, I confess, I cannot forbear 
starting when the rattle of a harquebuse 
thunders in my ears on a sudden, and, in a 
place where I am not to expect it, which I 
have also observed in others, braver fellows 
than I. 

Neither do the Stoicks pretend that the soul 
of their philosopher should be 
proof against the first visions and not" wafneabie 
fantasies that surprise him; but, f or yielding to 
I as a natural subject, consent tlle first ""• 
that he should tremble at the {JaSns 
terrible noise of thunder or the 
sudden clatter of some falling ruin, and be 
affrighted even to paleness and convulsion. 



» Plato, Laches. 

» Or rather Idanthyrses. Her. iv. 127. [were exhibited. 

• A theatre where public shows of riding, fencing, &c, 



* Mem. of William du Bellay, vii. 

• Catherine de Medici. 



46 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



And so in other passions, provided a man's 
judgment remains sound and entire, and that 
the site of his reason suffers no concussion nor 
alteration, and that he yields no consent to his 
fright and discomposure. To him who is not a 
philosopher, a fright is the same in the first 
part of it, but quite another thing in the 
second ; for the impression of the passions does 
not only remain superficially in him, but pene- 
trates farther, even to the very seat of reason, 
and so as to infect and to corrupt it. He judges 
according to his fear, and conforms his be 4 
haviour to it. 1 But in this verse you may see 
the true state of the wise stoick learnedly and 
plainly expressed. 

Mens immota manet, lacryms volvuntur inanes.' 
" His humid eye frail, fruitless tear-drops rains, 

But the firm purpose of his mind remains." 

The wise Peripatetick is not himself totally 
free from perturbations of mind, but he mode- 
rates them by his wisdom. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CEREMONY OF THE INTERVIEW OF 
PRINCES. 

There is no subject so frivolous that does not 
merit a place in this rhapsody. 
which 6 gentle- Accord i n g to the common rule of 
men are obiig- civility, it would be a notable 
ed to pay to a affront to an equal, and much 
lisits "them more to a superior, to fail of being 
at home when he has given you 
notice he will come to visit you. Nay, queen 
Margaret of Navarre farther adds that it would 
be rudeness in a gentleman to go out to meet 
any one that is coming to see him, let him be 
of what condition soever ; and that it is more 
respectful and more civil to stay at home to 
receive him, if only upon the account of missing 
of him by the way, and that it is enough to 
receive him at the door, and to wait upon him 
to his chamber. For my part, who, as much as 
I can, endeavour to reduce the ceremonies of 
my house, I very often forget both the one and 
the other of these vain offices, and peradven- 
ture some one may take offence at it; if he 
do, I am sorry, but I cannot find in my heart 
to help it ; it is much better to offend him once 
than myself every day, for it would be a per- 
petual slavery ; and to what end do we avoid 
the servile attendance of courts, if we bring the 
same, or a greater trouble, home to our own 
private houses 1 It is also a common rule in all 
assemblies that those of less quality are to be 
first at the place, by reason that it is a state 
more due to the better sort to make others wait 
for them. 



J Arrian, Life of Epictetus. Apud. Aul. Gell. xix. 1. 
" jEneid, iv. 449. 
a The Seventh, in 1533. 

4 Pope Clement VII. and Charles V. in 1532. See Guicci- 
ardine xx. 



Nevertheless, at the interview betwixt pope 
Clement, 3 and king Francis, at 
Marseilles, the king, after he had Th e " sual ce - 
in his own person taken order for l^tvie-w 1 of" 8 
the necessary preparations for his princes, 
reception and entertainment, with- 
drew out of the town, and gave the pope two 
or three days' leisure for his entry, and wherein 
to repose and refresh himself before he came to 
him. And in like manner, at the meeting of the 
pope 4 and the emperor at Bologna, the emperor 
gave the pope opportunity to come thither first, 
and came himself after ; for which the reason 
then given was this — that, at all the interviews 
of such princes, the greater ought to be first at 
the appointed place, especially before the other 
in whose territories the interview is appointed 
to be, intimating thereby a kind of deference 
to the other, and that it appears proper for the 
less to seek out, and to apply themselves to the 
greater, and not the greater to them. 

Not every country only, but every city, and 
so much as every profession, has 



my education, and I have lived in 
good company enough to know the formalities 
of our own nation, and am able to give lessons 
in it ; I love also to follow them, but not to be 
so servilely tied to their observation that my 
whole life should be enslaved to ceremonies ; of 
which there are some that, provided a man 
omits them out of discretion, and not for want 
of breeding, it will be every whit as handsome 
in him. I have seen some people rude, by being 
over civil, and troublesome by 

their courtesy; though, these T f he ad ' an ' a f * s 
j ' , ., , s ' , , of good man- 
excesses excepted, the knowledge ners. 
of courtesy and good manners is 
a very necessary study. It is, like grace and 
beauty, that which begets liking and an incli- 
nation to love one another at the first sight, and 
in the very beginning of an acquaintance and 
familiarity ; and, consequently, that which first 
opens the door for us to better ourselves by 
the example of others, if there be any thing in 
the society worth notice. 5 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THAT MEN ARE JUSTLY PUNISHED FOR 
BEING OBSTINATE IN THE DEFENCE OF 
A FORT THAT IS NOT IN REASON TO BE 
DEFENDED. 

Valour, as well as other virtues, has its bounds, 
which once transgressed, the next 
step is into the territories of vice ; ,Y * -£ r and ,ts 
so that by having too large a pro- 
portion of this heroic virtue, unless a man be 



s In the edition of 1583, Montaigne placed here the chap- 
ter " That the relish of good and evil depends on the opinion 
we have of either," which he afterwards made the fortietb 
chapter. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



47 



very perfect in its limits, which upon the con- 
fines are very hard to discern, he may very 
easily unawares run into temerity, obstinacy, 
and folly. From this consideration it is that 
we have derived the custom, in time of war, 
to punish, even with death, those 
Why too obsti- who are obstinate to defend a 
nate a defence p ] ace that j g not tenable by the 
of a place is r , c _. . . .-{, 

punished. rules of war. Otherwise, if there 

were not some examples made, 
men would be so confident upon the hopes of 
impunity that not a hen-roost but would resist 
and stop a royal army. 

Monsieur the constable de Montmorency, 
having at the siege of Pavia been ordered to 
pass the Tesino, and to take up his quarters in 
the Fauxbourg St. Antonio, being hindered 
from doing so, by a tower that was at the end 
of the bridge, which was so impudent as to 
stand a battery, hanged every man he found 
within it for their labour. 1 And again, since, 
accompanying the Dauphin in his expedition, 
beyond the Alps, and taking the castle of 
Villano by assault, and all within it having 
been put to the sword, the governor and his 
ensign only excepted, he caused them both to 
be trussed up for the same reason ; 2 as also did 
Captain Martin du Bel lay, then governor of 
Turin, the governor of St. Bony, in the same 
country, all his people being cut in pieces at 
the taking of the place. 3 

But, forasmuch as the strength or weakness 
of a fortress is always measured by the estimate 
and counterpoise of the forces that attack it 
(for a man might reasonably enough despise 
two culverines that would be a mad-man to 
abide a battery of thirty pieces of cannon); 
where also the greatness of the prince who is 
master of the field, his reputation, and the 
respect that is due unto him, are put into the 
account, there is always danger that the balance 
will turn that way ; and thence it is that such 
people have so great an opinion of themselves 
and their power that, thinking it unreasonable 
any place should dare to shut its gates against 
them, they put all to the sword where they 
meet with any opposition, whilst their fortune 
continues; as is observable in the fierce and 
arrogant forms of summoning towns and de- 
nouncing war, savouring so much of bar- 
barian pride and insolence, in use amongst the 
oriental princes, and which their successors to 
this day do yet retain and practise. And 
that part of the world where the Portuguese 
subdued the Indians, they found some states 
where it was an universal and inviolable law 
amongst them that every enemy, overcome by 
the king in person, or by his representative 
lieutenant, was out of composition both of 
ransom and mercy. 

So that above all things a man should take 



1 Mem. of Martin ilu llrllav, ii. 

a William du liellav, viii. s Id. ib. ii. 

•To Henry VIII. who "bi'sii'ired it in person. Mem. of 
Martin du Bcllay, x. 



heed of falling into the hands of a judge who 
is an enemy, in arms, and victorious. 



CHAPTER XV. 

OF THE PUNISHMENT OF COWARDICE. 

I once heard of a prince, and a great captain, 
who having a narration given him 
as he sat at table of the proceeding ^VtXpiin! 
against Monsieur de Vervins, who j S hed in a sol- 
was sentenced to death for having dier. 
surrendered Boulogne to the Eng- 
lish, 4 openly maintained that a soldier could 
not justly be put to death for his want of 
courage. And in truth, a man should make a 
great difference betwixt faults that merely pro- 
ceed from infirmity and those that are visibly 
the effects of treachery and malice ; for, in the 
last, men wilfully act against the rules of reason 
that nature has imprinted in us ; whereas in the 
former it seems as if we might produce the 
same nature, who left us in such a state of 
imperfection and defect of courage, for our 
justification. Insomuch that many have thought 
we are not justly questionable for any thing 
but what we commit against the light of our 
own conscience. And it is partly upon this 
rule that those ground their opinion who dis- 
approve-of capital and sanguinary punishments 
inflicted upon heretics and infidels ; and theirs 
also who hold that an advocate or a judge 
is not accountable for having failed in his 
commission from ignorance. 

But as to cowardice, it is certain that the 
most usual way of chastising it 
is by ignominy and disgrace ; and The usual 
it is supposed that this practice ^fnVcowaVd. 
was first brought into use by the ice. 
legislator Charondas; and that 
before his time the laws of Greece punished 
those with death who fled from a battle; 
whereas he ordained only that they should 
three days exposed in the public pla 
in women's attire, hoping yet for some service 
from them, having awakened their courage by 
this open shame ; 5 Suffundere malts kominis 
sanguinem quam effundere, 6 " Choosing rather 
to bring the blood into their cheeks than to let 
it out of their bodies." It appears, also, that 
the Roman laws did anciently punish those with 
death who had run away ; for Ammianus Mar- 
cellinus says that the emperor Julian com- 
manded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their 
backs in an encounter against the Parthians, to 
be first degraded, and afterwards put to death, 
according, says he, to the ancient laws. 7 Yet, 
elsewhere for the like offence, he only con- 
demns others to remain amongst the prisoners 



» Diod. Siculus, xii. 4. 

o Tertullian, Jipolog. p. 583. 

i Ammianus Marcellinus, x.xiv. 4. and xiv. 1. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



under the baggage ensign. The severe punish- 
ment the people of Rome inflicted upon those 
who fled from the battle of Cannae, and in the 
Bame war upon those who ran away with 
Cneius Fulvius, at his defeat, did not extend to 
death. 1 And yet methinks men should consider 
what they do in such cases, lest disgrace should 
make such delinquents desperate, and not only 
faint friends, but implacable and mortal ene- 
mies. 

Of late memory, the Seigneur de Frauget, 
lieutenant to the Mareschal de Chatillon's com- 

pany, having, by the Mareschal 
norVf a 8 piace de Chabannes, been put in gover- 
was punished nor of Fontarabia, in the place of 
for his coward- Monsieur de Lude, and having 

surrendered it to the Spaniards, 
he was for that condemned to be degraded from 
all nobility, and both himself and his posterity 
declared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapa- 
ble of bearing arms; which hard sentence was 
executed at Lyons; 2 and since that all the 
gentlemen who were in Guise when the Count 
de Nassau entered it, underwent the same pun- 
ishment, as several others have done since for 
the like offence. However, in case of such a 
manifest ignorance or cowardice as exceeds all 
ordinary example, 'tis but reason to take it for 
a sufficient proof of treachery and malice, and 
to puuish it accordingly. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A PROCEEDING OF SOME AMBASSADORS. 

I observe in my travels this custom, ever to 
learn something from the informa- 

Min^observed ti0D ° f th ° Se wit ° wh ° m I COnfer 

by Montaigne, (which is the best school of all 
others) and to put my company 
upon those subjects they are the best able to 
speak of: 

Basti al nocchiero ragionar de' venti, 

Al bifolco dei tori ; et le sue piaghe 

Conti '1 guerrier, conti '1 pastor gli armenti. 3 

" The seaman best discourses of the winds, 
Of oxen none so well as lab'ring hinds ; 
The soldier best can talk of wounds and knocks, 
And gentle shepherds of their harmless flocks ;" 

for it often falls out that, on the contrary, 
every one will rather choose to be prating of 
another man's business than his own, thinking 
it so much new reputation acquired ; witness 
the jeer Archidamus put upon Periander, that 
he had quitted the glory of being an excellent 
physician to gain the repute of a very bad 
poet. 4 And do but observe what a vast deal 
of pains Csesar is at to make us understand his 
inventions in building bridges, and contriving 
engines of war, 6 and how succinct and reserved 
in comparison, where he speaks of the rules of 



i Livv. xxv 7., xxvi. 2. 

» In 1523. Mem. of Martin du Bellay, ii. 

3 Propcrtius, ii. Eleg. i. 43, as rendered hy Ariosto. 

* Plutarch, Jipoih. of Ike Lacedemonians. 



his profession, and his own valour, and military 
conduct. His exploits sufficiently prbve him a 
great captain, and that he knew well enough, 
but he would be thought a good engineer to 
boot ; a quality not to be expected in him. The 
elder Dionysius was a very great captain, as it 
befitted his" fortune he should be ; but he took 
very great pains to get a particular reputation 
by poetry, and yet he never was cut out for a 
poet. A gentleman of the long robe being not 
long since brought to see a study furnished with 
all sorts of books, both of his own and all 
other faculties, took no occasion to discourse of 
any of them, but fell very rudely and imperti- 
nently to animadvert upon a barricado placed 
before the study door, a thing that a hundred 
captains and common soldiers see every day 
without taking any notice or ofFence at 

Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus.a 

"The lazy ox would saddle have and bit, 
The steed a yoke ; neither for either fit." 

By this course a man shall never improve 
himself, nor arrive at any perfection in any 
thing. He must, therefore, make it his busi- 
ness always to put the architect, the painter, 
the shoe-maker, and so on, upon discourse of 
his own business. 

And, to this purpose, in reading histories, 
which is every body's subject, I _ . 
use to consider what kind of men ^Z^e 
are the authors ; if they be per- profession of 
sons that profess nothing but mere j£ e ™£ er of 
learning, J, in and from them, 
principally observe and learn the style and lan- 
guage ; if physicians, I upon that account the 
rather incline to credit what they report of the 
temperature of the air, of the health and com- 
plexions of princes, of wounds, and diseases; if 
lawyers, we are from them to take notice of the 
controversies of right and title, the establish- 
ment of laws and civil government, and the 
like ; if divines, of the affairs of the church, 
ecclesiastical censures, marriages and dispensa- 
tions; if courtiers, of manners and ceremonies; 
if soldiers, of the things that belong to their 
trade, and principally the accounts of such 
actions and enterprizes wherein they were per- 
sonally engaged ; and if ambassadors, we are 
to observe their negotiations, intelligences, and 
practices, and the manner how they are to be 
carried on. 

And this is the reason why that which perhaps 
I should have lightly passed over in another, I 
dwelt upon and maturely considered in the 
history writ by the Seigneur de Langey, 7 (a 
man well versed in, and of very great judg- 
ment in things of that nature,) that is, where 
after having given a narrative of the fine oration 
Charles V. had made in the consistory at Rome, 
and in the presence of the bishop of Mascon 
and the Seigneur du Velly, our ambassadors 



6 See, in part icular, his description of the bridge over trie 
Rhine. De Bell. Gull. iv. 17. 
6 Horace, Epist. xiv. 1. 
' Martin du Bellay, Seigneur de Langey. See bis Mom. v. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



there, wherein he had mixed several tart and 
injurious expressions to the dishonour of our 
nation; and, amongst the rest, that if his cap- 
tains and soldiers were not men of another 
kind of fidelity, resolution, and sufficiency in 
the knowledge of arms, than those of the king - , 
he would immediately go with a rope about his 
neck and sue to him for mercy (and it should 
seem the emperor had really this,, or a very 
little better, opinion of our military men, for he 
afterwards, twice or thrice in his life, said the 
very same thing); as also that he challenged 
the king to fight him in his shirt with rapier 
and poniard, in a boat: the said Sieur de 
Langey, pursuing his history, adds that the 
forenamed ambassadors, sending a dispatch to 
the king of these things, concealed the greatest 
part, and particularly the two last passages. 
At which I could not but wonder 
Aquestion whe- that it should be in the power of 
ambassador'" 5 S an ambassador to dispense with 
ought to con- any thing which he ought to sig- 
ffombScfhif nif y t0 h ! s master especially of 
own affairs. so great importance as this, co- 
ming from the mouth of such a 
person, and spoken in so great an assembly ; and 
should rather conceive it had been the servant's 
duly faithfully to have represented to him the 
whole and naked truth as it passed, to the end 
that the liberty of disposing, judging and con- 
cluding might have remained in the master; 
for either to conceal, or to disguise the truth, 
for fear he should take it otherwise than he 
ought to do, and lest it should prompt him to 
some extravagant "resolution, and in the mean 
time to leave him ignorant of his affairs, should 
seem, methinks, rather to belong to him who is 
to give the law, than to him who is only to 
receive it; to him who is in supreme command, 
and best can judge of his own interests, and 
not to him who ought to look upon himself 
as inferior, not only in authority, but in pru- 
dence and good counsel. At any rate, I for 
my part would be loth to be so served in my 
little concerns. 

We do so willingly slip the collar of com- 
mand, upon any pretence what- 
Nothing more ever, and are so ready to usurp 
permr" than dominion, and every one does so 
implicit obe- ^naturally aspire to liberty and 
dience. power, that no advantage what- 

ever derived from the wit or 
valour of those he employs ought to be so dear 
to a superior as a downright and implicit obe- 
dience. To obey more as a matter of discre- 
tion than subjection is to corrupt the office, and 
to subvert the power of command ; and P. Cras- 
sus, the same whom the Romans reputed five 
times happy, 1 at the time when he was consul 
in Asia, having sent to a Greek engineer to 
cause the greater of two masts of ships, that he 
had taken notice of at Athens, to be brought 



In that he was very rich, most noble, most eloquent, 
niosi Kkill'ul in I In- law, ami the highest in the piicsilx.ud. 
—Jiul. on/, i. 13, 
5 



to him, to be employed about some engine of 
battery he had a design to make; the other, 
presuming upon his own science and sufficiency 
in those affairs, thought fit to do otherwise than 
directed, and to bring the less: as being, ac- 
cording to the rules of his art, more proper for 
the use to which it was designed. But Crassus, 
though he gave ear to his reasons with great 
patience, caused him to be well whipped for 
his pains, valuing the interest of discipline much 
more than that of the thing in hand. 

Yet we may, on the other side, consider that 
so precise and implicit an obedience as this is 
only due to positive and peremptory commands. 
The functions of an ambassador are not so fixed 
and precise but they must, in the various and 
unforeseen occurrences and accidents that may 
fall out in the management of a negociation, be 
wholly left to their own discretion. They do 
not simply execute the will of their master, but 
by their own wisdom form and model it also; 
and I have in my time known men of command 
who have been checked for having rather 
obeyed the express words of the king's letters 
than the necessity of the affairs they had in 
hand. Men of understanding do yet to this 
day condemn the custom of the Kings of Persia, 
to give their lieutenants and agents so little 
rein that, upon the least arising difficulties they 
must evermore have recourse to farther com- 
mands; this delay, in so vast an extent of 
dominion, having often very much prejudiced 
their affairs. And Crassus writing to a man 
whose profession it was best to understand those 
things, and pre-acquainting him to what use 
this mast was designed, did he not seem to con- 
sult his advice, and in a manner invite him to 
interpose his judgment? 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Obstupui, steteruntque coma;, et vox faucibus hiesit. 2 

" Aghast, astonished, and struck dumb with fear, 

I stood: like bristles rose my stiffened hair." 

I am not so good a naturalist (as they call it 3 ) as 
to discern by what secret springs 
fear acts in us; but I am wise efftfctVof'fcar. 
enough to know that it is a 
strange passion, and such an one that the phy- 
sicians say there is no other whatever that 
sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper 
seat; which is so true that I myself have seen 
very many become frantic through fear ; and 
even in those of the best settled temper, it is 
most certain that it begets a terrible astonish- 
ment and confusion during the fit. I omit the 
vulgar sort, to whom it one while represents 
their great grandsires risen out of their graves 



= yF.neid, ii. 774. 

3 By this parenthesis, it would nppenr that the term 
naturalist was bat jusl adopted into the French language. 
D 






50 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



in their shrouds, another while hobgoblins, 
weir-wolves, and chimeras ; but even amongst 
soldiers (a sort of men over whom, of all others, 
it ought to have the least power) how often has 
it converted flocks of sheep into armed squad- 
rons, reeds and bull-rushes into pikes and 
lances, friends into enemies, and the French 
white into the red crosses of Spain ! When 
Monsieur de Bourbon took the city of Rome, 1 
an ensign, who was on guard at the Bourg St. 
Pierre, was seized with such a fright, upon the 
first alarm, that he threw himself out at a 
breach with his colours upon his shoulder, ran 
directly upon the enemy, thinking he was re- 
treating toward the inward defences of the 
city ; and, with much ado, seeing Monsieur de 
Bourbon's people, who thought it had been a 
sally upon them, draw up to receive him, at last 
came to himself; and finding his error, and 
then facing about, retreated full speed through 
the same breach by which he had gone out; 
but not until he had first blindly advanced 
above three hundred paces into the open field. 
It did not, however, fall out so well with Cap- 
tain Julius's ensign, at the time when St. Pol 
was taken from us by the Count de Bures and 
Monsieur du Reu ; for he, being so scared with 
fear as to throw himself and his fellows out at 
a port-hole, was immediately cut to pieces by 
the enemy; 2 and in the same siege it was a 
very memorable fear that so seized, contracted, 
and froze up the heart of a young gentleman, 
that he sunk down stone dead in the breach, 
without any manner of wound or hurt at all. 3 
The like madness sometimes seizes on a whole 
multitude; for in one of the encounters that 
Germanicus had with the Germans, two great 
parties were so amazed with fear that they ran 
two opposite ways, the one flying to the same 
place from which the other set out. 4 Sometimes 
it adds wings to the heels, as in the two first 
cases, and sometimes nails them to the ground, 
and fetters them from moving ; as we read of 
the Emperor Theophilus, who, in a battle he 
lost against the Agarenes, was so astounded 
and stupified that he had no power to fly; 
aded pavor etiam auxilia formida : 5 " so much 
does fear dread even the means of safety:" 
'till such time as Manuel, one of the principal 
commanders of his army, having jogged and 
shaken him so as to rouse him out of his 
trance, said to him, " Sir, if you will not follow 
me, I will kill you ; for it is better you should 
lose your life than, by being taken, lose the 
, empire." 6 But fear does then 

Fear sometimes manifest its utmost power and 
incites to des- effect when it throws us upon a 
perate valour. va liant despair, having before 
deprived us of all sense, both of 
duty and honour. In the first pitched battle 
the Romans lost against Hannibal, under the 



i In 1527. Mem. of Mart, du Bellay, 
- Mem. of William du Bellay, viii. 
< Tacitus, Annul, i. 03. 



Consul Sempronius, a body of ten thousand 
foot, that had taken a fright, seeing no other 
escape for their cowardice, went and threw 
themselves headlong upon the great array of 
the enemy, which, with wonderful force and 
fury, they charged through and through, and 
routed with a very great slaughter of the Car- 
thaginians; thus purchasing an ignominious 
flight at the same price they might have done a 
glorious victory. 7 

The thing in the world I am most afraid of 
is fear; and with good reason, that passion 
alone, in the trouble of it, exceed- 
ing all other accidents. What ££ Xy 
affliction could be greater or more other passion, 
just than that of Pompey's fol- 
lowers and friends, who, in his ship, were spec- 
tators of his horrid and inhuman murder? Yet 
so it was, that the fear of the Egyptian vessels 
they saw coming to board them possessed them 
with so great a fear that it is observed, they 
thought of nothing but calling upon the ma- 
riners to make haste, and, by force of oars, to 
escape away ; 'till being arrived at Tyre, and 
delivered from the apprehension of further 
danger, they then had leisure to turn their 
thoughts to the loss of their captain, and to 
give vent to those tears and lamentations that 
the other more prevalent passion had 'till 
then suspended. 8 

Turn pavor sapientiam omnem mihi ex animo expectorat. 9 
" My mind with great and sudden fear oppress'd, 
Was, for the time, of judgment dispossessed." 

Such as have been well banged in some 
skirmish may yet, all wounded and bloody as- 
they are, be brought on again the next day to 
charge : but such as have once conceived a good 
sound fear of the enemy will never be got so 
much as to look him in the face. Such as are 
in immediate fear of losing their estates, of 
banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual 
anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; 
whereas such as are actually poor, slaves and 
exiles, oft-times live as merrily as men in a 
better condition. And so, many people who, 
impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have 
hanged and drowned themselves, and thrown 
themselves from precipices, give us sufficiently 
to understand that it is still more importunate 
and insupportable than death itself 

The Greeks recognise another kind of fear, 
exceeding any we have spoken of yet, — a fear 
that surprises us without any visible cause, by 
an impulse from heaven ; so that whole armies 
and nations have been struck with it. Such a 
one was that which brought so wonderful a 
desolation upon Carthage, where nothing was 
to be heard but voices and outcries of fear; 
where the inhabitants were seen to sally out of 
their houses as to an alarm, and there to charge, 



i auint. Curt. iif. 2. 6 Zonaras, iii. 

' Livy, xxi. 56. 8 Cicero, Tuscul. Quas. iii. Sti. 

> Ennius, apud Cicero, Tuscul Quics. iv. 8. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



51 



wound, and kill one another, as if they had 
been enemies come to surprise their city. All 
things were in disorder and fury, till with 
prayers and sacrifices they had appeased their 
gods. And this is that they call a panic terror. 1 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAP- 
PINESS TILL AFTER DEATH. 

Scilicet ultima semper 
Expectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus, 
Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet. 2 

"Till man's last day is come, we should not dare 
Of happiness to say what was his share : 
Since of no man can it be truly said 
That he is happy 'till he first be dead." 

Every school-boy knows the story of King 
Croesus, to this purpose; — that, being taken 
prisoner by Cyrus, and by him condemned to 
die, as he was going to 1 execution he cried out, 
" O Solon ! Solon !" which being presently 
reported to Cyrus, and he sending to enquire of 
him what it meant, Croesus gave him to under- 
stand that he now found the warning Solon 
had formerly given him, true to his cost ; which 
was, "That men, however fortune may seem 
to smile upon them, could never be said to be 
happy 'till they had been seen to pass over 
the last day of their lives; by reason of the 
uncertainty and mutability of human things, 
which in an instant are subject to be totally 
changed into a quite contrary condition." 3 
And therefore it was that Agesilaus made answer 
to one that was saying what a happy man the 
King of Persia was, to come so young to so 
mighty a kingdom, "True," said he, "but 
neither was Priam unhappy at his years." 4 In 
a short space of time kings of Macedon, suc- 
cessors to the mighty Alexander, have become 
joiners and scriveners at Rome; a tyrant of 
Sicily a pedant at Corinth ; a conqueror of one 
half of the world, and general of innumerable 
armies, a miserable suppliant to the rascally 
officers of a king of Egypt ! So much did the 
prolongation of five or six months of life cost 
the great and noble Pompey; and no longer 
since than our fathers' days, Lodovico Sforza, 
the tenth Duke of Milan, at whose name all 
Italy had so long trembled, was seen to die a 
wretched prisoner at Loches, 5 not till he had 
lived ten years in captivity, which was the 
worst part of his fortune. The fairest of all 
queens, 6 widow to the greatest King in Chris- 
tendom, has she not just come to die by the 
hand of an executioner! Unworthy and bar- 
barous cruelty! and a thousand more examples 
there are of the same kind ; for it seems that, as 



i Diod. Sic. xv. 7; and Plutarch, on Isis and Osiris, c. 8. 
a Ovid, Met. iii. 137. s Herod. i. 86. 

* Plutarch, Apothcg. of the Lacedemonians. 
» In Touraine, under Louis XII., who shut him up there 
n 1500, in an iron cage, which was still to be seen in 1778. 
» Mary, aueen of Scotland, and mother of James I., King 



storms and tempests have a spite against the 
proud and towering heights of our lofty castles, 
there are also spirits above that are envious of 
the grandeurs here below. 

Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quredam 
Obtcrit, et pulchrns fasces s.u!va*que secures 
Proculcare, hac ludibrio sibi habere videtur!' 

" And hence we fancy unseen powers in those 
Whose force and will such strange confusion brings, 
And spurns aird overthrows our greatest kings." 

And it should seem also that fortune some- 
times lies in wait to surprise the last hour of 
our lives, to show the power she has in a mo- 
ment to overthrow what she has been so many 
years in building, making us cry out with 
Laberius, Nimirum hac die una plus vixi mihi 
quam vivendum fuit : 8 "I have lived longer by 
this one day than I ought to have done." 
And in this sense the good advice of Solon may 
reasonably be taken; but he being a philoso- 
pher, with which sort of men the favours and 
disgraces of fortune stand for nothing, either to 
the making a man happy or unhappy, and with, 
whom grandeur and power are mere accidents, 
almost equally indifferent, I am apt to think he 
had some further aim, and that his meaning was, 
that the very felicity of life itself, which de- 
pends upon the tranquillity and contentment of 
a well-descended spirit, and the resolution and 
assurance of a well-ordered soul, ought never 
to be attributed to any man till he has first 
been seen to play the last, and doubtless the 
hardest, act of his part, because there may be 
disguise and dissimulation in all the rest, where 
these fine philosophical discourses are only put 
on, or where accidents not touching us to the 
quick, give us leisure to maintain the same sober 
gravity ; but in this last scene of death and 
ourselves there is no more counterfeiting, we 
must speak plain, and must discover what there 
is of pure and clean in the bottom. 

Nam vera voces turn demum pectore ab imo 
Ejiciuntur, et eripitur persona, manet res. 9 

"For then their words will with their thoughts concur, 
And, all the mask pulled off, show what they were." 

Wherefore, at this last, all the other actions 
of our life ought to be tried and sifted. 'Tis 
the master-day, 'tis the day that is judge of all 
the rest, " 'tis the day," says one of the an- 
cients, " that ought to judge of all my foregone 
years." 10 To death do I refer the proof of the 
fruit of all my studies. We shall then see 
whether my discourse came only from my 
mouth or from my heart. I have seen many, 
by their death, give a good or an ill repute to 
their whole life. Scipio, the father-in-law of 
Pompey the Great, in dying well, wiped away 
the ill opinion that, till then, every one had 



of England, was beheaded in this kingdom, by order of 
Uueeu Elizabeth, in 15S7. Montaigne surely wrote this 
long after the passage in the following chapter, where he 
tells us that the year he wrote in was bat l.">7\!: bul we 
do not find this particular in the quarto edition of 1588. 

» Lucretius, v. 1232. « MacrobiUB, Snturnal. ii. 7. 

o Lucretius, iii. 57. "> Seneca, Epiit. 102. 



52 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



conceived of him. 1 Epaminondas being asked 
which of the three he had in greatest esteem, 
Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself, "You must 
first see us die," said he, " before that question 
can be resolved :" 3 and, in truth, he would in- 
finitely wrong that great man who would weigh 
him without the honour and grandeur of his 
end. God has ordered these things as it has 
best pleased him. But I have, in my time, 
seen three of the most execrable persons that 
ever I knew in all manner of abominable living, 
and the most infamous, who all died a very 
regular death, and, in all circumstances, com- 
posed even to perfection. There are brave and 
fortunate deaths: I have seen death cut the 
thread of the progress of a prodigious ad- 
vancement, and in the flower of its increase, 
of a certain person, 3 with so glorious an 
end that, in my opinion, his ambitious and 
generous designs had nothing in them so 
high and great as was their interruption; 
and he arrived, without completing his course, 
at the place to which his ambition pre- 
tended, with greater glory and grandeur than 
he could himself have either hoped or desired, 
and anticipated by his fall the name and power 
to which he has aspired by perfecting his 
career. In the judgment I make of another 
man's life, I always observe how he carried 
himself at its close ; and the principal concern 
I have for my own is. that I may die hand- 
somely, that is, patiently and without noise. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THAT TO STUDY PHILOSOPHY IS TO LEARN 
TO DIE. 

Cicero says that to study philosophy is 
nothing but to prepare a man's 

Sudy'of '" e ? elf t0 die -" The reason of which 
philosophy. is because study and contempla- 
tion do, in some sort, withdraw 
from us, and deprive us of our soul, and 
employ it separately from the body, which 
is a kind of discipline of, and a resemblance of, 
death, or else because all the wisdom and 
reasoning in the world does, in the end, con- 
clude in this point, to teach us not to fear to 
die. And, to say the truth, either our reason 
does grossly abuse us, or it ought to have no 
other aim but our contentment only, nor to 



• This remark is taken, if I mistake not, from Seneca. 
It is a pretty long passage, but so curious a one that I 
cannot help transcribing it here. Seneca, desirous to 
fortify his f.irml against the terrors of death, said to him, 
in the first place, " I should prevail on you with more ease 
were I to show that not only hemes have despised the mo- 
ment of the soul's departure out of the body, but that even 
dastards have, in this matter, equalled those of the greatest 
fortitude of mind." And, immediately after, he adds, 
" Even like that Scipio, the father-in-law of Cn. Pompey, 
who, being driven by contrary winds to the coast of Africa, 
when he saw his ship detained by the enemy, stabbed 
himself with his own sword ; and, to those who asked him 
'where the General was,' said, 'The general is well.' 
This word equalled him to his superiors, and did not suffer 
the glory fatal to the Scipios, in Africa, to be interrupted. 



endeavour any thing but, in sum, to make us 
live well, and, as the Holy Scripture says, 6 at 
our ease. All the opinions of the world agree 
in this, that pleasure is our end, 
though we make use of divers Pleasure the 
means to attain unto it; they univers ai a»n. 
would all of them otherwise be 
rejected at the first motion ; for who would 
give ear to him that should propose affliction 
and misery for his end 1 The controversies and 
disputes of the philosophical sects upon this 
point are merely verbal; Transom ramus 
solertissimas nugas. 6 " Let us skip over those 
learned trifles." There is more in them of 
opposition and obstinacy than is consistent with 
so sacred a profession: but what kind of person 
soever man takes upon him to personate, he 
ever mixes his own part with it. Let the 
philosophers say what they will, the main thing 
at which we all aim, even in virtue itself, 
is pleasure. It pleases me to rattle in their 
ears this word, which they so nauseate to hear; 
and, if it signify some supreme pleasure and 
excessive delight, it is more due to the assistance 
of virtue than to any other assistance whatever. 
This delight for being more gay, more sinewy, 
more robust, and more manly, is only more 
seriously voluptuous, and we ought to give it 
the name of pleasure ; as that which is more 
benign, gentle, and natural, and not that of 
vigour, from which we have derived it. 

The other more mean and sensual part of 
pleasure, if it could deserve this fair name, it 
ought to be upon the account of concurrence, 
and not of privilege ; I find it less exempt 
from traverses and inconveniences than virtue 
itself; and, besides that, the enjoyment is more 
momentary, fluid, and frail ; it has its watch- 
ings, fasts, and labours, even to sweat and 
blood ; and, moreover, has, particular to itself, 
so many several sorts of sharp and wounding 
passions, and so stupid a satiety attending it, 
as are equal to the severest penance. And we 
much mistake to think that difficulties serve it 
for a spur and a seasoning to its sweetness, as 
in nature, one contrary is quickened by another ; 
and to say, when we come to virtue, that like 
consequences and difficulties overwhelm and 
render it austere and inaccessible ; whereas, 
much more aptly than in voluptuousness, they 
ennoble, sharpen, and heighten the perfect and 
divine pleasure they procure us. He renders 
himself unworthy of it who will counterpoise 



It was a great task to conquer Carthage, but a harder to 
conquer death." Seneca, Epist. 24. 

2 Plutarch, Jlpoth. of the Ancient Kings, Sec. 

a Montaigne speaks here of his friend, Boetius, at whose 
death he was present, as appears by a speech which Mon- 
taigne caused to be printed at Paris, in 1571, wherein he 
mentions the most remarkable particulars of Boetins's sick- 
ness and death. As this speech does honour to both these 
eminent friends, and is become very scarce, I shall insert 
it hereafter. 

* Tuscul. Qvms. i. 31. The passage is a translation from 
the Phado of Plato. 

o " I know that there is no good in them, but for a man 
to rejoice and do good in this life."— Ecclesiast. iii. 12. 

e Senec. Epist. 117. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



53 



his expense with the fruit, and does neither 
understand the blessing, nor how to use it. 
Those who preach to us that the quest of it is 
craggy, difficult, and painful, but the fruition 
pleasant and grateful, what do they mean by 
that, but to tell us that it is always unpleasing? 
What human means.ever attained it] the most 
perfect have been forced to content themselves 
to aspire unto it, and to approach it only with- 
out ever possessing it. But they are deceived, 
for of all the pleasures we know the very pur- 
suit is pleasant. The attempt ever relishes of 
the quality of the thing to which it is directed, 
for it is a good part of, and consubstantial with, 
the effect. The felicity and beatitude that 
glitters in virtue, shines throughout all her 
avenues and ways, even to the first entry, and 
utmost pale and limits. 

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers 
_. . upon us, the contempt of death is 

The contempt ' c .,' . . r ", 

of death one of one oi the greatest, as the means 
the principal that accommodates human life 
Virtue! 8 ° f with a soft and eas y tranquillity, 

and gives us a pure and pleasant 
taste of living, without which all other pleasures 
would be extinct; which is the reason why all 
the rules of philosophy centre and concur in 
this one article. 1 And although they all, in like 
manner, with one consent, endeavour to teach 
us also to despise grief, poverty, and the other 
accidents, to which human life, by its own 
nature and constitution, is subjected, it is not, 
nevertheless, with the same earnestness, as well 
by reason these accidents are not so certain, 
the greater part of mankind passing over their 
whole lives without ever knowing what poverty 
is; and some without sorrow or sickness, as 
Xenophilus, the musician, who lived a hundred 
and six years in a perfect and continual health ; 
as also, because at the worst, death can, when- 
ever we please, cut short and put an end to all 
of these inconveniences. But as to death it is 
inevitable. 

Omncs eodem cogimur; omnium 
Versata urna ; serius, ocyus 
Bora exitura, ft nos in sternum 
Exilium impositura cymbae.a 

"To the same fate we all must yield in turn, 
Sooner or later, all must to the urn : 
When Charon calls abroad, we must not stay, 
But to eternal exile sail away." 

And consequently, if it frights us, 'tis a 
perpetual torment, and for which there is no 
consolation nor redress. There is no way by 
which we can possibly avoid it; it commands 
all points of the compass: we may continually 
turn our heads this way and that, and pry 
about as in a suspected country; quae quasi 
saxum Tantalo, semper impendet ; 3 "But it 
ever, like Tantalus's stone, hangs over us." 



' Omnis hamniii iiirommoili rrprrs (savs Valerius iHaxi- 

">'"". nn. i:i, in r.xlernis, sect. It.) in sum, no prrfrrlis.<im,r 

"iiti-tiK est; i.e., After having lived 

i everj human ailment, he died in ihe bigbest 

reputation of being perfect master of his science. 

2 Hor. 0,1. ii. 3, 25. a Cic. de Finib. i. 18. 

5* 



Our courts of justice often send back condemned 
criminals to be executed upon the place where 
the fact was committed, but carry them to all 
the fine houses by the way and give them the 
best entertainment they can. 

non Siculre dapes 

Dulcem elaborabunt saporem; 

Non avium citharaque cantus 
Somuum reducent. 1 

"Choicest Sicilian dainties cannot please, 
Nor yet of birds or harps the harmonies 
Once charm asleep, or close their watchful eyes." 

Do you think they could relish it T And 
that the fatal end of their journey being con- 
tinually before their eyes would not alter and 
deprave their palate from all relish of these 
fine things? 



" He time and space computes by length of ways, 
Sums up the number of his few sad days ; 
And his sad thoughts, full of his fatal doom, 
Have room for nothing but the blow to come." 

The end of our race is death, 'tis the neces- 
sary object of our aim : if it frights us, how is' 
it possible tp advance a step without a fit of 
ague? The remedy the vulgar use is not to 
think on't: but from what brutish stupidity 
can they derive so gross a blindness 1 He must 
needs bridle the ass by the tail : 

Qui capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro.f 



'Tis no wonder if he be often trapped in the 
pitfall. They used to fright people with the 
very mention of death, and must cross them- 
selves as if it were the name of the devil ; and 
because the making a man's will is in reference 
to dying, not a man will be persuaded to take 
a pen in hand, to that purpose, till the physician 
has passed sentence upon him and totally given 
him over: and then, betwixt grief and terror, 
God knows in how fit a condition of under- 
standing he is to do it. 

The Romans, by reason that this poor syl- 
lable death was observed to be so harsh to the 
ears of the people, and the sound so ominous, 
found out a way to soften and spin it out by a 
periphrasis, and instead of pronouncing bluntly 
" such a one is dead," to say " such a one has 
lived," or, "such a one has ceased to live." 
For, provided there was any mention of lite in 
the case, though 'twas past, it carried yet some 
sound of consolation. And from them it is that 
we have borrowed our expression of " the late 
Monsieur such a one." Peradventure, as the 
saying is, the term is worth the 
money.' I was born betwixt ^ h aMbot ' s 
eleven and twelve o'clock in the 
forenoon, the last of February, 1533, according 



J Hor. 0,1. iii. 1, 18. » Claudian in Huf. ii. 137. 

Lucret. iv. 474. 

1 This proverb is mostly used by such as, having bor- 
rowed monej tot a long term, take no care fur the pay- 
ment, flattei'ing themselves thai >one-thing will happen, 
in the meantime, for their benefit or discharge. 



54 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



to our present computation, beginning the year 
the first of January, 1 and it is now just fifteen 
days since I was complete nine and thirty years 
old ; I may account to live, at least, as many 
more. In the mean time, to trouble a man's 
self with the thought of a thing so far off is a 
senseless foolery. But, after all, young and 
old die after the very same manner, and no one 
departs out of life otherwise than as though he 
had just before entered into it ; neither is any 
so old and decrepid, who has not heard of Methu- 
salem, that does not think he has yet another 
twenty years of constitution good at least. 
Fool that thou art, who has assured unto thee 
the term of thy life 1 Thou dependest upon 
physicians, and their old wives' tales, but rather 
consult fact and experience, and the fragility 
of human nature. According to the common 
course of things, 'tis long since that thou 
livest by extraordinary favour. Thou hast 
already out-lived the ordinary term of life, and, 
to convince thyself that it is so, reckon up thy 
acquaintance, how many more have died before 
they arrived at thy age, than have attained unto 
it ; and of those who have ennobled their lives 
by their renown, take but an account, and I 
dare lay a wager thou wilt find more who have 
died before, than after, five and thirty years of 
age. It is full both of reason and piety too 
to take the example of the human existence of 
Jesus Christ himself, who ended his life at 
three and thirty years. The greatest man that 
ever was, who was no more than man, Alex- 
ander, died also at the same age. How many 
several ways has death to surprise us ! 



To omit fevers and pleurisies, who would ever 
have imagined that a Duke of Brittany should 
be pressed to death in a crowd, as that Duke 
was at the entry of Pope Clement, my neigh- 
bour, into Lyons ! 3 Have we not seen one of 
our Kings killed at a tilting ; 4 and did not one 
of his ancestors die by the justle of a hog] 5 
^Eschylus, being threatened with the fall of a 
house, got nothing by going into the fields to 
avoid that danger, for there he was knocked on 
the head by a tortoise falling out of an eagle's 
talons. 6 Another was choked with a grape- 
stone. 7 An Emperor was killed with the 
scratch of a comb, in combing his head ; 



1 By an ordonnance of Charhs IX., promulgated in 1503, 
the beginning of the year was fixed to he on the first of 
January, instead of on Easter Day, as before. The year 
J.jijt, consequently, began on the first of January, 1503. 
The Parliament, however, did not conform to this ordon- 
nance till two vears after. 

2 Horace, Oil. xiii. 13. 

3 In 1305, in the reign of Philip le Bel. This Duke of 
Brittany was named John II. The Pope, whom Mon- 
taigne mentions as his neighbour, was Bertrand de Got, 
Archbishop of Bordeaux, who was elected Pope fifth of 
June, 1305, and took the title of Clement, V. 

< Henry II. of France, mortally wounded in a tourna- 
ment by the count de Montgomery, one of the captains of 
his guards. 



iEmilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own 
threshold; 8 Aufidius, with a justle, against 
the door, as he entered the council-chamber. 
And, in the very embrace of women, Cornelius 
Gallus, the Prstor; Tigillinus, captain of the 
watch at Rome ; Ludovico, son of Guido de 
Gonzaga, Marquis of M,antua; and a still 
worse example, Speusippus, a platonick philo- 
sopher ; 9 and one of" our Popes. The poor Judge 
Bibius, in the eight days' reprieve he had given 
a criminal, was himself caught hold of, his own 
reprieve of life being expired. 10 And Caius 
Julius, the physician, while anointing the eyes 
of a patient, had death close His own; 11 and if 
I may bring in an example of my own blood, 
a brother of mine, Captain St. Martin, a young 
man of three and twenty years old, who had 
already given sufficient testimony of his valour, 
playing a match at tennis, received a blow of 
a ball a little above his right ear, which, though 
it was without any manner or sign of wound, 
or depression of the skull, and though he took 
no great notice of it, nor so much as sat down 
to repose himself, he nevertheless died within 
five or six hours after, of an apoplexy occa- 
sioned by that blow. 

Which so frequent and common examples 
g every day before our eyes, how is it 
man should disengage himself from 
the thought of death; or avoid fancying that 
it has us every moment by the collar ! What 
matter is it, you will say, which way it comes 
to pass, provided a man does not terrify himself 
with the expectation 1 For my part, I am of 
this mind, and by whatever means one could 
shield ones-self from the blow, were it under a 
calf's skin, I am not the man to shrink from it; 
for all I want is to pass my time pleasantly 
and at my ease, and the recreations that most 
contribute to it I take hold of; as to the rest, 
as little glorious and exemplary as you would 
desire. 

Pratulerim * * * delirus inersque videri, 
Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant, 
(iuam sapere, et ringi.12 

" As fool, or sluggard, let me censur'd be, 
Whilst either fault does please or cozen me, 
Rather than be thought wise, and feel the smart 
Of a perpetual aching anxious heart." 



But 'tis folly to think of doing any thing that 
way. People go and come, and dance and 
gad about, and not a word of death. All this 
is very fine while it lasts, but when death does 
come either to themselves, or their wives, or 



6 Philip, or as some say, Lewis VII., son of Louis le 
Gros, who was crowned in the lifetime of his father. 

6 Val. Max. ix. 12. 

' Anacreon. See Val. Max. ix. 12. 



o Tertullian mentions this in his Apologetics, c. 46., but 
without absolutely affirming it. Diogenes Laertius says, 
on the contrary, that being shattered with a violent palsy, 
and broken down with the weight of old age ;.nd vexation, 
Speusippus put an end to his own life. 

10 Pliny, vii. 53. » Id. lb. « Horace, Ejiis. ii. 2, 126. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



55 



their children, or their friends, surprising them 
at unawares, unprepared, then what torments, 
what outcries, what madness and despair 
overwhelm them ! Did you ever see any thing 
so subdued, so changed, and so confounded] 
A man must, therefore, make himself more 
early ready for it; and this brutish negligence, 
even could it lodge in the brain of any man of 
sense, which I think utterly impossible, sells us 
its merchandize too dear. Were it an enemy 
that could be avoided, I would then advise to 
borrow arms, even of cowardice itself, to that 
effect. But seeing it is not, and that it will 
catch you as well flying and playing the poltroon, 
as standing to it, like a man of honour : 

Mors ot fiirrirem persequitur viruin, 
Nix paint iiuhi-llis jiivuiiue 
Poplitibus timidoque tergo.i 

" No speed of foot can rob death of his prize, 
He cuts the hamstrings of the man that dies; 
Nor spares the fearful stripling's back who starts 
To run beyond the reach of 's mortal darts." 

And seeing that no temper of arms is of proof 
to secure us, — 

Ille licet ferro, cantns se condat et a;re, 
Mors tauien inclusum protrahet hide caput; 2 



let us learn bravely to stand our ground and 
fight him. And, to begin to deprive him of the 
greatest advantage he" has over us, let us take 
a way quite contrary to the common course. 
Let us disarm him of his strangeness ; let us 
converse and be familiar with him, and have 
nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death : 
let us, upon all occasions, represent him in all 
his most dreadful shapes to our imagination. 
At the stumbling of a horse, at the falling of a 
tile, at the least prick of a pin, let us presently 
consider, and say to ourselves, "Well, and 
what if it had been death itself!" And there- 
upon let us encourage and fortify ourselves: 
let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, 
keep the remembrance of our frail condition 
before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be 
so far transported with our delights but that we 
'lave some intervals of reflecting upon and con- 
sidering how many several ways this jollity of 
ours tends to death, and with how many traps 
it threatens us. The Egyptians were wont to 
do after this manner, who, in the height of 
their feasting and mirth, caused a dried skeleton 
of a man to be brought into the room to serve 
for a memento to their guests. 3 

Omnom crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum, 
Grata superveniet, qua;' non sperabitur, hora.i 
" Think every day. soon as the day is past, 
Of thy life's dale that thou hast iiveil the last; 
The next day's joyful I i slit thine eyes shall see, 
As unexpected, will more welcome be." 

Where death waits for us is uncertain ; let 
us every where look for him. The premedita- 



» Horace, Od. hi. 2, 14. 

8 Herod, ii. 78. 

* Horace, Epist. i. 4, 13 



Propertius, iii. 18, 25. 



tion of death is the premeditation of liberty; 
he who has learnt to die has forgot what it is 
to be a slave. There is nothing of evil in life 
for him who rightly comprehends that the loss 
of life is no evil ; to know how to die delivers 
us from all subjection and constraint. Paulus 
iEmilius answered him whom the miserable 
King of Macedon, his prisoner, sent to intreat 
him that he would not lead him in his triumph, 
" Let him make that request to himself." 5 

In truth, in all things, if nature do not help 
a little, it is very hard for art and industry to 
perform anything to purpose. I am, in my 
own nature, not melancholy, but thoughtful ; 
and there is nothing I have more continually 
entertained myself withal than the imaginations 
of death, even in the gayest and most wanton 
time of my life ; — 

Jucundum cum ffitas florida ver ageret.a 
"When that my youth rolled on in pleasant spring." 

In the company of ladies, and in the height 
of mirth, some have perhaps thought me pos- 
sessed with some jealousy, or meditating upon 
the uncertainty of some imagined hope, whilst 
I was only entertaining myself with the re- 
membrance of some one surprised a few days 
before with a burning fever, of which he died, 
returning from an entertainment like this, with 
his head full of idle fancies of love and jollity, 
as mine was then, and that, for aught I knew, 
the same destiny was attending me. 

Jam fuerit, neque post unquam revocare licebit.' 
" He who of late a being had 'mongst men, 
Is gone, and ne'er to be recalled again." 

Yet did not this thought wrinkle my forehead 
any more than any other. No doubt it is im- 
possible but we must feel a sting in such imagi- 
nations as these, at first ; but with often revolving 
them in a man's mind, and having them frequent 
in our thoughts, they at last become so familiar 
as to be no trouble at all. Otherwise I, for my 
part, should be in perpetual fright and frenzy ; 
for never man was so distrustful of his life, never 
man so indifferent for its duration. Neither 
health, which I have hitherto ever enjoyed 
very strong and vigorous, and very seldom in- 
terrupted, prolongs, nor sickness contracts, my 
hopes. Every minute methinks 'tis about to 
escape me ; and it eternally runs in my mind 
that what may be done to-morrow may be done 
to-day. Hazards and dangers do in truth little 
or nothing hasten our end ; and if we consider 
how many more remain and hang over our 
heads beside the misfortune that immediately 
threatens us, we shall find that the sound and 
the sick, those that are abroad at sea and those 
that sit by the fire ; those that are in the wars, 
and those that sit idle at home, are the one as 
near it as the other : Nemo altera frag ilior est, 
nemo in crastinum sui certior. s "No man 



o Plut. in vitti, c. 17. Cicero, Tusc. Quas. v. 40. 
8 Catullus, lxviii. ]G. ' Lucret. iii. 

8 Senec. Epist. 91. 






56 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



is more frail than another, nor more certain of 
the morrow. For any thing I have to do before 
I die, the longest leisure would appear too short, 
were it but an hour's business I had to do. 

A friend of mine, the other day, turning over 
my table-book, found in it a memorandum of 
something I would have done after my decease ; 
whereupon I told him, as was really true, 
that, though I was no more than a league's 
distance from my own house, and merry and 
well, yet when that thing came into my head I 
made haste to write it down there, because I 
was not certain to live till I came home. As 
a man that am eternally brooding over my own 
thoughts, and who confine them to my own 
particular concerns, I am at all hours as well 
prepared as I am ever like to be ; and death, 
whenever he shall come, can bring nothing 
along with him I did not expect long before. 
We should always (as near as we can) be booted 
and spurred, and ready to go, and, above all 
things, take care at that time to have no 
business with any one but ones-self. 



" Why cut'st thou out such mighty work, vain man ? 
Whose life's short date's comprised in one poor span V 

For we shall then find work enough to do, 
without any need of addition. One complains, 
more than of death, that he is thereby pre- 
vented of a glorious victory ; another that he 
must die before he has married his daughter, or 
settled and educated his children ; a third seems 
only troubled that he must lose the society of 
his wife; a fourth the conversation of his son, 
as the principal concerns of his being. For my 
part I am, thanks be to God, at this instant in 
such a condition that I am ready to dislodge, 
whenever it shall please him, without any 
manner of regret. I disengage myself through- 
out from all worldly relations : my leave is soon 
taken of all but myself. Never did any one 
prepare to bid adieu to the world more abso- 
lutely and purely, and to shake hands with all 
manner of interest in it, than I expect to do. 
The deadest deaths are the best. 2 



And the builder, 



" The mounds, the works, the walls neglected lie, 
Short of their promised height, that seemed to threat 
the sky." 

A man must design nothing that will require so 
much time to the finishing, or at least with no 



, * Horace, Od. ii. 1C, 17. 

\ 3 Death is here considered as the introduction and actual 
passage to a state of inseusibiliiy which puts a period to our 
life. The more silently and rapidly we arrive to that state 
the less ought tin' passage to terrify us. This comes up very 
near to the import of that bold and enigmatical expression 
of Montaigne, viz. " That the deadest deaths are the best." 



such passionate desire to see it brought to a 
conclusion. We are born to action. 

Cum moriar, medium solvar et inter opus. 6 

" When death shall come, he me will find 
Engaged on something I've desigu'd." 

I would always have a man to be doing, and 
as much as in him lies, to extend and spin out 
the offices of life; and then let death take 
me planting cabbages, but without any careful 
thought of him, and mucli less of my garden's 
not being finished. I saw one die, who, at his 
last gasp, seemed to be concerned at nothing 
so much as that destiny was about to cut the 
thread of a history he was then compiling, 
when he was got no farther than the fifteenth 
or sixteenth of our kings. 



We should discharge ourselves from these vulgar 
and hurtful humours and concerns. To this 
purpose it was that men first put the places of 
sepulture, the dormitories of the dead, near 
adjoining to the churches, and in the most fre- 
quented places of the city, to accustom (says 
Lycurgus) the common people, women, and 
children, that they should not be startled at the 
sight of a dead corpse ; and to the end that the 
continual sight of bones, graves, monuments, 
and funeral obsequies, should keep us in mind 
of our frail condition. 7 

duinetiam exhilarare viris convivia caede 
Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula (lira 
Certantum ferro, sa;pe et super ipsa cadentum 
Pocula, respersis noji parco sanguine inensis.8 

"'Twas therefore that the ancients at their feasts 
With tragic slaughter used to treat their guests; 
Making their fencers, with their utmost spite, 
Skiil, force, and fury in their presence fight; 
Till streams of blood o'erfiow'n the spacious hall, 
Crims'ning their tables, drinking-cups, and all." 

And as the Egyptians after their feasts were 
wont to present the company with a great 
image of death, by one that cried out to tiiem, 
"Drink and be merry, for such shalt thou be 
when thou art dead ;" so it is my custom to 
have death not only in my imagination, but 
continually in my mouth. Neither is there any 
thing of which I am so inquisitive, and delight 
to inform myself, as the manner of men's 
deaths, their words, looks, and gestures; nor 
any places in history I am so intent upon ; and 
it is manifest enough, by my crowding in ex- 
amples of this kind, that I have a particular 
fancy for that subject. If I were a writer of 
books, I would compile a register, with a com- 
ment, of the various deaths of men ; and it 






3 Lucret. iii. 911. 

< JEneid, iv. 88. The text has pendent. 

6 Ovid, Amor. ii. 10, 36. e Lucret. iii. 913. 

7 Plutarch, in vita. 

e Silius ltalicus, ii. 51. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



57 



could not but be useful, for he who should 
teach men to die would at the same time teach 
them to live. Dicearchus made one, to which 
he gave some such title ; but it was designed 
for another and less profitable end. 1 Perad- 
venture some one may object, and say that the 

pain and terror of dying indeed 
it is of great joes g0 infinitely exceed all man- 
i'l'ii^k'linieath ner of imagination that the best 
beforehand. fencer will be quite out of his 

play when it comes to the push. 
But, let them say what they will, to premedi- 
tate it is doubtless a very great advantage ; and 
besides, is it nothing to get so far, at least, with- 
out any visible disturbance or alteration? But 
moreover Nature herself does assist and en- 
courage us. If the death be sudden and vio- 
lent, we have not leisure to fear; if otherwise, 
I find that as I engage further in my disease, I 
naturally enter into a certain loathing and dis- 
dain of life. I find I have much more ado to 
digest this resolution of dying when I am well 
in health than when sick, languishing of a 
fever; and by how much I have less to do with 
the comforts of life, I even begin to lose the 
relish and pleasure of them, and by so much I 
look upon death with less terror; which makes 
me hope that the further I remove from the 
first, and the nearer I approach to the latter, 
I shall sooner strike a bargain, and with less 
unwillingness exchange the one for the other. 
And, as I have experienced in other occurrences 
what Cffisar says, "That things often appear 
greater to us at a distance than near at hand," 2 
I have found that, being well, I have had dis- 
eases in much greater horror than when really 
afflicted with them. The vigour wherein I now 
am, and the jollity and delight wherein I now 
live, make the contrary estate appear in so 
great a disproportion to my present condition, 
that by imagination I magnify and make those 
inconveniences twice greater than they are, and 
apprehend them to be much more troublesome 
than I find them really to be, when they lie the 
most heavy upon me, and I hope to find death 
the same. 

Let us but observe in the ordinary changes 
and declinations our constitutions daily suffer, 
how nature deprives us of all sight and sense 
of our bodily decay. What remains to an old 
man of the vigour of his youth and better days'! 

Heu! senibus vitaj portio quanta manet !3 

" Alas ! how small a part of life's short stage 
Remains to travellers advanced in age!" 

Csesar, to an old weather-beaten soldier of his 
guards, who came to ask him leave that he 
might kill himself, taking notice of his withered 
body and decrepid motion, pleasantly answered, 
" Thou fanciest, then, that thou art yet alive !" 4 
Should a man fall into the aches and impo- 



i Cicero, dc Offic. ii. 5. 

"> De Bello Gallicu, vii. 89. 

• Maximian, Eleg. i. 10; Ez. Pseudo-Gallus. 



tencies of age from a sprightly and vigorous 
youth, on the sudden, I do not think humanity 
capable of enduring such a change. But na- 
ture leading us by the hand an easy, and, as it 
were, an insensible pace, little by little, step by 
step, conducts us gently to that miserable con- 
dition, and by that means makes it familiar to 
us, so that we perceive not, nor are sensible of 
the stroke then, when our youth dies in us, 
though it be really a harder death than the 
final dissolution of a languishing body, which is 
only the death of old age; forasmuch as the 
fall is not so great from an uneasy being to 
none at all, as it is from a sprightly and florid 
being to one that is unwieldy and painful. 
The body, when bowed beyond its natural 
spring of strength, has less force either to rise 
with, or support, a burthen ; and it is with the 
soul the same, and therefore it is that we are to 
raise her up firm and erect against the power 
of this adversary. For as it is impossible she 
should ever be at rest or at peace within herself 
whilst she stands in fear of it, so if she once can 
assure herself, she may boast (which is a thing, 
as it were, above human condition) that it is 
impossible that disquiet, anxiety, or fear, or any 
other disturbance, should inhabit or have any 
place in her. 

Non vultus instantis tyranni 

Mente quatit solida: neque Auster 
Dux inquieti turbidus Adrian, 
Nee fulminantis magna Jovis manus. 5 

"A soul well settled is not to be shook 
With an incensed tyrant's threat'ning look; 
Nnr can loud Auster once that heart dismay, 
The ruffling Prince of stormy Adria; 
Nor yet th' uplifted hand of mighty Jove, 
Though charg'd with thunder, such a temper move." 

She is then become sovereign of all her lusts and 
passions, mistress of necessity, shame, poverty, 
and all the other injuries of fortune. Let us 
therefore, as many of us as can, get this advan- 
tage, which is the true and sovereign liberty 
here on earth, and that fortifies us wherewithal 
to defy violence and injustice, and to contemn 
prisons and chains. 

in manicis et 

Compedibus, stevo te sub custode tenebo. 

Ipse Dens, simul atqne volam. me solvet. Opinor, 

Hocsentit: moriar; Mors ultima linea rerum est. 4 

" ' With bolts and chains I'll load thy hands and feet, 
And to a surly keeper thee commit.'— 
But let him show his worst of cruelty, 
The gods propitious soon will set me free; 
By death release me, that full comfort brings, 
For death 's the utmost term of human things. 

Our very religion itself has no surer human 
foundation than the contempt of 
death. Not only the argument V<\»T™£ 
of reason invites us to it, — for tain foundation 
why should we fear to lose a °»" religion. 
thing which, being lost, can never be missed 
or lamented? — but, also, seeing that we are 



* Seneca, Epist. 11. 
6 Horat. Od. iii. 3. 3. 
« Horace, Epist. i. 16. 76. 






58 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



threatened by so many sorts of deaths, is it not 
infinitely worse eternally, to fear them all than 
one j to undergo one of them? And what 
r.atter is it when it shall happen, since it is 
inevitable once? To him that told Socrates, 
"The thirty tyrants have sentenced thee to 
death" — "And nature them," said he. 1 What 
a ridiculous thing it is to trouble and afflict 
ourselves about taking the only step that is to 
deliver us from all misery and trouble ! As our 
birth brought us the birth of all things, so in 
our death is the death of all things included. 
• And therefore to lament and take on that we 

shall not be alive a hundred years hence is the 
same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a 
hundred years ago. Death is the beginning of 
another life. So did we weep, and so much it 
cost us to enter into this, and. so did we put off 
our former veil in entering into it. Nothing 
can be grievous that is but once ; and is it 
reasonable so long to fear a thing that will so 
soon be dispatched ? A long life and a short 
are by death made all one ; for there is no long 
nor short to things that are no more. Aristotle 
tells us that there are certain little beasts upon 
the banks of the river Hypanis that never live 
above a day ; they which die at eight of the 
clock in the morning die in their youth, and 
those that die at five in the evening in their 
extremest age. 2 Which of us would not laugh 
to see this moment of continuance put into the 
consideration of weal or woe ? Yet the most, 
and the least of ours, in comparison of eternity, 
or even to the duration of mountains, rivers, 
stars, trees, nay, of some animals, is no less 
ridiculous. 3 But Nature compels us to it : 
"Go out of this world," says she, 
Death a part of i> as vou entered it; the same 

the order of the - , ? ■, .. . 

universe. passage you made from death to 

life, without passion or fear, the 
same, after the same manner, repeat from life 
to death. Your death is a part of the order of 
the universe, 'tis a part of the life of the world. 



" Shall I change, to please you, so admirable 
a system] 'Tis the condition of your creation ; 
death is a part of you, and whilst you endeavour 
to evade it, you avoid yourselves. This very 
being of yours, that you now enjoy, is equally 
divided betwixt life and death. The day of 
your birth is one day's advance towards the 
grave. 

Prima, quae vitam dedit, hora carpsit.s 



i Diog. Laerl. in vita. Cicero, Tusc. Quas. i. 40. 

« Cicero, Tusc. Qua's. i. 39. 

3 Seneca, Consul, ad Marc. c. 20. 

* Lucretius, ii. 75. Alluding to the Athenian games, 
wherein those that ran a race carried torches in their hands; 
and their race heing done, delivered them into the hands of 
those that ran next. 



Nascentes morimur; finisque ab origine pendet.< 



"Every day that you live you purloin from life, 
you live at the expense of life itself: the per- 
petual work of your whole life is but to lay 
the foundation of death; you are in death 
whilst, you live, because you still are after death 
when you are no more alive. Or if you had 
rather have it so, you are dead after life, but 
dying all the while you live ; and death handles 
the dying more rudely, and more feelingly, and 
essentially than the dead. If you have made 
your prqfit of life you have had enough of it, 
go your way satisfied. 



pie 



I'itce convivia recedis? 



If you have not known how to make the best 
use of it, and if it was unprofitable to you, what 
need you care to lose it? to what end would 
you desire longer to keep it? 



"Life in itself is neither good nor evil: it is the 
scene of good or evil, as you make it; and if 
you have lived a long day you have seen all. 
One day is equal and like to all other days; 
there is no other light, no other night. This 
very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very 
order and revolution of things, are all the same 
your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also 
entertain your posterity. 



" And come the worst that can come, the dis- 
tribution and variety of all the acts of my 
comedy is performed in a year. If you have 
observed the revolution of four seasons, they 
comprehend the infancy, the youth, the virility, 
and the old age of the world. The year has 
played his part, and knows no other trick than 
to begin and repeat the same again : it will 
always be the same thing. 

Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque. 10 
"We yearly tread but one perpetual round, 
We ne'er strike out, but beat the former ground." 

Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus." 
"The year rolls on within itself again." 

"I have no mind to create you any new 
recreations. 



6 Seneca, Hercul.fur. act iii. chor. 
6 Manilius, Jlstronom. iv. 16. 
' Lucret. iii. 951. 
8 Manilius, i. 529. 
w Lucret. iii. 1093. 



" Virg. Oeorg. ii. 402. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Bfl 



" Give place to others, as others have given 
place to you. Equality is the soul of equity. 2 
Who can complain of being comprehended in 
the same destiny wherein all are involved ! 
Besides, live as long as you can, you shall by 
that nothing shorten the time that you are to 
lie dead: 'tis all to no purpose; you shall be 
every whit as long in the condition you so 
much fear, as though you had died at nurse. 



"And yet I will place you in such a condition 
as you shall have no reason to be displeased : 

In vera ncscis nullum fori; morte alium te, 
Qui possit vivus tilii te lugerc pereiiiptuin, 
Stansque jacentem.* 



"Nor shall you so much as wish for the life 
you are so concerned about. 

Nee sibi enim quisquam turn sc vitamque requirit. 
Nee (lesiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.s 



" Death were less to be feared than nothing, 
if there could be anything less than nothing. 



" Neither can it any way concern you whether 
you are living or dead: living, by reason that 
you are still in being; dead, because you are 
no more. Moreover no one dies before his 
hour ; and the time you leave behind was no 
more yours than that was lapsed and gone before 
you cime into the world ; nor does it any more 
concern you. 

fiispice enim quain nil ad tips ante acta vetustas 
Temporis aitcrni l'uerit.' 

"Lc ok back, and tlio' times past eternal were, 
In those before us, yet had we no share." 

"Wherever your life ends, it is all there; 
neither does the utility of living consist in the 
length of days, but in the well husbanding and 
improving of time; and a man may have con- 
tinued in the world longer than the ordinary 
age of man that has yet lived but a little while. 
Make use of time while it is present with you. 
It depends upon your will, and not upon the 



i Li.cret. iii. 
s Id. ih. 1103 

j id. ib. sua. 

' Id. ib. 985. 



number of days, to have a sufficient length of 
life. Is it possible you can ever imagine you 
will not arrive at the place towards which you 
are continually going! and yet there is no 
journey but hath its end. And, if company will 
make it more pleasant or more easy to you, 
does not all the world go the self-same way ? 

omnia te vita perfuncta ser|uentur.8 



" Does not all the world dance the same dance 
that you do] Is there anything that does not 
grow old as well as you ? A thousand men, a 
thousand animals, and a thousand other crea- 
tures, die at the same moment that you expire. 

Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora secuta est, 
Qua; nou audierit mistos vanitibus ffigris 
Ploratus mortis comites, et funeris atri.' J 

" No nifilit succeeds the i!:u , nor morning's light 
Rises to chase the sullen shades of night ; 
Wherein there is not heard the dismal groans 
Of dying men mix'd with the woful moans 
Of living friends, and with the mournful cries 
And dirges fitting fmi'ral obsequies." 

" To what end should you recoil, since you 
cannot go back! You have seen examples 
enough of those who have been glad to die, 
thereby being manifestly delivered from intole- 
rable miseries; but have' you talked with any 
of those who found a disadvantage by it? It 
must therefore needs be very foolish to condemn 
a thing you have neither experienced in your 
own person, nor by that of any other. Why 
dost thou complain of me and destiny? Do we 
do thee any wrong? Is it for thee to govern 
us, or for us to dispose of thee? Though per- 
adventure thy age may not be accomplished, 
yet thy life is. A man of low stature is a 
whole man as well as a giant; neither men nor 
their lives are measured by the ell. Chiron 
refused to be immortal, when he was acquainted 
with the conditions Ainder which he was to 
enjoy it, by the god of time itself and its dura- 
tion, his father Saturn. Do but seriously con- 
sider how much more insupportable an immortal 
and painful life would be to man than what I 
have already designed him. 10 If you had not 
death to ease you of your pains and cares, you 
would eternally curse me for having deprived^ 
you of the benefit of dying. I have, 'tis true, 
mixed a little bitterness in it, to the end that, 
seeing of what conveniency and use it is, you 
might not too greedily and indiscreetly seek 
and embrace it: and that you might be so 
established in this moderation, as neither to 
nauseate life, nor have any antipathy for dying, 
which I have decreed you shall once do, I have 
tempered the one and the other betwixt pleasure 
and pain. 'Twas I that first taught Thales, 



'<> "Si nous eliiins i mi iris, nous serious des c tres tr.'s 

inisrraliles. :si I'on nous oil'rait I'inimorialite stir la hi iv. 
qui esl ce qui voudrait accepter ce trisle present?"— Kous- 
seau, Entile, liv. ii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the most eminent of all your sages, that to live 
and die were indifferent; which made him 
very wisely answer him who asked him, " Why 
then did he not dieT' "Because," said he, 
"it is indifferent." ' The elements of water, 
earth, fire, and air, and the other parts of this 
creation of mine, are no more the instruments 
of thy life than they are of thy death. Why 
dost thou fear thy last day] it contributes no 
more to thy dissolution than every one of the 
rest. The last step is not the cause of lassitude ; 
it does but confess it. Every day travels 
towards death ; the last only arrives at it." 2 
These are the good lessons our Mother Nature 
teaches. 

I have often considered with myself whence 

it should proceed that in war the 

appLs 6 lei image of death, whether we look 

dreadful on the upon it as to our own particular 

field of battle danger or that of another, should 

than at home. . ,° , . , 

without comparison appear less 
dreadful than at home in our own houses (for if 
it were not so, it would be an army of whining 
milksops) ; and that being still in all places the 
same, there should be, notwithstanding, much 
more assurance in peasants and the meaner 
sort of people than in others of better quality 
and education ; and I do verily believe that it 
is those terrible ceremonies and preparations 
wherewith we set it out that more terrify us 
than the thing itself. An entirely new way of 
living, the cries of mothers, wives, and children, 
the visits of astonished and afflicted friends, 
the attendance of pale and blubbering servants, 
a dark room set round with burning tapers, our 
beds environed with physicians and divines; 
in short, nothing but ghostliness and horror 
round about us, render it so formidable that 
a man almost fancies himself dead and buried 
already. Children are afraid even of those they 
love best, and are best acquainted with, when 
disguised in a vizor, and so are we : the vizor 
must be removed as well from things as persons ; 3 
which being taken away, we shall find nothing 
underneath but the very same death that a 
mean servant or a poor chamber-maid died a 
day or two ago, without any manner of appre- 
hension or concern. Happy therefore is the 
death that deprives us of the leisure for such 
grand preparations! 



CHAPTER XX. 

OF THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION. 



Fortis imaginalio general casum. " A strong 
imagination creates what it imagines," say the 



i Diog. Laertius, in vita. 

2 Lucretius, iii. 945, &c. Seneca, Epist. 12. Id. on th 
Shortness of Life. 3 Senec. Epist. 24. 

•> Seneca, the Rhetorician, from whom Montnisne must 
have taken this story, does not say that Gallus Vibius 
his reason by endeavouring to comprehend the essence of 
madness, hut' !>v too studious an application to imitate its 
motions. As this Galius was a rhetorician by profession, he 



schoolmen. I am one of those who are most 
sensible of the power of imagination : every 
one is jostled, but some are quite overthrown by 
it. It has a very great impression upon me; 
and I make it my business to avoid, wanting 
force to resist it. I could live by the sole help 
of healthful and jolly company. The very 
sight of another's pain greatly pains me ; and 
I often go entirely into the feelings of a third 
person, and share with him in his torment. A 
perpetual cough in another tickles my lungs 
and throat. I more unwillingly visit the sick, 
in whom I am by duty interested, than those I 
care not for, and to whom I am less bound. 
I take possession of the disease I look at, and 
do not at all wonder that fancy should give 
fevers, and sometimes kill such as allow of too 
much scope and are too willing to entertain it. 
Simon Thomas was a great physician of his 
time; and I remember that, happening one 
day at Thoulouse to meet him at a rich old 
fellow's house, who was troubled with bad lungs, 
and discoursing with his patient about the 
method of his cure, he told him that one thing 
which would be very conducing to it was to 
give me such occasion to be pleased with his 
company that I might come often to see him, 
by which means, and by fixing his eyes upon 
the freshness of my complexion, and his imagi- 
nation upon the sprightliness and vigour that 
glowed in my youth, and possessing all his 
senses with the flourishing state wherein I then 
was, his habit of bod^ might, peradventure, be 
amended ; but he forgot to say that mine at the 
same time might be made worse. Gallus Vibius 
so long cudgelled his brains to find out the 
essence and motions of madness that in the 
end he went quite out of his wits, and to such a 
degree that he could never after recover his 
judgment; and he might brag that he was 
become mad by too much wisdom." 1 Some there 
are who through fear anticipate the hangman ; 
like him whose eyes being unbound to have his 
pardon read to him, was found dead upon the 
scaffold by the stroke of imagination. We 
start, tremble, turn pale, and » 

blush, as we are variously moved J™""!" 3 ','"" 
by imagination; and being co- easesa'iid" 3 " 
vered over head and ears in bed, death, 
feel our bodies so agitated with 
its power as even sometimes to expire. And 
boiling youth, when fast asleep, grows so warm 
with fancy, as in a dream to satisfy its amorous 
desires : 

Ut, quasi transactis stepfi omnibus rebus, profundant 
Fluininis ingentes fluctus, vestemque cruentent. 5 

And although it be no new thing to see 
horns grown in a night on the forehead of one 



imagined that the transports of madness, well represented in 
dialogue, would charm his audience; and took so much 
pains to play the madman in jest, that he became so in 
earnest. He is the only man I ever knew (says Seneca) 
that became mail, not by accident, but by an act of judg- 
ment.— Controllers, ix.2. 

5 Lucretius, iv. 10-2'.l. Montaigne lias rendered the mean- 
ing of the passage in the preceding sentence. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



61 



that had none when he went to bed, yet what 
befel Cippus, King of Italy, is very memo- 
rable; who having one day been a very de- 
lighted spectator of a bull-baiting, and having 
all the night dreamt that he had horns on his 
head, did, by the force of imagination, really 
cause them to grow there. 1 Passion made the 
son of Croesus to speak, who was born dumb, 
thus supplying him with that which Nature 
had denied him. 2 And Antiochus fell into a 
fever, inflamed with the beauty of Stratonice, 
too deeply imprinted in his soul. 3 Pliny pre- 
tends to have seen Lucius Cos- 
The story of the s itius, who from a woman was 
fn Ludanf™' turned into a man upon her very 
wedding-day. 4 Pontanus and 
others report the like metamorphoses to have 
happened in these later days in Italy; and 
through the vehement desire of him and his 
mother, 



Vota puer solvit, qua? fremina voverat Iphi: 



Myself passing by Vitry le Francois, a town 
in Champagne, saw a man the Bishop of 
Soissons had in confirmation, called Germain, 
whom all the inhabitants of the place had 
known and seen to be a girl till two and twenty 
years of age, by the name of Mary. He was, 
at the time of my being there, very full of 
beard, old, and not married, and told us that, 
in straining himself in a leap, his virile appur- 
tenances came out; and the maids of that place 
have to this day a song wherein they advise 
one another not to take too great strides for 
fear of being turned into men, as Mary Germain 
was. It were no great wonder if this sort of 
accident frequently happened; for if imagina- 
tion have any power in such things, it is so 
continually and vigorously bent upon this 
subject that, to the end it may not so often 
relapse into the same thought and violence of 
desire, it were better, once for all, to give the 
wenches the thing they long for. 

Some stick not to attribute the scars of King 
Dagobert and St. Francis to the force of imagi- 
nation; and it is said, that by it bodies will 
sometimes be moved from their places; and 
Celsus tells us of a priest whose soul would 
sometimes be ravished into such an ecstacy that 
the body would, for a long time, remain without 
sense or respiration. St. Augustine makes men- 
tion of another, 7 who, upon the hearing of any 
lamentable or doleful cries, would presently fall 
into a swoon, and be so far out of himself that 



' Pliny, xi. 4.5, who, however, puts this storv in the same 
class w iihthnt of Acticon. anil supposes both to be fabulous. 
\ aloiius Maximus. v. li, gives tins (Jyppiis, or Cippus, the 
title ul Prictor, anil says (hat as he departed from Rome, in 
the ha In I in' a general, the accident which Montaigne speaks 
ot here happening to him, the diviners declared that Gyp- 
pus would he king if he returned to Rome; whereupon he 

>'"! anly condemned himself to perpetual exile, in order 

to prevent it. This explains why Montaigne calls hint 
King ul Italy. 



it was in vain to call, halloo in his ears, pinch, 
or burn him, till he voluntarily came to himself; 
and then he would say that he had heard voice3 
but, as it were, afar off, and felt when they 
pinched and burned him. And that this was no 
obstinate dissimulation, in defiance of his sense 
of feeling, was manifest from this, that all the 
while he had neither pulse nor breathing. 

'Tis very probable that visions, enchantments, 
and all extraordinary effects of w . such 
that nature, derive their credit cre ,ii t is given 
principally from the power of to visions, 
imagination, working as they do, — "«• 
and making their chiefest impres- 
sion upon vulgar and easy souls, whose belief is 
so full as to think they see what they do not. 
fyl am not satisfied, and make a 
very great question,whether those ^'"""g/g is 
pleasant marriage locks or impe- sometimes find 
diments, with which this age of themselves un- 
ours is so fettered that there is %£*££!£ 
hardly anything else talked of, are labours, 
not merely the impressions of ap- 
prehension and fear ; for I know, by experience, 
in the case of a particular friend of mine, one 
for whom I can answer as for myself, and a 
man that cannot possibly fall under any mancer 
of suspicion of insufficiency, and as little of 
being enchanted, who having heard a com- 
panion of his make a relation of an unusual 
disability that surprised him at a very unseason- 
able time, being afterwards himself engaged 
upon the same occasion, the horror of that story 
on a sudden so strangely possessed his imag na- 
tion that he ran the same fortune the other h-d 
done ; and from that time forward (the scurvy 
remembrance of his disaster running in his 
mind, and tyrannizing over him,) was extremely 
subject to relapse into the same misfortune. He 
found some remedy, however, for this incon- 
venience, by himself frankly confessing and 
declaring before-hand to the lady with whom 
he was to have to do, the subjection he lay 
under, and the infirmity he was victim to, by 
which means the agitation of his soul was in 
some sort appeased; and knowing that now 
some such misbehaviour was expected from him, 
the obligation he felt under grew less, and 
weighed less upon his imagination ; and when 
he had an opportunity at his leisure, at such 
times as he could be in no such apprehension 
(his thoughts being then disengaged and free, 
and his body being in its true and natural 
estate,) by causing this to be communicated to 
the knowledge of others, he was at last totally 
freed from that vexatious infirmity. After a 
man has once done a woman right, he is never 



2 Herod, i. 85. 

s Lucian, on the Syrian Goddess. 
* Pliny, Jfat. Hist. vii. 4. 
<* Ovid, Met. ix. 793. 

o September, 1580. The circumstance is further referred 
in our author's Journey through Germany and Italy. 
' Restitutus. See St. Aug. dc Cirit. Dei, xiv. 24. 






m 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



after in danger of misbehaving himself with 
that person, unless upon the account of some 
physical weakness. Neither is this disaster to 
be feared, but in adventures where the soul is 
extended beyond measure with desire or respect, 
and especially where one's opportunity happens 
in a sudden and pressing manner ; in those 
cases, there is no means for a man always to 
keep himself from a scrape of this sort. And 
yet I have known, some, to whom it has been 
of service to come to their mistress, with their 
heat half sated elsewhere, and having abated 
thus the ardour of their fury ; and others, who 
whentdd, find themselves less impotent by being 
less able; and again, I knew one, who found 
an advantage in being assured by a friend of his 
that he had a counter battery of charms that 
would defend him from this disgrace. The story 
itself is not much amiss, and therefore you shall 
have it. 

A Count of a very great family, and with 

whom I was very familiarly inti- 
A curious re- mate, married a very fair lady, 
^intr/inJuffi." who had formerly been pretended 
ciency in love, to and importunately courted by 

one who was present at the wed- 
ding: all his friends, especially an old lady, 
his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the 
solemnity, and in whose house it was kept, 
were in great fear lest his rival should in 
revenge, offer foul play, and procure some of 
these kind of sorceries, to put a trick upon him : 
which fear the old lady communicated to me, 
who, to comfort her, bid her not trouble her- 
self, but rely upon my care to prevent or frus- 
trate any such designs. Now I had by chance 
about me a certain flat plate of gold, whereon 
were graven some ccelestial figures, supposed 
to be good against head-ache, when applied 
to the suture; and which, that it might the 
better remain firm on its place, was sewed to a 
ribbon, to be tied under the chin. A piece of 
quackery, a thing cousin-german to that of 
which I am speaking, and which was by Jaques 
Pelletier, who lived in my house," presented to 
me for a singular rarity, and a thing of sove- 
reign virtue. I had a fancy to make some use 
of this knack, and therefore privately told the 
Count that he might possibly run the same 
fortune other bridegrooms had sometimes done ; 
especially some persons being in the house who 
no doubt would be glad to play him such a 
trick, but let him boldly go to bed, for I would 
do him the office of a friend, and if need were, 
would not spare a miracle that it was in my 
power to do, provided he would engage to me, 
upon his honour, to keep it to himself, and only 
when they Came to bring him his caudle in the 
night, 1 if matters had not gone well with him, 
to give me such a sign, and leave the rest to 



i It was formerly a custom in France to bring the bride- 
groom a caudle in the middle of his wedding-night. 
2 Herod, ii. J81, who, however, says that, not Amasis, but 



me. Well, he had had his ears so battered, 
and his mind so prepossessed with the eternal 
tattle of his business that, when he came to it, 
he did really find himself tied with the trouble 
of his imagination, and accordingly at the time 
appointed gave me the sign: whereupon I 
whispered him in the ear that he should rise, 
under pretence of putting us out of the room, 
and after a jesting manner pull my night-gown 
from my shoulders, (we were nearly of a height) 
throw it over his own, and there keep it till 
he had performed what I appointed him to do, 
which was that when we were all gone out of 
the chamber he should withdraw to make water, 
should three times repeat such and such words, 
and as often do such and such actions: that at 
every of the three times he should tie the rib- 
band I put into his hand about his middle, and 
be sure to place the medal that was fastened to 
it, the figures in such a posture, exactly upon 
his reins, which being done, and having, the 
last of the three times, so well girt and fast tied 
the ribband that it could neither untie nor slip 
from its place, let him confidently return to his 
business, and withal not forget to spread my 
gown upon the bed, so that it might be sure to 
cover them both. These apes' tricks are the 
main of the effect, our fancy being so far 
seduced as to believe that such strange and 
uncouth formalities must of necessity proceed 
from some abstruse science. Their very inanity 
gives them reverence and weight. However, 
certain it is that my figures proved themselves 
more venerean than solar, more in action than 
in prohibition, and the fair bride had no reason 
to complain. Now I must tell you, it was a 
sudden whimsey, mixed with a little curiosity, 
that made me do a thing so contrary to my 
nature ; for I am an enemy to all tricks and 
counterfeits, and abominate all manner of finesse, 
though it be in sport, and of advantage; for 
though the action may not be wicked in itself, 
yet 'tis done after a wicked manner. 

Amasis, king of iEgypt, having married Lao- 
dicea, a marvellously beautiful Greek virgin, 
though famous for his abilities elsewhere, found 
himself quite another man with his wife, and 
could by no means enjoy her; at which he was 
so enraged that he threatened to kill her, sus- 
pecting her to be a witch. As 'tis usually in 
things that consist in fancy, she put him upon 
devotion, and, having accordingly made his 
vows to Venus, he found himself divinely re- 
stored the very first night after his oblations 
and sacrifices. 2 Women are to blame, to enter- 
tain us with that disdainful, coy, and angry 
countenance they commonly do, which extin- 
guishes our vigour, as it kindles our desire. 
The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that 
the woman who goes to bed with a man must put 



Laodicea, or Ladice, faithfully performed avow she had 
made to Venus, by ereclinga statue ; " which," the author 
adds, " was still standing in my time " 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



off her modesty with her petticoat, and put it 
on again with the same. 1 The soul of the 
assailant being disturbed with a variety of 
alarms, is easily dispirited, and soon loses the 
power of performance ; and whoever the ima- 
gination has once put this shame upon (and she 
never does it but at the first acquaintance, by 
reason men are then more ardent and eager, 
and that at this first account a man gives of 
himself he is much more timorous of miscarry- 
ing,) having made an ill-beginning, he becomes 
peevish at the accident, which will on following 
occasions be apt to stick to him. 

As to married people, whose time is all before 
them, they ought never to compel, or so much 
as to offer at the affair, if they do not find them- 
selves quite ready: and'it is better to fail in the 
decorum of handselling the nuptial sheets, when 
a man perceives himself full of agitation and 
trembling, and to wait for another opportunity 
at a better and more private juncture, when his 
fancy shall be better composed, than to make 
himself perpetually miserable, for having mis- 
behaved himself, and been baffled at the first 
assault. Till possession be taken, a man that 
knows himself subject to this infirmity, should 
leisurely and at intervals make several little 
trials and light offers, without obstinately at- 
tempting at once to force an absolute conquest 
over his own mutinous and indisposed faculties. 
Such as know their members to be naturally 
obedient to their desires, need to take no other 
care but only to counterplot their fancy. 

The indocility of this member is sufficiently 
remarkable; importunate, unruly, and impa- 
tient, at such times as we have nothing for it 
to do, and unseasonably stupid and disobedient 
when we stand most in need of his vigour, so 
imperiously contesting the authority of the 
will, and with so much obstinacy denying all 
solicitation both of hand and fancy. And yet, 
though his rebellion is so nni- 
bers are <>cca- versally complained of, and that 
sionaiiy disobe- proofs are not wanting to con- 
demn him, if he had nevertheless 
fee'd me to plead his cause, I should perad venture 
bring the rest of his fellow members into sus- 
picion of complotting this mischief against him, 
out of pure envy at the importance and pleasure 
• particular to his employment, so as to have, by 
this confederacy of theirs, armed the whole 
world against him, by malevolently charging 
him alone with their common offence. For let 
any one consider whether there is any one part 
of our bodies that does not often refuse to per- 
form its office at the precept of the will, and 
that does not often exercise its function in deti- 
nue., of her command. They have every one 
of them proper passions of their own, that rouse 



• Montaigne here speaks of Theano, the famous Pythago- 
rean woman, who was tin- wife, anil not the ilaugiiter-in- 
,aw, of Pythagoras. See Diogenes Lai-rtius in the Life of 
Pythagoras, viii. 42. It is M. Menace who lias taken 
notice of this s.nall mistake of Montaigne. 



and awake, stupify and benumb them, without 
our leave or consent. How often do the in- 
voluntary motions of the countenance discover 
our inward thoughts, and betray our most private 
secrets to the knowledge of the standers-by] 
The same cause that animates this member, does 
also, without our knowledge, animate the lungs, 
the pulse, the heart ; the sight of a pleasing 
object imperceptibly diffusing a flame through 
all our parts with a feverish motion. Is there 
nothing but these veins«and muscles that swell 
and flag without the consent, not only of the 
will, but even of our knowledge also? We do 
not command our hairs to stand on end, nor our 
skin to shiver either with fear or desire. The 
hands often convey themselves to parts to which 
we do not direct them. The tongue will be 
interdict, and the voice as it were suffocated, 
without the intervention of the will. When 
we have nothing to eat, and would willingly 
forbid it, the appetite of eating and drinking 
does not for all that forbear to stir up the parts 
that are subjected to it, no more nor less than 
the other appetite we were speaking of, and in 
like manner does as unseasonably leave us. 
The vessels that serve to discharge the belly 
have their proper dilatations and compressions, 
without and beyond our intelligence, as well 
as those which are destined to purge the reins. 
And that which, to justify the prerogative of the 
will, St. Augustine urges, of having seen a man 
who could command his back trumpet to sound 
as often as he pleased, and which Vives, his 
commentator, fortifies with another example 
in his time of one that could do this in tune, 2 
does not any the more attribute pure obedience 
to that part ; for is any thing commonly more 
tumultuary or indiscreet ] To which let me add 
that I myself knew one so rude and ungoverned 
as for forty years kept its master at work with 
one continued and unintermitted hurricane, and 
'tis like will do so till he expire that way. And 
I could heartily wish that I only knew, by 
reading, how oft a man's belly, by the denial 
of one single puff, brings him to the very door 
of an exceeding painful death ; and that the 
emperor, who gave liberty to let fly in all 
places, had at the same time given us power to 
do so. 3 But for our will, in whose behalf we 
have preferred this accusation, with how much 
greater similitude of truth may we reproach 
even her herself with mutiny and sedition for 
her irregularity and disobedience] Does she 
always will what we would have her to do] 
Does she not often will what we forbid her to 
will, and that to our manifest prejudice] Does 
she suffer herself, any more than any of the 
others, to be governed and directed by the 
results of our reason ! To conclude, I should 



a August, da Civit. Dei, xi v. 24., and the Comment, ol 
Vives, in loco. 
■' Suetonius, Life of Claudius, c. 32, who. however, merely 

mentions that this emperor had it in contemplation to au- 
thorize this freedom. 



64 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



urge in the behalf of the gentleman, my client, 
it might be considered that in this matter his 
cause being inseparably conjoined with an ac- 
cessary, whose share is not distinctly marked, 
yet he only is called in question, and that by 
arguments and accusations, that cannot be 
charged nor reflect upon his said accomplice, 
for the latter, though he sometimes inoppor- 
tunely invites, never refuses, and allures after 
a tacit and clandestine manner: and herein, 
therefore, is the malice and injustice of his 
accusers most manifestly apparent. But, be it 
as it may, let the advocates and judges pass 
what sentence they please, nature will, in the 
mean time, proceed after her own way; who 
had done but well, if she had endowed this 
member with some particular privilege ; the 
author, as he is, of the sole immortal work of 
mortals, a divine work according to Socrates; 
of love, desire of immortality ; and himself an 
immortal Daemon. 

One person, perhaps,- by such an effect of 

imagination, may have had the 
one's physician g 00 & ^ ac ^ to l ea ve that disease 
a great step to- behind him here in France which 
wards one's ^ com p an i on carries back wit! 

him into Spain. And that you 
may see why men in such cases require a mind 
prepared for the thing they are to do, why do 
the physicians tamper with, and prepossess before 
hand their patients' credulity with so many false 
promises of cure, if not to the end, that the 
effect of imagination may supply the defect of 
their decoctions'? They know, very well, that 
a great master of their trade has given it under 
his hand, that he has known some with whom 
the very sight of a potion would do the work. 
And this conceit comes now into my head, by 
the remembrance of a story was told me by an 
apothecary of my late father's, a blunt honest 
Swiss (a nation not much addicted to vanity 
or lying), of a merchant he had long known at 
Thoulouse, who being a valetudinarian, and 
much afflicted with fits of the stone, had often 
occasion to take clysters, of which, he caused 
several sorts to be prescribed him by the phy- 
sicians, according to the circumstances of his 
attack : one of which being one time brought 
in, and none of the usual forms, as feeling if it 
were not too hot, and the like, being omitted, 
he was laid down on his bed, the syringe ap- 
plied, and all ceremonies performed, injection 
excepted; after which, the apothecary being 
gone, and the patient accommodated as if he 
had really received a clyster, he found the same 
operation and effect that those do who have 
taken one indeed ; and if at any time the phy- 
sician did not find the operation sufficient, he 
would usually give him two or three more 
after the same manner. And the fellow more- 
over swore to me that, to save charges (for he 
paid as if he had really taken them), this sick 
man's wife having sometimes made trial of warm 



i Ovid. Rcmcd. Amor. 015. 



water only, the effect discovered the cheat; 
and finding these would not do, she was fain to 
return to the old way. A woman fancying she 
had swallowed a pin in a piece of bread, com- 
plained of an intolerable pain in 
her throat, where she thought she A distemper 
felt it stick; but an ingenious ££££& 
fellow that was brought to her, imagination. 
seeing no outward tumour nor 
alteration, supposing it only to be a fancy taken 
at some crust of bread that had pricked her as 
it went down, caused her to vomit, and unseen 
threw a crooked pin into the basin, which the 
woman no sooner saw, but, believing she had 
cast it up, she presently found herself eased of 
her pain. I myself knew of a gentleman, who 
having treated a greaP deal of good company 
at his house, three or four days after said, in 
jest (for there was no such thing), that he had 
made them eat of a cat-pie ; at which, a young 
gentlewoman, who had been at the feast, took 
such a horror that, falling into a violent vomit- 
ing and a fever, there was no possible means to 
save her. Even brute beasts are 
also subject to the force of ima- Animals sub- 
p-ination as well as we ; as is J°£ l \° u ' e . 

a , ... •. ,. ' . c efiects ot ima- 

observed in dogs who die ot grier gination. 
for the loss of their masters, and 
are seen to bark, tremble, and start, as horses 
will kick and neigh in their sleep. 

Now all this may be attributed to the affinity 
and relation betwixt the souls and the bodies of 
brutes, mutually communicating their feelings ; 
but 'tis quite another thing when the imagina- 
tion works upon the souls of rational men, and 
not only to the prejudice of their own particular 
bodies, but of others also. And as an infected 
body communicates its malady to those that 
approach or live near it, as we see in the plague, 
the small-pox, and sore eyes, that run through 
whole families and cities : 



so the imagination, being vehemently agitated, 
darts out infection capable of hurting a foreign 
object. The ancients had an opinion of certain 
women of Scythia, that, being animated and 
enraged against any one, they killed them only* 
with a look. Tortoises and ostriches hatch 
their eggs with only looking on them, which 
infers that their eyes have in them such ejacu- 
lative virtue. And the eyes of witches are said 
to be dangerous and hurtful ; 

Nescio quis teneros oculus milii fascinat agnos.' 
"Some eye unknown liath witched my tender lamps." 

though magicians are no very good authority 
with me. We see, however, by constant ex- 
perience, that women impart the marks of their 
fancy to the unborn children within them: 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



witness her that was brought to bed of a moor. 
And there was presented to Charles, King of 
Bohemia and Emperor, a girl from about Pisa, 
all over rough and covered with 
lis f'ff'tt on hair, whom her mother said had 
women with , , , „ 

child; been conceived by reason or a 

picture of St. John the Baptist, 
that hung in her bed. 

It is the same with beasts, witness Jacob's 
and animals. f^ep, and the hares and par- 
tndges that the snow turns white 
upon the mountains. There was at my house a 
little while ago a cat seen watching a bird 
upon the top of a tree, who for some time 
mutually fixing their eyes upon one another, 
the bird at last let herself fall as dead 
into the cat's claws, either dazzled and asto- 
nished by the force of her own imagination, or 
drawn by some attractive power in the cat. 
Such as are addicted to hawking have heard 
the story of the falconer, who having earnestly 
fixed his eyes upon a kite in the air, laid a 
wager that he would bring her down with the 
sole power of his gaze, and did so, as it was 
said ; for the tales I borrow I charge upon the 
consciences of those from whom I have them. 
The arguments are my own, and found them- 
selves upon the proofs of reason, 
u'e'of 'fiius- not °*' ex P erlellce i to which every 
trations. one has liberty to add his own ex- 

amples ; and he who has none (the 
numbers and varieties of accident considered), let 
him not forbear to believe that these I set down 
are enough ; and if I do not apply them well, 
let some other do it for me. So in the subjects 
of which I treat, our manners and motions, the 
testimonies and instances I produce, how fabu- 
lous soever, provided they are possible, serve as 
well as true ones; whether it has really hap- 
pened or no, at Rome, or at Paris, Peter or 
John, 'tis still within the verge of possibility 
and human capacity, which serves me to good 
use in the things I write. I see and make my 
advantage of it as well in shadow as in sub- 
stance; and amongst the various examples I 
everywhere meet with in history, I cull out the 
most rare and memorable to fit my own turn. 
There are some authors whose only end and 
design it is to give an account of things that 
have happened ; mine, if I could arrive unto it, 
should be to talk of what may come to pass. 
There is a just liberty allowed in the schools, of 
supposing and contriving similes, when they 
are at a loss for them in their own reading; I 
do not, however, make any use of that privi- 
lege, and in this respect in superstitious religion 
surpass all historical authority. In the ex- 
amples which I here bring in of what I have 
heard, read, done, or said, I have forbid myself 
to dare to alter even the most light and in- 



different, circumstances; my conscience does not 
falsify one tittle, what my ignorance may do I 
cannot say. 

And this it is that makes me sometimes 
doubt whether a divine or a phi- 
losopher, men of so exquisite and ^,^ "/| n * he " 
exact wisdom and conscience, divines or phi- 
ought to write history; for how losophers 
car, they stake their reputation ,1°^ write 
upon a popular belief! how be 
responsible for the opinions of men they do not 
know; or with what assurance deliver their 
conjectures as ready money"! Of actions per- 
formed before their own eyes, wherein several 
persons were actors, they would be unwilling 
to give evidence upon oath before a judge ; nor 
is there any man with whose heart they are so 
familiarly and thoroughly acquainted that they 
would become absolute surety for his intentions. 
For my part, I think it less hazardous to write 
things past than present, by how much the 
writer is only to give an account of things 
every one knows lie must of necessity borrow 
upon trust. 

I am solicited to write the affairs of my own 
time, by some who fancy I look 
upon them with an eye less Montaigne so- 

, f. , , ... ... J licited to write 

blinded with prejudice or par- the history of 
tiality than another, and have llis tilIle ; a » d 
a clearer insight into them, by £ h t y he W0uld 
reason of the free access fortune 
has given me to the heads of both factions; 
but they do not consider that to purchase 
the glory of Sallust I would not give myself 
the trouble, sworn enemy as I am to all obli- 
gation, assiduity, and perseverance: besides 
that, there is nothing so contrary to my style 
as a continued and extended narrative, I so 
often interrupt and cut myself short in my 
writing, only for' want of breath. I am good 
at neither composition nor comment, and am 
ignorant beyond a child of the phrases, and even 
the very words, proper to express the most 
common things; and for that reason it is that I 
have undertaken to say only what I can say, 
and have accommodated my subjects to my 
force. Should I take one to be my guide, per- 
adventure I should not be able to keep pace 
with him, and in the precipitancy of my career 
might deliver judgments which, even in my 
own thought, and according to reason, would 
be criminal in the highest degree. 

Plutarch would readily tell us of what he 
has delivered to the light, that is the work of 
others; that his examples are all and every- 
where true; that they are useful to posterity, 
and are presented with a lustre that will light 
us the way to virtue, which was his design. 
But it matters not, as in a medicinal drug, 
whether an old story run so or so. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 1 

THAT THE PROFIT OF ONE MAN IS THE 
INCONVENIENCE OF ANOTHER. 

Demades the Athenian condemned one of his 
city, whose trade it was to sell the necessaries 
for funeral ceremonies,, upon pretence that he 
demanded unreasonable profit, and that this 
profit could not accrue to him but by the death 
of a great number of people. A judgment that 
appears to be ill grounded, forasmuch as no 
profit whatever can be made but at the expense 
of another, and that by the same rule he should 
condemn all manner of gain of what kind soever. 
The tradesman thrives and grows rich by the 
pride and wastefulness of youth ; the husband- 
man by the dearness of grain ; the architect by 
the ruin of buildings; the lawyers and officers 
of justice by suits and contentions of men ; nay, 
even the honour and office of divines are de- 
rived from our death and vices. A physician 
takes no pleasure in the health even of his 
friends, says the ancient comedian ; nor a soldier 
in the peace of his country ; and so of the rest. 2 
And, which is yet worse, let every one but 
dive into his own bosom, and he will find his 
private wishes spring, and his secret hopes 
grow up, at another's expense. Upon which 
consideration it comes into my head that Nature 
does not in this swerve from her general polity ; 
for physicians hold that the birth, nourishment, 
and increase of everything, is the dissolution 
and corruption of another. 

Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit, 
Continue hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante.s 
" For what from its own confines chang'd doth pass, 
Is straight the deatli of what before it was." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

OF CUSTOM, AND THAT WE SHOULD NOT 
EASILY CHANGE A LAW RECEIVED. 

He seems to me to have had a right and true 
The force of apprehension of the power of 
custom!** ° custom who first invented the 
story of a country-woman, who 
having accustomed herself to play with, and 
carry from the hour of its birth, a calf in her 
arms, and daily continuing to do so as it grew 



i This chapter, which is itself principally taken from Se- 
neca, on Benefits, vi. 38, &c. contains (remarks Mr. Hazlitt) 
the whole substance of Mandeville's fable of the Bees; 
with this difference, however, that Mandeville pre-supposes 
a vicious state of society, and says that man, if he will have 
great overgrown cities and false luxuries, must have what 
they produce; which is a fine useful moral. 

2 " Le precepte de ne jamais nuire ii autrui emporte 
celui de tenir a societe humaine le moins qn'ilest possible; 
car dans l'etat social le Men de run fait necessairetnent le 
mal de 1'autre."— Rousseau, iimile, iii. 

3 Lucretius, ii. 752. 



up, obtained this by custom, that when grown 
to be a great ox, she was still able to bear it. 4 
For, in truth, custom is a violent and treache- 
rous school-mistress. She, by little and little, 
slily and unperceived, slips in the foot of her 
authority, but having by this gentle and humble 
beginning, with the aid of time, fixed and esta- 
blished it, she then unmasks a furious and 
tyrannic countenance, against which we have 
no more the courage nor the power so much as 
to lift up our eyes. We see it at every turn 
forcing and violating the rules of nature: 
usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister, 5 
"Custom is the greatest master of all things." 
I believe in Plato's cave in his Republic, 6 
and the physicians, who so often submit the 
reasons of their art to the authority of habit : 
as also the story of that king who by custom 
brought his stomach to that pass as to live on 
poison; and the girl that Albertus reports to 
have lived upon spiders; and in that new world 
of the Indies, there were found great nations, 
and in very different climates, who lived upon 
the same diet, made provision of them, and fed 
them for their tables; as well as grasshoppers, 
mice, bats, and lizards; and in a time of a 
scarcity, a toad was sold for six crowns; all 
which they cook, and dish up with several 
sauces. There were also others found to whom 
our food and the flesh we eat were venomous 
and mortal. Consuetudinis magna vis est: 
pernoctant venatores in nive ; in monlibus uri 
se patiuntur : pugiles csestibus conlusi, ne 
ingemiscunt quidern. 1 " The power of custom 
is very great: huntsmen will one while lie out 
all night in the snow, and another sutler them- 
selves to be parched with heat on the mountains ; 
and prize-fighters, though beaten almost to a 
jelly with the caestus, utter not a groan." These 
examples will not appear so strange, if we con- 
sider what we have ordinary experience of, how 
much custom dulls our senses. We need not go 
to be satisfied of this to what is reported of the 
cataracts of the Nile; and to what philosophers 
believe of the music of the spheres, that the 
bodies of those circles being solid and smooth, 
and coming to touch, and rub upon one another, 
cannot fail of creating a wonderful harmony, 
the changes and cadences of which cause the 
revolutions and dances of the stars; but that 
the hearing sense of all creatures here below, 
being universally, like that of the Egyptians, 
deafened and stupified with the continual noise, 
cannot distinguish it, how great soever it be. 



4 Stobteus, Serm. xxix. who takes it from Favorinus. 
See also duintilian, i. 9. It is become a kind of proverb, 
which Petronius has thus expressed, 

Tollere taurum 

dure tulerit vitulum ilia potest. 
You will also find it among the adages of Erasmus, Chil. 1. 
Cent. 2. Ad. 51. 
6 Pliny, Nat. His. xxvi. 2. 

6 Cicero, Tusc. Quas. ii. 17. 

7 Plato, Repub. vii. 

e Cicero, Somn. Seip. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



fi7 



Smiths, millers, and armourers, could never be 
able to live in the perpetual noise of their own 
trades did it strike their ears as it does ours. 

My perfumed doublet gratifies my own nose 
at first, as well as that of others, but after I 
have worn it three or four days together, I 
myself no more perceive it ; but it is yet more 
strange that custom, notwithstanding long 
intermissions and intervals, should yet have the 
power to unite, and establish the effect of its 
impressions upon our senses, as is manifest to 
such as live near belfries. I myself lie at home 
in a tower, where every morning and evening 
a very great bell rings out the Ave Maria, the 
noise of which shakes my very tower, and at 
first seemed insupportable to me ; but in a little 
while I got so used to it that I hear it without 
any manner of offence, and often without awak- 
ing at it. 

Plato reprehending a boy for playing at some 
childish game — " Thou reprovest me," said the 
boy, "for a very little thing." "Custom," 
replied Plato, "is no little thing." 1 Our 

greatest vices derive their first 
Vices take root propension from our most tender 
tender years, infancy; our principal education 
and ought ' depends upon the nurse. Mothers 
corseted in- be are mi g ,ltll y amused to see a child 
stantiy. twist off the neck of a chicken, 

or divert itself with hurting a dog 
or a cat; and such wise fathers there are in the 
world who look upon it as a notable presage 
of a martial spirit when he hears his son mis- 
call or domineer over a poor peasant or lacquey, 
that dares not reply or turn again ; and a great 
sign of wit when he sees hitn cheat and over- 
reach his play-fellow by some sly trick; yet 
these are the true seeds and roots of cruelty, 
tyranny, and treason. They bud and put out 
there, and afterwards shoot up vigorously in 
the hands of custom : and it is a very dangerous 
mistake to excuse these vile inclinations upon 
account of the tenderness of their age, and the 
triviality of the subject ; first, it is nature that 
speaks, whose voice is then more sincere, and 
whose inward thoughts are more undisguised, 
as it is younger and more shrill ; secondly, 
the deformity of cozenage does not consist in, 
nor depend upon, the difference betwixt crowns 
and pins ; but merely upon itself, for a cheat is 
a cheat, be it more or less; which makes me 
think it more just to conclude thus, "why 
should he not cozen in crowns since he does 
it in pins?" than as they do, who say, "they 
only play for pins, he would not do it if it were 
for crowns." Children should carefully be 

instructed to abhor vices for them- 
Ohiidren selves, and the natural deformity 

should he e ., • , . . , ' 

taught to ahhor °' those vices ought so to be re- 
vice for itself, presented to them that they may 
not only avoid them in their ac- 
tions, but so abominate them in their hearts that 



' Diog. Lnert. in vita. But Laertius does not say that the 
person whom Plato reprehended was a hoy. or that lie was 

playing at some childish game; but that it was a man play- 



the very ,thjought should be hateful to them, 
with what mask soever they may be palliated 
or disguised. 

I know very well, for what concerns myself, 
that from having been brought up in my child- 
hood to a plain and sincere way of dealing, and 
from then having had an aversion to all manner 
of juggling and tricking in rny childish sports 
and recreations (and indeed it is to be noted 
that the play of children is not really play, but 
must be judged of as their most serious actions,) 
there is no game so small, wherein from my 
own bosom naturally, and without study or 
endeavour, I have not an extreme aversion for 
deceit. I shuffle and cut, and make as much 
ado with the cards, and keep as strict account 
for farthings, as if it were for doubloons ; when 
winning or losing against my wife and daughter, 
it is indifferent to me, as when I play in good 
earnest with others for round sums. At all 
times, and in all things, my own eyes are suf- 
ficient to look to my fingers; I am not so 
narrowly watched by any other, neither is there 
any I more fear to be discovered by, or to 
offend, than myself. 

I saw the other day at my own house, a little 
fellow, a native of Nantes, born Curious ■ 
without arms, who has so Well stance of the 
taught his feet to perform the feet, and neck, 
services his hands should have ft 1 ^ 06 
done him that indeed they have 
half forgot their natural office, and the use for 
which they were designed ; the fellow, indeed, 
calls them his hands, and we may allow him so 
to do, for with them he cuts anything, charges 
and discharges a pistol, threads a needle, sews, 
writes, and puts off his hat, combs his head, 
plays at cards and dice, and all this with the 
utmost dexterity; and the money I gave him 
(for he gets his living by exhibiting himself,) 
he carried away in his foot, as we do in our 
hand. I have seen another who, though a mere 
boy, flourished a two-handed sword, and (if I 
may so say) handled a halbert with the mere 
motions and writhing of his neck and shoulders 
for want of hands, tost them into the air, 
and caught them again, darted a dagger, and 
cracked a whip as well as any carter in France. 

But the effects of custom are much more 
manifest in the strange impression she makes 
in our minds, where she meets with less resist- 
ance. What has she not the power to impose 
upon our judgments and belief] Is there any 
so fantastic opinion (omitting the gross impos- 
tures in religion, with which we see so many 
populous nations and so many understanding 
men so strangely besotted ; tor this being beyond 
the reach of human reason, any error is the 
more excusable in such as, through the divine 
bounty, are not endued with an extraordinary 
illumination from above), but in other matters, 
are there any so senseless and extravagant that 

rejoinder far more 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



she has not planted and established for laws in 
those parts of the world upon which she has 
been pleased to exercise her power 1 And there- 
fore that ancient exclamation was exceeding 
just — Non pudet physicum, id est, speculatorem 
venaloremque natures, ab animis consuetudine 
imbutis quecrere testimonium veritatis ? l " Is it 
not a shame for a natural philosopher, that is, 
for an observer and hunter of nature, to seek tes- 
timony from minds prepossessed with custom V 
I do believe that no so absurd or ridiculous fancy 
can enter into human imagination that does not 
meet with some example of public practice, and 
that, consequently, our reason does not ground 
and support itself upon. There are people 
amongst whom it is the fashion to turn their 
backs upon him they salute, and never look 
upon the man they wish to honour. There is 
a court where, whenever the king spits, the 
favourite lady puts out her hand to receive it; 
and another nation where the most eminent 
persons about him stood to take up his ordure 
in a linen cloth. Let us here steal room to 
insert a story. 

~'A French gentleman of my acquaintance 
who was always wont to blow his nose with 
his fingers — a thing very much against our 
fashion — would justify himself for so doing, and 
was a man very famous for pleasant repartees, 
as thus : — Upon such an occasion he asked me 
what privilege this filthy excrement had, that 
we must carry about with us a fine handkerchief 
to receive it, and, which was more, afterwards 
to lap it carefully up, and carry it all day about 
in our pockets, which, he said, could not be 
much more nauseous and offensive than to see 
it thrown away, as we did all other evacuations. 
It seemed to me that what he said was not 
altogether without reason, and, being frequently 
in his company, that slovenly action of his at 
last grew familiar to me ; which, nevertheless, 
we make a face at when we hear it reported of 
another country. 

Miracles appear to be so, according to our 
ignorance of nature, and not according to the 
essence of nature. The continually being accus- 
tomed to any thing blinds the" eye of our 
judgment. Barbarians are no more a wonder 
to us than we are to them ; nor with any more 
reason, as every one would confess if, after 
having considered those remote examples, men 
would reflect upon their own, and rightly com- 
pare them together. Human reason is a tincture 
pretty equally infused into all our opinions and 
manners, of what form soever they are; infinite 
in matter, infinite in diversity. But I return 
to my subject. 

There are people where, his wife and children 

excepted, no one speaks to the 

The odd cus- king but through a trumpet. In one 

nations. ' VerS ana tne sarae nation the virgins 

discover those parts that modesty 

should persuade them to hide, and the married 



« Cicero de Nat. Dcor. i. 30. The text has pctcre, not 
guar ere. 



women carefully cover and conceal them. To 
which this custom, in another place, has some 
relation, where chastity, except in marriage, is 
of no esteem, for unmarried women may prosti- 
tute themselves to as many as they please, and, 
being with child, may lawfully take physic, in 
the sight of every one, to procure abortion. 
And, in another place, when a tradesman 
majries, all of the same condition who are in- 
vited to the wedding, lie with the bride before 
him; and the greater number of them there is, 
the greater is her honour, and the opinion of 
her ability and strength; if an officer marry, 
'tis the same, the same with a nobleman, and 
so of the rest ; except it be a labourer, or one 
of mean condition, for then it belongs to the 
lord of the place to perform that office; and 
yet a strict fidelity during marriage is afterward 
enjoined. There is a place where brothels of 
young men are kept for the pleasure of women, 
as with us there are of women for men : where 
the wives go to war as well as their husbands, 
and not only share in the dangers of battle, 
but, moreover, in the honours of command. 
Others where they wear rings not only through 
their noses, lips, cheeks, and on their toes, but 
also heavy wedges of gold thrust through their 
breasts and buttocks: where, in eating, they 
wipe their fingers upon their thighs, genitories, 
and the soles of their feet: where children are 
excluded, and brothers and nephews only in- 
herit; and, elsewhere, nephews only, saving 
in the succession of the crown : where, for the 
regulation of community in goods and estates 
observed in the country, certain sovereign 
magistrates have committed to them the uni- 
versal charge of cultivating the lands, and dis- 
tributing the produce according to the necessity 
of every one : where they lament the death of 
children, and feast at the decease of old men : 2 
where they lie ten or twelve in a bed, men 
and their wives together : where women whose 
husbands come to violent ends may marry 
again, and others not: where women are 
looked upon with such contempt that they kill 
all the native females, and buy wives of their 
neighbours to supply their use: where hus- 
bands may repudiate their wives without 
showing any cause, but wives cannot part from 
their husbands for what cause soever: where 
husbands may sell their wives in case of ste- 
rility : where they boil the bodies of their dead, 
and afterwards pound them to a pulp, which 
they mix with their wine, and drink it: where 
the favourite mode of burial is to be eaten by 
dogs; 3 and elsewhere, by birds: where they 
believe the souls of the happy live in all manner 
of liberty, in delightful fields, furnished with 
all sorts of delicacies, and that it is those souls 
repeating the words we utter, which we call 
echo: where they fight in the water, and shoot 
their arrows with the most mortal aim, swim- 
ming : where, for a sign of subjection, they lif* 



a In Thrace. See Herod, v. 

3 Sextus Empiricus. Pyrrh. Hypot. iii. 34. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



up their shoulders, and hang down their heads, 
and put off their shoes, when they enter the 
king's palace: where the eunuchs who have 
charge of the religious women have, moreover, 
their lips and noses cut off, that they may 
not be loved ; and the priests put out their own 
eyes to get acquainted with their demons and 
receive their oracles : where every one creates 
to himself a deity of what he likes best, accord- 
ing to his own fancy — the hunter, of a lion or 
a fox ; the fisher, of some fish, and idols of every 
human action or passion: where the sun, the 
moon, and the earth, are the principal deities, 
and the form of taking an oath is to touch the 
earth, looking up to heaven, and where both 
flesh and fish are eaten raw : where the greatest 
oath they take is to swear by the name of some 
dead person of reputation, laying their hand 
upon his tomb: 1 where the new-year's gift the 
king sends every year to the princes, his sub- 
jects, is fire, which, being brought, all the old 
fire is put out, and the neighbouring people are 
bound to fetch of the new, every one for them- 
selves, upon pain of treason: where, when the 
king, to betake himself wholly to devotion, 
retires from his administration (which often falls 
out), his next successor is obliged to do the 
same ; by which means the crown devolves to 
the third in succession: where they vary the 
form of government according to the seeming 
necessity of affairs; depose the king when they 
think good, substituting ancient men to govern 
in his stead, and sometimes transferring it into 
the hands of the common people : where men 
and women are both circumcised and bap- 
tized: where the soldier who, in one or several 
engagements, has been so fortunate as to pre- 
sent seven of the enemies' heads to the king is 
made noble : where they live in that singular 
and unsociable opinion of the mortality of the 
soul : where the women are delivered without 
pain or fear: where the women wear copper 
boots upon both their legs, and, if a louse bites 
them, are bound, in magnanimity, to bite it again, 
and dare not marry until first they have made 
their king a tender of their virginity: where 
the ordinary mode of salutation is by putting a 
finger down to the earth, and then pointing up 
towards heaven: where men carry burthens 
upon their heads, and women on their shoulders : 
where the women make water standing, and 
the men squatting down: where they _ send 
some of their blood in token of friendship, and 
offer incense to the men they would honour, like 
gods: where not only to the fourth, but to 
more remote degrees, kindred are not permitted 
to marry : where the children are four years at 
nurse, and often twelve; and where it is ac- 
counted mortal to give the child suck the first 
day after it is born: where the correction of 



1 Herod. iv.MB. Nymptiartnrus. Iicrum Barburicarur, 

» Herod, iv. 

> Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hi/pot. iii. 24. 



the male children is assigned to the fathers, and 
that of the females to the mothers ; the punish- 
ment being to hang them by the heels in the 
smoke : where they eat all sorts of herbs, ex- 
cepting only those that have an ill smell : 
where all things are open, the finest furnished 
houses being without doors, windows, or chests 
to lock, a thief being there punished double to 
what they are in other places: where they crack 
lice with their teeth, like monkies, and abhor 
to see them killed with one's nails : where in 
all their lives they neither cut their hair nor 
pare their nails; and in another place pare 
those of the right hand only, letting the left 
grow for ornament: where they suffer the hair 
on the right side to grow as long as it will, and 
shave the other; and in the neighbouring pro- 
vinces some let their hair grow long before and 
some behind, shaving close the rest: 2 where 
parents let out their children, and husbands 
their wives, to their guests to hire : where a 
man may get his own mother with child, and 
fathers make use of their own daughters, or 
their sons, without scandal or offence : where, 
at their solemn feasts, they lend their children 
to one another, without any consideration of 
nearness of blood. In one place men feed upon 
human flesh, in another 'tis reputed a pious 
office for a man to kill his father at a certain 
age; 3 and elsewhere the fathers dispose of their 
children whilst yet unborn, — some to be pre- 
served and carefully brought up, and others to 
be made away with. Elsewhere the old hus- 
bands lend their wives to young men, and in 
another place they are in common without 
offence ; nay, in one place, the women wear, as 
marks of honour, as many gay fringed tassels 
at the bottom of their petticoats as they have 
lain with men.* Moreover, has not custom 
made a republic of women separate by them- 
selves? Has it not put arms into their hands, 
made them to raise armies, and fight battles ! 
And does she not by mere precept instruct the 
most ignorant vulgar, and make them perfect 
in things which all the philosophy in the world 
could never beat into the heads of the wisest 
men? For we know entire nations, where 
death was not only despised, but entertained 
with the greatest triumph ; where children of 
seven years old suffered themselves to be 
whipped to death without changing their coun- 
tenance ; 5 where riches were in such contempt 
that the poorest citizen would not have deigned 
to stoop to take up a purse of crowns; and we 
know regions, very fruitful in all manner of 
provisions, where, notwithstanding, the most 
ordinary diet, and that they are most pleased 
with, is only bread, cresses, and water. 6 Did 
not custom moreover work that miracle in 
Chios, that in seven hundred years it was never 



< Herod, iv. 

g At Lacediemon. 

» Persia. See Xcnophon, Ci/rop. 



70 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



known that ever maid or wife committed any 
act to the prejudice of her honour? 1 

In short, there is nothing, in my opinion, 
that she does not or may not do ; and therefore 
with very good reason it is that Pindar, as I 
am told, calls her "the queen and empress of 
the world." 2 He that was seen to beat his 
father, and reproved for so doing, made answer, 
That it was the custom of their family ; that in 
like manner his father had beaten his grand- 
father, his grandfather his great-grandfather. 
"And this," says he, pointing to his son, 
"when he comes to my age, will beat me." 
And the father, whose son was dragging and 
hauling him along the streets, commanded him 
to stop at a certain door ; for he himself, he said, 
had dragged his father no further, that being 
the utmost limit of the hereditary insolence the 
sons used to practise upon the fathers in their 
family. " It is as much by custom as dis- 
order," says Aristotle, " that women tear their 
hair, bite their nails, and eat charcoal and 
earth, and more by custom than nature that 
men abuse themselves with one another." 

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to 
be derived from nature, proceed 
parent"ofthe fr° m custom ; every one having 
laws of con- an inward veneration for the opi- 
science. nions and manners approved and 

received amongst his own people, cannot without 
very great reluctance depart from them, nor 
apply himself to them without applause. In 
times past, when those of Crete would curse 
any one, they prayed the gods to engage them 
in some ill custom. 3 But the principal effect 
of the power of custom is so to seize >and 
ensnare us that it is hardly in our power to 
disengage ourselves from its gripe; or so to 
come to ourselves as to consider of and weigh 
the things it enjoins. To say the truth, by 
reason that we suck it in with our mother's 
milk, and that the face of the world presents 
itself in this posture to our first sight, it seems 
as if we were born upon condition to pursue this 
practice ; and the common fancies that we find 
in repute everywhere about us, and infused 
into our minds with the seed of our fathers, 
appear to be universal and genuine. From 
whence it comes to pass that whatever is off 
the hinges of custom is believed to be also off 
the hinges of reason; though how unreasonably 
for the most part, God knows. 

If, as we who study ourselves have learned 
to do, every one who hears a good sentence 
would immediately consider how it does any 
way touch his own private concerns, every one 
would find that it was not so much a good 
saying as a sound lash to the ordinary stupidity 
of his own judgment. But men receive the 
precepts and admonitions of truth as directed 
to the common sort only, and not to them- 
selves ; and instead of applying thein to their, 

i Plutarch, in his treatise on the Virtuous behaviour of 



own manners, do only very ignorantly and 
unprofitably commit them to memory, without 
suffering themselves to be at all instructed or 
converted by them. But let us return to the 
empire of custom. 

Such people as have been bred up to liberty, 
and subject to none but them- Nations at- 
selves, look upon all other forms tached to the 
of government as monstrous and St which""' 
contrary to nature. Those who they have been 
are used to monarchy do the « s edto. 
same; and what opportunity soever fortune 
presents them with to change, even then, when 
with the greatest difficulties they have dis- 
engaged themselves from one master, that was 
troublesome and grievous to them, they pre- 
sently run with the same difficulties to create 
another; not being able, how roughly dealt 
with soever, to hate the government they were 
born under, and the obedience they have so 
long heen accustomed to. 'Tis by the media- 
tion and persuasion of custom that every one 
is content with the place where he is planted 
by nature; and the highlanders of Scotland 
no more pant after the air of Touraine, than 
the Scythians after the fields of Thessaly. 
Darius asked certain Greeks what they would 
take to assume the custom of the Indians, of 
eating the dead bodies of their fathers (for that 
was their practice, believing they could not 
give them a better or more noble sepulchre than 
to bury them in their own bodies), they made 
answer, That nothing in the world should hire 
them to do it; but having also tried to per- 
suade the Indians to leave their barbarous 
custom, and, after the Greek manner, to burn 
the bodies of their fathers, they conceived a 
still greater horror at the proposition ; and 'tis 
the same with us all, forasmuch as use veils 
from us the true aspect of things. 

Nil adeo masnum, nee tarn mirabile quicquam 
Principio, quod non minuant mirarier onmes 
Paulatim.4 



Taking upon me once to justify something in 
use amongst us, and that was received with 
absolute authority for a great many leagues 
round about us, and not content to establish it, 
as men commonly are, only by force of law and 
example, but by enquiring into its original, I 
found the foundation so weak that I, who had 
made it my business to confirm others, was very 
near being dissatisfied myself. 'Tis by this recipe 
that Plato undertakes to cure the unnatural 
and preposterous amours of his time — the recipe 
which he esteems of sovereign virtue ; namely, 
that the public opinion condemns them; that, 
the poets, and all other writers, relate horrible 
stories of them. A recipe by virtue of which 
the most beautiful daughters do not allure their 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



fathers' lust, nor brothers of the finest shape and 
beauty their sisters' desire. The very fables of 
Thyestes, CEdipus, and Macareus, having, with 
the harmony of their song, infused this whole- 
some opinion and belief into the tender brains 
of infants. 1 Chastity is, in truth, a great and 
shining virtue, and of which the utility is suf- 
ficiently known ; but to govern, and prevail 
with it according to nature, is as hard as 'tis easy 
to do it according to custom and the laws and 
precepts of sober practice. The original and 
universal reasons are of very difficult search, and 
our masters either lightly pass them over, or, 
not daring so much as to touch them, precipi- 
tate themselves at once into the liberty of 
custom, in which they pride themselves, and 
triumph as much as you please. Such as will 
not sutler themselves to be withdrawn from this 
original source do yet commit a greater error, 
and submit themselves to wild opinions. Witness 
Chrysippus, 2 who, in so many of his writings, 
has shown the little account lie made of inces- 
tuous conjunction committed with how near 
relations soever. 

Whoever would disengage himself from this 

violent prejudice of custom would 

only foundation fi"d several things received with 

of many tilings absolute and undoubting opinion 

tl',' n 'u"urki! '" tlmt haVe n0 0ther su PP ort tnan 

the hoary beard and wrinkled 
face of ancient use ; but this mask torn away, 
and things being referred to the decision of 
truth and reason, he will find his judgment 
convinced and overthrown, and yet restored to 
a much more sure state. For example, I will 
ask him what can be more strange than to see 
a people obliged to obey and pay a reverence to 
laws they never heard of, and to be bound in 
all their affairs, both private and public, as 
marriages, donations, wills, sales, and purchases, 
to rules they cannot possibly know, being 
neither writ nor published in their own lan- 
guage, and of which they have, of necessity, 
to purchase both the interpretation and the use 1 
Not according to the ingenious opinion of 
Isocrates, who counselled his king to make the 
traffics and negociations of his subjects free, 
open, and of profit to them, and their quarrels 
and disputes burdensome, and laden with heavy 
penalties ; but, by a monstrous notion, to make 
sale of reason itself, and to allow the law to be 
made a matter of traffic. I think myself obliged 
to fortune that, as our historians report, it was 
a Gascon gentleman, a countryman of mine, 
who first opposed Charlemagne when he 
attempted to impose upon us Latin and im- 
perial laws. 

What can be more outrageous than t.o see a 
nation where, by lawful custom, 
j c m £ t f ter the office of a Judge is to be 
of purchase. bought and sold, where judg- 
ments are paid for with ready 



1 I'lato, Laws, viii. 0. 
1 Soxtus Empiricus, i 



money, and where justice may legally be denied 
to him that has not wherewithal to pay ; :i where 
this merchandize is in so great repute, as in our 
government, to furnish a fourth estate of 
wrangling lawyers, to add to the three ancient 
ones of the church, nobility, and people; which 
fourth estate, having the laws in their hands, 
and sovereign power over men's lives and for- 
tunes, make a body separate from the nobility. 
From whence it comes to pass that there are 
double laws, those of honour, and those of 
justice, in many things positively opposite to 
one another ; the nobles as rigorously condemn- 
ing a lie taken, as the others do a lie revenged. 
By the law of arms he shall be degraded from 
all nobility and honour who puts up with an 
affront; and, by the civil law, he who vindi- 
cates his reputation incurs a capital punishment ; 
he who applies himself to the law for reparation 
of an offence done to his honour is disgraced ; 
and he who does not is punished by the law. 
Yet, of these two so different parties, both of 
them referring to one head, the one has the 
charge of peace, the other of war ; those have 
the profit, the»e the honour; those the wisdom, 
these the virtue; those the word, these the 
action; those justice, these valour; those 
reason, these force ; those the long robe, these 
the short, divided betwixt them. 

For what concerns indifferent things, as 
clothes, who is there that would think of bring- 
ing them back to their true and real use, the 
body's service and convenience, and upon which 
their original grace and decency depend ; yet 
what more fantastic than our fashions'? I will 
instance, amongst others, our square caps, that 
long tail of velvet that hangs down from our 
women's heads with its whimsical trinkets, and 
that idle and absurd model of a member we 
cannot, in modesty, so much as name, which, 
nevertheless, we make a parade of in public. 
These considerations, notwithstanding, will not 
prevail upon any understanding man to decline 
the common mode; but, on the 
contrary, methinks all singular Men of sense 
and particular fashions are rather should ^njorm 
marks of folly and vain affecta- f thei/Vn/e 
tion than of sound reason ; and as to externals, 
a wise man ought within to with- 
draw and retire his soul from the crowd, and* 
there keep it at liberty, and in power to judge 
freely of things; but, as to this outward garb 
and appearance, absolutely follow and conform 
himself to the fashion of the time. Public 
society has nothing to do with our thoughts, 
but for the rest, as our actions, our labours, our 
fortunes, and our lives, we should lend and 
abandon them to the common opinion and public 
service, as did that good and great Socrates, 
who refused to preserve his life by a disobe- 
dience to the magistrate, though a very wicked 
and unjust one : for it is the rule of rules, and 



» France, where this custom was introduced by the 
Chancellor du 1'rat, uuder Francis I. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the general law of laws, that every one observe 
those of the place wherein he lives. 

N6jiois extaBai To7<nq iy^aplois Ka\6v. 1 

" The country's custom to observe, 
Is proper, and doth praise deserve." 

Let us take another view of the subject; it 
Whether the is a ve T great doubt whether 
actual inconve- any so manifest an advantage can 
nience of accrue from the alteration of a 

ceTved'Taws is ' aw or custom received, let it be 
not greater what it will, as there is danger 
Me a " advantagt and inconvenience in doing it; 
forasmuch as government is a 
structure composed of several parts and mem- 
bers joined and united together, with so strict 
affinity and union that it is impossible to stir 
so much as one brick or stone but the whole 
body will be sensible of it. The legislator of 
the Thurians 2 ordained that whosoever proposed 
either to abolish old laws, or to establish new, 
should present himself, with a halter about his 
neck, to the people ; to the end that, if the in- 
novation he would introduce should not be 
approved by every one, he might immediately 
be hanged; and that of the Lacedemonians 3 
made it the business of his whole life to obtain 
from his citizens a faithful promise that none 
of his laws should be violated. The Ephorus, 
who so rudely cut the two strings that Phrynis 
had added to music, 4 never stood to examine 
whether that addition made better harmony, or 
that by that means the instrument was more 
full and complete; it was enough for him to 
condemn the invention, that it was a novelty, 
and an alteration of the old fashion. Which 
also is the meaning of the old rusty sword 
carried before the magistracy of Marseilles. 

For my own part I have myself a very great 
aversion for novelty, what face, or what pre- 
tence soever it may carry along with it, and 
have reason, having been an eye-witness of the 
great mischiefs produced. One cannot, I confess, 
exactly say that the miseries which, for so 
many years, 5 have lain so heavy upon the king- 
dom of France, are wholly occasioned by it; 
but one may say, and with colour enough, that 
it has accidentally produced and begot the mis- 
chief and ruin that have since continued both 
without and against it, and it is principally 
what we have to accuse for these disorders. 

Heu patior telis vulnera facta meis.s 
" Alas ! the wounds I now endure 
Which my own weapons did procure." 

They who give the first shock to a state are 
voluntarily the first overwhelmed in its ruin ; 
the fruits of public commotion are seldom 



1 Ezcerpta ex trag. Grac. Hugo Grot, intcrp. p. 937. 

3 Charondas. See Diod. Sic. xii. 24. 

s Lycurgus. See his Life by Plutarch, c. 21. 

* Plutarch, in his Apolhcghms of the. Lacedemonians, 
calls this Ephorus. Emerepea. See also Val. Max. ii. 6. 

6 The edition of 15S8 reads, "which for twenty-five or 
thirty years.'' 



enjoyed by him who was the first mover ; he 
only beats the water for another's net. The 
unity and contexture of this monarchy, this 
great structure, having been, in her old age, 
broken and torn by this thing, called innova- 
tion, has laid open a breach, and given sufficient 
admittance to the like injuries in these latter 
times. The regal majesty falls less easily from 
the summit to the middle, than from the middle 
to the base. But, if the inventors did the 
greater mischief, the imitators are more vicious, 
to follow examples of which they have felt and 
punished both the horror and the offence. And 
if there can be any degree of horror in ill- 
doing, these last are indebted to the other for 
the glory of contriving, and the courage of 
making the first attempt. All sorts of new 
disorders easily draw, from this primitive and 
overflowing fountain, examples and precedents 
to trouble and discompose our government. We 
read in our very laws, made for the remedy of 
this first evil, the beginning and pretences of all 
sorts of bad enterprises; and what Thucydides 
says 7 of the civil wars of his time is applicable 
to us, that, to smooth over public vices, we give 
them new and more plausible names, sweetening 
and disguising their true titles: all that is done 
is done, forsooth, to reform and improve our 
faith! Honesta oratio est* but the best pre- 
tence for innovation is of very dangerous 
consequence ; Adeo nihil motum ex antiquo 
probabile est. 9 And, freely to speak my 
thoughts, it argues, methinks, a strange self- 
love and great presumption in a man to 
set so much value on his own opinions that 
public peace must be overthrown to establish 
them, and so many inevitable mischiefs intro- 
duced into his own country, and so dreadful 
a corruption of manners, as a civil war, and 
the mutations of state consequent to it, always 
brings in its train. Can there be worse manage- 
ment than to set up so many certain and palpable 
vices, against errors that are only contested, 
and disputable, whether they be such or no'? 
And are there any worse sort of vices than those 
which shock a man's own conscience, and the 
natural light of his own reason] The senate, 
upon the dispute betwixt it and the people about 
the administration of their religion, was bold 
enough to return this evasion for current pay : 
Ad Deos id magis qudm ad se, pertinere ; ipsos 
visuros, ne sacra sua polluantur : 10 " That it 
more belonged to the gods to determine than 
to them ; let them, therefore, have a care their 
sacred mysteries were not profaned." As the 
oracle answered those of Delphos, who, fearing 
to be invaded by the Persians, in the Median 
war, enquired of" Apollo how they should dis- 



e Ovid. Epis. Phillia. Demop. 48. 

' Thucyd. iii. 52. 8 Terence, Jtnd. i. 114. 

» Livy, xxxiv. 54. 

io Livy, x. C, whose words, however, do not at all bear out 
the application that Montaigne here makes of them. 



^ 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



73 



pose of the holy treasure of his temple, whether 
they should hide, or remove it to some other 
place 1 He returned them answer, that they 
should stir nothing thence, but only take care 
of themselves, for he himself was sufficient to 
look to what belonged to him. 1 The Chris- 
tian religion has all the marks of the utmost 
utility and justice : but none more manifest than 
the severe injunction it lays indifferently upon 
all to yield absolute obedience to the civil magis- 
trate, and to maintain and defend the laws: of 
which what a wonderful example has the divine 
wisdom left us, who, to work and establish the 
salvation of mankind, and to conduct his glo- 
rious victory over death and sin, would do it 
after no other way but at the mercy of our 
ordinary forms of justice, submitting the pro- 
gress and issue of so high and so salutiferous 
an effect to the blindness and injustice of our 
customs and observances, suffering the innocent 
'blood of so many of his elect, and so long a 
loss of years to the maturing of this inestimable 
fruit! There is a vast difference betwixt the 
case of one that follows the forms and laws of 
his country, and another that will undertake to 
regulate and change them ; the first pleads sim- 
plicity, obedience, and precedent, for his excuse ; 
whatever he may do cannot be imputed to 
malice, 'tis at the worst but misfortune. Quis 
est enim, quern non moveat clarissimis monu- 
mentis testata,coiisignataque antiguitas P "For 
who is it that antiquity, sealed and attested 
with so many glorious monuments, cannot 
move 1" Besides what Isocrates says, that defect 
is nearer allied to moderation than excess. The 
other is a much more ruffling gamester: 3 for 
whosoever shall take upon him to choose and 
alter, usurps the authority of judging, and ought 
to look well about him, and make it his busi- 
ness to discover the defect of what he would 
abolish, and the virtue of what he is about to 
introduce. 

This vulgar consideration is that which 
settled me in my station, and kept even my 
most ungoverned youth under the rein, so as 
not to burthen my shoulders with so great a 
weight as to render myself responsible for a 
science of that importance ; or in this to dare, 
what in my better and more mature judgment 
I durst not do in the most easy and indifferent 
things I had learned, and wherein temerity of 
judging is of no consequence ; it seeming to me 
very wrong to wish to subject public and estab- 
lished customs and institutions to the weakness 
and instability of a private and particular fancy 
(for private reason is but a private jurisdiction,) 
and to attempt that upon the divine, which no 
government will endure a man should do upon 
the civil, laws. With which, though human 
reason has much more commerce than with the 
other, yet are they sovereignly judged by their 



own proper judges, and the utmost sufficiency 
serves only to expound and set forth the law 
and custom received, but neither to divest it, 
nor to introduce any thing of innovation. And 
if sometimes the divine providence has gone 
beyond the rules to which it has necessarily 
bound and obliged us, it is not to give us any 
dispensation to do the same ; those are only 
master-strokes of the divine hand, which we 
are not to imitate, but only admire; and extra- 
ordinary examples purposed, and particular testi- 
monies of the nature of miracles, presented 
before us for manifestations of its almighty 
power, equally above both our rules and our 
strength, which it would be folly and impiety 
to attempt to represent and imitate ; and which 
we ought not to follow, but to contemplate with 
the greatest reverence and astonishment, as arts 
peculiar to his person and not to us. Cotta 
very opportunely declares, Quiim de re!';;- ione 
agitur, Ti. Coruncanium, P. Scipionem, P. 
Saevolam, pontifices maximos, non Zenone.r;, 
nut Cleanthem, aut Chrysippum sequor.* 
" When matters of religion are in question, I 
will be governed by T. Coruncanus, P. Scipio, 
P. Scsevola, the High-Priests, and not by Zeno, 
Cleanthes, or Chrysippus." God knows, in our 
present quarrel, where there are a hundred 
articles to dash out and put in, and those of 
great consideration, too, how many there are 
who can truly boast they have exactly and 
perfectly weighed and understood the grounds 
and reasons of the one and the other party. 
'Tis a number, if it make any numoer, that 
would give us very little disturbance; but what 
becomes of all the rest? Under what ensigns 
do they march] In what quarter do they lie 1 
Theirs have the same effect with other weak 
and ill-applied medicines, they have only set 
the humours they would purge more violently 
working, stirred and exasperated them by the 
conflict, and left them still behind. The decoc- 
tion was too weak to purge, but strong enough 10 
weaken us; so that it does not leave us, but we 
keep it still in our bodies, and reap nothing 
from the operation but intestine gripes and long 
enduring pain. Yet fortune still reserving her 
authority above and beyond our reason, does 
sometimes present us with a necessity so urgent 
that 'tis requisite the laws should 
a little yield and give way ; and Old laws, how- 
when one opposes the increase of somicaseB 1 " 
an innovation that thus intrudes yield to new, 
itself by violence, to keep a man's 
self in so doing in all places, and in all things, 
within bounds and rules, against those who have 
the power, and to whom all things are lawful 
that may any way serve to advance their design, 
who have no other law nor rule but what s" ves 
best to their own purpose, is a dangerous obli- 
gation, and an intolerable inequality. 



■ Herod, viii. :m;. 

a Cicer. de Divin. i. 40. 

a All that follows from t lip words, " for whosoever," 



the passage I 
7 



i Cicero inclusively, ending 



Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus," is not to he found in the 
folio edition by Ahel Anyiliir, priutid at l';i ris in l.V.i.">. 
three years after the death of our author; nor in another 
folio edition printed at Paris, by Michael Hla»uaiit, In 1040. 
* Cic. de JVut. Deor. iii. 2, 



74 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Audiuim nocendi perfido prastat fides.' 



The ordinary discipline of a healthful state 
does not provide against these extraordinary 
ccidents, pre-supposing a body that supports 
itself in its principal members and offices, and a 
common consent to its obedience and observa- 
tion. To act in conformity with the laws is a 
cold, heavy, and constrained affair, and not fit 
to make way against a headstrong and un- 
bridled will. 'Tis to this day a reproach against 
those two great men, Octavius and Cato, in the 
two civil wars of Syila and Cassar, that they 
would rather suffer their country to undergo 
the last extremities than to relieve their fellow 
citizens at the expense of its laws, or to be 
guilty of any innovation ; for, in truth, in these 
last necessities, where there is no other remedy, 
it would peradventure be more discreet to stoop, 
and yield a little before the blow, than by mere 
wilful opposition, without possibility of doing 
any good, to give occasion to violence to tram- 
ple all under foot; 'tis better to make the laws 
do what they can, when they cannot do what 
they would. After this manner did he who 
suspended them for four and twenty hours, 2 and 
he who for once shifted a day in the calendar, 
and that other who of the month of June made 
a second May. 3 The Lacedaemonians, them- 
selves, who were such religious observers of the 
laws of their country, being straitened by 
one of their own edicts, by which it was ex- 
pressly forbidden to choose the same man to be 
admiral twice ; and on the other hand, their af- 
fairs necessarily requiring that Lysander should 
again take upon him that command, they made 
one Aracus admiral, 'tis true, but Lysander 
superintendant of the navy. 4 And, by the same 
subtilty and equivocation, one of their ambassa- 
dors being sent to the Athenians to obtain the 
revocation of some decree, and Pericles remon- 
strating to him that it was forbidden to take 
away the tablet wherein a law had once been 
engrossed, he advised him to turn it, that not 
being prohibited ; 5 and Plutarch 6 commends 
Philopoemon, that, being born to command, he 
knew how to do it, not only according to the 
laws, but also to over-rule even the laws them- 
selves, when the public necessity so required. 



• 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



VARIOUS EVENTS FROM THE SAME COUNSEL. 

Jaques Amiot, 7 Grand Almoner of France, one 
day related to me this story, much to the honour 



i Seneca, (Edip. iii. L 686. 

2 rfgesitaus. Plutarch, in Vita. 

a Alexander the Great. Plutarch, in Vita, c. 5. 

4 Plutarch, in Vita Lysand. c. 4. 

e Plutarch, in Vita Pericl. c. 18. 



of a prince of ours (and ours he was upon 
several very good accounts, though originally 
of foreign extraction, 8 ) that in the time of our 
first commotions, at the siege of Rouen, 9 this 
prince, having been advertised by the queen- 
mother of a conspiracy against his life, and in 
her letters particular information being given 
him of the person who was to execute the 
business, who was a gentleman of Anjou, or of 
Mayne, and who for this purpose frequented 
this prince's house, discovered not the least 
syllable of this intelligence to any one whatever, 
but going the next day to St. Katherine's Mount, 
from whence our battery played against the 
town (for it was during the siege) and having 
in company with him the said Lord Grand 
Almoner, and another bishop, he was presently 
aware of this gentleman, who had been denoted 
to him, and presently caused him to be called 
into his presence ; to whom, being 
come before him, seeing him pale, The clemency 

,. ,,■ '.i .i • of the Duke of 

and trembling witn the conscience Guise, 
of his guilt, he thus said: "Mon- 
sieur such a one, you already guess what I have 
to say to you; your countenance discovers it; 
you have nothing hidden from me ; I am so 
well informed of your business that it will but 
make worse for you to attempt to deny it ; you 
know very well such and such things (the most 
secret circumstances of his conspiracy), and 
therefore be sure, as you value your life, to 
confess to me the whole of your design." The 
poor man, seeing himself thus detected (for the 
whole business had been discovered to the queen 
by one of the accomplices), was in so great a 
confusion he knew not what to do ; but joining 
his hands to beg for mercy, he was about to 
throw himself at the prince's feet, but he, taking 
him up, proceeded to say : " Come, sir, tell me, 
have I at any time heretofore done you any 
injury 1 or have I, through any private differ- 
ence, offended any kinsman or friend of yours? 
It is not above three weeks that I have known 
you ; what then could move you to attempt my 
death'!" To which the gentleman, with a 
trembling voice, replied, " that it was no par- 
ticular grudge he had to his person, but the 
general interest and concern of his party, and 
that he had been put upon it by some who had 
persuaded him it would be a meritorious act, by 
any means to extirpate so great and so powerful 
an enemy of their religion." "Well," said 
the prince, " I will now let you see how much 
more charitable the religion is that I hold, than 
that which you profess; yours has counselled 
you to kill me, without a hearing, and without 
my ever having given you any cause of offence; 
and mine commands me to forgive you, con- 
victed, as you are, by your own confession, 



e III the Parallel between T. Q. Flamiaius and Philopamon, 
towards the end. - 

' The celebrated translator of Plutarch. 

8 The Duke of Guise, surnamed Lc Balafri, of the house 
of Lorraine. 

» In 1562. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



75 



of a design to murder me without reason. Get 
you gone, and let me see you no more ; and 
if you are wise, choose henceforward honest 
men for your counsellors in your designs." 1 
The Emperor Augustus, being in Gaul, had 
certain information of a conspi- 
Tf h \u''u^tus y rac y k" Cinna was contriving 
against him, and thereupon re- 
solved to make him an example; to that end 
he sent to summon his friends to meet the next 
morning in council ; but the night between lie 
passed in great disquiet of mind, considering 
that he was going to put to death a young man, 
of an illustrious family, and nephew to the 
great Pompey, which marie him break out into 
various ejaculations: "What then," said he, 
"shall I live in perpetual anxiety and alarm, 
and suffer my assassin in the mean time to walk 
abroad at his ease's Shall he go unpunished, 
after having conspired against my life, a life I 
have hitherto preserved in so many civil wars, 
and so many battles, both by land and sea? 
And after I have settled the universal peace of 
the world, shall this man be pardoned, who has 
conspired not only to murder, but to sacrifice 
me ?" For the conspiracy was to kill him at 
sacrifice. After which, remaining for some 
time silent, he began again louder, and exclaim- 
ing against himself, said, " Why livest thou, if 
it be for the good of many that thou shouldst 
die ! Must there be no end of thy revenge and 
cruelty ] Is thy life of so great value that so 
many mischiefs must be done to preserve it T" 
His wife Livia, seeing him in this perplexity, 
" Will you take a woman's counsel!" said she. 
"Do as the physicians do, who, when the 
ordinary recipes will do no good, make trial of 
the contrary. By severity you have hitherto 
prevailed nothing; Lepidus has followed Salvi- 
dienus; Murena, Lepidus; Csepio, Murena; 
and Egnatius, Caepio. Begin now and try 
how gentleness and clemency will succeed. 
China is guilty, forgive him; he will never 
henceforth have the heart to hurt thee, and it 
will add to thy glory." Augustus was glad 
that he had met with an advocate of his own 
humour; wherefore having thanked his wife, 
and in the morning countermanded the friends 
he had summoned to council, he commanded 
Cinna all alone to be brought to him ; who, 
being come, and a chair by his appointment set 
him, 2 and having commanded every one else out 
of the room, he spoke to him after this manner: 
" In the first place, Cinna, I demand of thee 
patient audience ; do not interrupt me in what 
1 am about to say, and I will afterwards give 
thee full time and leisure to answer. Thou 
knowest, Cinna, that having taken thee prisoner 
in the enemy's camp, and though then wert 



' Dampmartin, La Fortune de la Cour, ii. 

-Tliis circumstance, expressly noted by Seneca, is not 
immaterial, because it sh us us tile manners of that age ; 
and therefore 1 think that the celebrated Comcille did well 
to make use of it in his tragedy of Cinna. A king who 
should think it derogatory to his roj alty ever to see Ins sub- 
jects sitting in bis presence would have but a very diminu- 
tive idea ofgraiideur, which does not depend on distinctions 



thyself mine enemy, and born so. I gave thee thy 
life, restored thee thy estate, and by degrees put 
thee in so good a position that the victorious en- 
vied the conquered. The sacerdotal office, which 
thou madestsuit to me for, I conferred upon thee, 
after having denied it to others, whose fathers 
have ever borne arms in my service. Having 
done all this for thee, thou hast undertaken to 
kill me." At which Cinna crying out that he 
was far from entertaining so wicked a thought: 
"Thou dost not keep thy promise, Cinna," 
continued Augustus, " that thou wouldst not 
interrupt rne. Yes, thou hast undertaken to 
murder me in such a place, such a day, in such 
and such company, and in such a manner." At 
which words seeing Cinna astonished and silent, 
not upon the account of his promise so to be, 
but interdict with the conscience of his crime: 
" Why," proceeded Augustus, " to what end 
wouldst thou do it! Is it to be emperor'! 
Believe me the republic is in a very bad condi- 
tion, if 1 am the only man betwixt thee and the 
empire. Thou art not able so much as to defend 
thy own house, and but the other day was baffled 
in a suit by the opposed interest of a manu- 
mitted slave. What, hast thou neither means 
nor power in any other thing, but only to 
attempt against Caesar! I will resign the 
empire, if there is no other but I to obstruct thy 
hopes: but can'st thou believe that Paulus, that 
Fabius, that the Cassii and the Servilii, and so 
many noble Romans, not only so in title, but 
who by their virtue honour their nobility, would 
endure thee!" After this, and a great deal 
more that he said to him (for he was more than 
two hours speaking), "Go, Cinna, go thy 
way," said he, " I again give thee that life as 
a traitor and a parricide which I once before 
gave thee as an enemy. Let friendship from 
this time forward begin betwixt us, and let us 
try to make it appear whether I have given, or 
thou hast received, thy life with the better 
faith ;" and so departed from him. Some time 
after he raised him to the consular dignity, 
complaining that he had not had the. confidence 
to demand it; had him ever after for his very 
great friend, and was at last made by him 
sole heir to his estates. 3 Now from the time 
of this affair, which befel Augustus in the 
fortieth year of his age, he never had any con- 
spiracy or attempt against him, and therein 
reaped the due reward of this his exemplary 
clemency. But it did not so well succeed with 
our prince; 4 his lenity did not secure him from 
afterwards falling into the toils of the like 
treason : so vain and frivolous a thing is human 
prudence; and, in spite of all our projects, 
counsels, and precautions, fortune will still be 
mistress of events. We repute physicians for- 



of this kind. A king, truly respectable, may freely dispense 
with this liberty, without risking the loss of any thing, any 
more than Augustus, Trajan, or Marcus AureIius.-Coi.te. 

3 Seneca de dementia, I. 9. 

* The Duke of Guise, before mentioned, lie wasassassi- 
nated at the siege of Orleans, in 10U3, by a jj.«.lemau of 
Angoumois, named I'oltrot. 



76 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 






tunate when they hit upon a lucky cure, as if 
there was no other art but theirs that could not 
stand upon its own legs, and whose foundations 
are too weak to support itself upon its basis, and 

as if no other art stood in need 
Montaigne's f fortune's hand to assist in its 
phy n sic n0t operations. For my part, I think 

of physic as much good or ill as 
any one would have me: for, thanks be to 
God, we have no traffic together. I am of a 
quite contrary humour to other men, for I 
always despise it; and when I am sick, instead 
of recanting, or entering into composition with 
it, I begin yet more to hate and fear it, telling 
those who importune me to take physic that 
they must at least give me time to recover my 
strength and health, that I may be the better 
able to support and encounter the violence and 
danger of the potion. I let nature work, sup- 
posing her to be sufficiently armed witli teeth 
and claws to defend herself when attacked, and 
to uphold that contexture, the dissolution of 
which she flys and abhors. For I am afraid 
lest, instead of assisting her when grappled and 
struggling with the disease, 1 should assist her 
adversary, and give her more work to do. 
Now, I say, that not in physic only, but in 

several other more certain arts, 
Fortune, or fortune has a great share. The 
sometimes poetic sallies that ravish and 

much to do in transport the author out of him- 
saTheTof' self ' wllv s,10uld we not attribute 

poetry; them to his good fortune, since 

the poet himself confesses they 
exceed his capacity, and acknowledges them to 
proceed from something else than himself, and 
that he has them no more in his power than the 
orators say they have those extraordinary 
motions and agitations that sometimes push 
them beyond their design. It is the same in 

painting, where touches shall 
and of paint- gomet i mes sljp from the han( j of 

the painter, so surpassing both 
his fancy and his art as to beget his own admi- 
ration and astonishment. Fortune does yet 
more clearly manifest the share she has in all 
things of this kind, in the graces and elegances 
which are found in them, not only beyond the 
intention, but even without the knowledge of 
the artist. An intelligent reader does often find 
out in other men's writings other perfections, 
and invest them with a better sense and higher 
construction, and more quaint expression, than 
the author himself either intended or perceived. 
And, as to military enterprizes, every one sees 
how great a hand fortune has in them all. Even 
in our counsels and deliberations there must 
certainly be something of chance and good luck 
mixed with human prudence, for all that our 
wisdom can do alone is no great matter; the 
more piercings quick, and apprehensive it is, the 
weaker it finds itself) and is by so much more 
apt to mistrust its own virtue. I am of Sylla's 



Plutarch, " How far a Man may praise himself." 



opinion, 1 and when I more strictly and nearer 
hand examine the most glorious exploits of war, 
I perceive, methinks, that those who carry them 
on make use of counsel and debate only for 
custom's sake, and leave the best part of the 
enterprize to fortune; and, relying upon her 
favour and assistance, transgress at every turn 
the bounds of military conduct, and the rules of 
war. There happen sometimes accidental ala- 
crities and strange furies in their deliberations, 
that for the most part prompt them to follow 
the worst and worst grounded counsels, and 
that swell their courage beyond the limits of 
reason : whence it has fallen out that many 
great captains of antiquity, to justify their 
rash determinations, have been forced to tell 
their soldiers that they were by some inspi- 
ration and good omen encouraged and invited 
to such attempts. 2 

Wherefore, in this doubt and uncertainty that 
the short-sightedness of human 
wisdom to see and choose the best Tll ° ^ nur i se 
(by reason of the difficulties that taken in cases 
the various accidents and circum- the event of 
stances of things bring along with ^"I; 1 /,, 13 un ' 
them), does perplex us withal, the 
surest way, in my opinion, even did no other 
consideration invite us to it, were to pitch upon 
the course wherein is the greatest appearance 
of honesty and justice, and, not being certain 
which is the shortest, to go the straightest and 
most direct way ; as in the two examples I have 
just mentioned, there is no question but that it 
was more noble and generous in him who had 
received the offence to pardon it than to do 
otherwise; and if the former miscarried in it, it 
was not the fault of his good intention : neither 
does any one know if he had proceeded other- 
wise, whether by that means he had avoided 
the end his destiny had appointed for him ; and 
he had only lost the glory of so generous an act. 

You will find in history many who have been 
under this fear, and who for the 
most part have taken the course Whether itis 
to meet and prevent conspiracies °„ seuVtu'pre- 
by punishment and vengeance: vemcnnspi- 
bnt I find very few who have Quinary 
reaped any advantage by this measures, 
proceeding; witness so many Ro- 
man emperors. Whoever finds himself in this 
danger, need not expect much, either from his 
vigilance or his power ; for how hard a thing is 
it for a man to secure himself from an enemy 
who lies concealed under the countenance of 
the most officious friend we have, and to dis- 
cover the secret designs and inward thoughts of 
those who are continually doing us service'? 
It is to no purpose to have a guard of foreigners 
about a man's person, or to be always fenced 
about with a pale of armed men ; whosoever 
despises his own life is always master of that 
of another man. 3 And, moreover, this continual 
suspicion, that makes a prince jealous of every 



2 Montluc, Commentaries. 



» Senec. Epist. 4. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



77 



Mistrust a sad 



body, must, of necessity, be a marvellous tor- 
ment to him. And, therefore, it was that 
Dion, being advertised that Callippus watched 
an opportunity to take away his life, had never 
the heart to enquire more particularly into it, 
saying that he had rather die than 
live in that misery that he must 
continually stand upon his guard, 
not only against his enemies but his friends 
also; 1 which Alexander much more spiritedly 
and effectively manifested when, having notice 
by a letter from Parmenio, that Philip, his 
most beloved physician, was, by Darius's money, 
corrupted to poison him, at the same time that 
he gave the letter to Philip to read, drank off 
the potion he had brought him. 2 Was not this 
resolution to express that if his friends had a 
mind to dispatch hiin out of the world he was 
willing to give them opportunity to do it 7 
This prince is indeed the sovereign precedent 
of all daring actions ; but I do not know 
whether there is another passage in his life, 
wherein there is so much firmness as in this, 
nor so illustrious an image of greatness of mind. 
Those who preach to princes so circumspect 
and vigilant a jealousy and distrust, under 
colour of security, preach to them ruin and dis- 
honour. Nothing noble can ever be effected 
without danger. I know a person, naturally of 
great daring and courage, whose good fortune 
is continually marred by such persuasions as 
these, " that he must keep close amongst his own 
people, and keep those he knows are his friends 
continually about him; that he must not 
hearken to any reconciliation with his old 
enemies, that he must stand clear off, and not 
trust his person in hands stronger than his own, 
what promises or offers soever they make him, 
or whfft advantages soever he may see before 
him." And I know another who has unex- 
pectedly secured his fortune by following quite 
the contrary advice. 

Courage, the reputation and glory of which 
men seek with so greedy an appetite, represents 
and sets itself out, when need requires, as mag- 
nificently in a doublet as in a coat of mail ; in 
a closet as well as in a camp; with the arm 
pendent as with the arm upraised: this over- 
circumspect and wary prudence is a mortal 
enemy to all high and generous exploits. Scipio, 
to sound the intentions of Syphax, 
t ii'r ','',!! 'irffects leaving his army and abandon- 
oi'siimviiigcon- ing Spain, not yet secure nor 

SluXii troops! wel1 settled in his ™ w conquest, 
passed over into Africa, in two 
small vessels, to commit himself, in an enemy's 
country, to the power of a Barbarian King, to 
a faith untried and unknown, without obliga- 
tion, without hostage, under the sole security 
of the greatness of his courage, his good 
fortune, and the promise of his high hopes. 3 
Halrita jides ipsam plerumque fidem obligal* 
" Confidence generally inspires confidence." 



> Plutarch, Jlpolh. of the Ancient Kings. 
» Quint. Curt. iii. 0. « 

» Llvy, xxviii. 17. 

7* 



In a life of ambition and eclat 'tis necessary 
to keep suspicion in check. Fear and diffi- 
dence invite and attract injury and offence. 
The most distrustful of all our kings 5 established 
his affairs principally by voluntarily trusting 
his life and liberty into his enemy's hands, 
seeming to have an absolute confidence in them, 
to the end they might repose as great an assu- 
rance in him. Ca?sar only opposed the authority 
of his countenance and the sharpness of his 
rebukes to his mutinous legions, armed against 
him, having that implicit confidence in himself 
and his fortune, that he feared not to commit 
and abandon himself to a seditious and rebellious 
army. 

Stetit aegere fultus 
Cespitis, inlrepidus vultu; meruitnue timeri, 
Nil metuens.8 

" Upon a parapet of turf he stood, 

His manly face with resolution shone; 
And froze the mutineers' rebellious blood, 
Challenging fear from all, by fearing none." 

But it is true, withal, that this undaunted 
assurance is not to be represented in its perfect 
and genuine form but by those whom the ima- 
gination of death, and the worst that can 
happen, does not affright; for to present it a 
pretended resolution, with a pale and doubtful 
countenance, doubting, uncertain, and trem- 
bling, for the service of an important reconci- 
liation, will effect nothing to the purpose. 'Tis 
an excellent way to gain the heart and good- 
will of another to intrust one's-self frankly to 
him, provided it be done without the constraint 
of necessity, and in- such a way 
that one manifestly does it out of m °" t ^"^ 
a pure and entire confidence in reality, or 
the party, at least, with a counte- void onisar' 
nance clear from any cloud of 
suspicion. When I was a boy I saw a gentle- 
man, who was governor of a great town, upon 
occasion of a popular commotion, not knowing 
what other course to take, go out of a place of 
very great strength and security, and commit 
himself to the mercy of a seditious rabble, in 
hopes, by that means, to appease the tumult 
before it grew to a head : but it was ill for him 
that he did so, for he was there miserably slain. 
But, nevertheless, I am not of opinion that he 
committed so great an error in going out as 
men commonly reproach his memory with, as 
he did in choosing a gentle and submissive way 
for effecting his purpose, and in endeavouring 
to quiet the storm, rather by obeying than 
commanding, and by entreaty rather than 
remonstrance. I am rather inclined to believe 
that a gracious severity, with a soldier-like way 
of commanding, full of security, and confidence 
suitable to the quality of his person and the 
dignity of his charge, would have succeeded 
better with him; at least, he had perished with 
greater decency and reputation. There is 
nothing so little to be hoped for from that 



« Livy, xxii. 13. 

& Louis XI. See Mem. of Conines. II. 

« Lucan, v. 316. • 



73 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



many-headed monster, the mob, when stirred 
up, as humanity and good nature; it is much 
more capable of reverence and fear. I should 
also reproach him that, having taken a resolu- 
tion which, in my judgment, was rather brave 
than rash, to expose himself, weak and defence- 
less, in this tempestuous sea of men ; he ought 
to have carried out bolder, what he had begun, 
to the last; whereas, coming to discover his 
danger nearer hand, and his nose happening to 
bleed, the submissive and fawning countenance 
he had at first put on changed into another of 
fear and amazement, and showing, both by 
his voice and eyes, his alarm and agitation, 
and endeavouring to withdraw and secure his 
person, this deportment more enflamed their fury, 
and soon brought the effects of it upon him. 

Upon a certain occasion, I remember, it 
was determined there should be a general 
muster of several bodies of troops in arms (a 
very proper scene of secret revenge, for there 
is no .place where such can be executed with 
greater safety), and there were public and 
manifest appearances that there was no safe 
coming for some, whose principal and necessary 
office it was to review the troops. Whereupon 
a consultation was called, and several counsels 
were proposed, as in a case that was not very 
nice and of important consequence. Mine was 
that they should, by all means, avoid giving 
any sign of suspicion, but that the officers who 
were most in danger should boldly go, and, with 
open and erect countenances, ride boldly and 
confidently through the files and divisions, and 
that instead of sparing fire (which the advice 
of the major part tended to), they should desire 
the captains to command the soldiers to give 
round and full volleys in honour of the spec- 
tators and not to save their powder. Which 
was accordingly done, and had so good an 
effect as to please and gratify the suspected 
troops, and thenceforth to beget a mutual and 
salutary confidence and intelligence amongst 
them. 

I look upon Julius Caesar's way of gaining 
men's affections to him as the best that can 
possibly be put in practice. First, he tried by 
clemency to make himself beloved even by his 
enemies, contenting himself, in detected con- 
spiracies, only publicly to declare that he was 
acquainted with them; which being done, he 
took a noble resolution to await, without 
solicitude or fear, whatever might be the event, 
wholly resigning himself up to the protection 
of the gods and fortune; and, questionless, 
this was the state he was in at the time when 
he was killed. 

A stranger having publicly said that he 

could teach Dionysius, the tyrant 

Advice to a f Syracuse, an infallible way 

pmceed against to nn ^ out anc ' discover, all the 

plots. conspiracies his subjects should 

contrive against him, if he would 



J Plutarch, Apothegms. 



give him a good sum of money for his pains; 
Dionysius, hearing of it, caused the man to 
be brought to him that he might learn an art 
so necessary to his preservation; and, having 
asked him by what art he might make such 
discoveries, the fellow made answer that all 
the art he knew was that he should give him a 
talent, and afterwards boast that he had 
obtained a singular secret from him. Dionysius 
liked the idea, and accordingly caused six 
hundred crowns to be counted out to him. 1 It 
was not likely he should give so great a sum to 
a person unknown, but as a reward for some 
extraordinary and very useful discovery, and 
the belief of this served to keep his enemies 
in awe. Princes, however, do very wisely to 
publish the informations they receive of all the 
practices against their lives, to possess men 
with an opinion that they have such good in- 
telligence, and so many spies abroad, that 
nothing can be plotted against them but they 
have immediate notice of it. The Duke of 
Athens did a great many ridiculous things in 
establishing his new tyranny over Florence; 
but this, especially, was remarkable, that, 
having received the first intimation of the con- 
spiracies the people were hatching against him, 
from Matteo di Moroso, one of the conspi- 
rators, he presently put him to death to stifle 
that rumour, that it might not be thought any 
of the city disliked his government. 

I remember to have read a story of some 
Roman, of great quality, who, flying the 
tyranny of the triumvirate, had a thousand 
times, by the subtilty of as many inventions, 
escaped from falling into the hands of those 
that pursued him. It happened one day that a 
troop of horse, which was sent out to take him, 
passed close by a brake where he lay hid, and 
missed very narrowly of spying him ; but he 
considering, upon the instant, the pains and 
difficulties wherein he had so long continued, to 
evade the strict and continual searches which 
were every day made for him, the little pleasure 
he could hope for in such a kind of life, and 
how much better it was for him to die once for 
all, than to be perpetually at this pass, he 
himself called them back, showed" them his 
hiding place, and voluntarily delivered himself 
up to their cruelty, in order to free both himself 
and them from farther trouble. 2 To invite a 
man's enemies to come and cut his throat was a 
resolution that appears a little extravagant and 
odd; and yet I think he did better to take 
that course than to live in a constant fever and 
apprehension of that for which there was no 
cure. But seeing all the precautions a man 
can take full of unquietness and uncertainty, 
'tis better with a manly courage to prepare one's- 
self for the worst that can happen, and to 
extract some consolation from this, that we are 
not certain the thing we fear will ever come 
to pass. 



2 Appian, H. of the Civil Wars, iv. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



79 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

OF PEDANTRY. 

I was often, when a boy, wonderfully con- 
cerned to see in the Italian farces, 
Pedants ob- a pec j a nt always brought in for 

noxious to men . , ' ,. , P ..■' . 3 , ., . 

of mind. the fool or trie play, and that 

the title of Magisler was in no 
greater reverence amongst ns; for, being de- 
livered up to their tuition, what could I do 
less than to be jealous of their honour and 
reputation 1 I sought, I confess, to excuse 
them by the natural incompatibility betwixt 
the vulgar sort and men of a finer thread, both 
in judgment and knowledge, forasmuch as they 
go quite a contrary way to one another: but 
in this the thing I most stumbled at was that 
the bravest men were those who most 
them ; witness our famous Du Bellay, 



Mais je hay ] 



■ tout un scavoir pedantesque.' 



And they used to do so in former times; for 
Plutarch says that Grcecion and Scholar were 
names of reproach and contempt among the 
Romans. 2 And since, with the better experience 
of age, I find they were much in the right on't, 
and that magis magnos clericos nan sunt magis 
magnos sapientes. 3 "The greatest clerks are 
not the wisest men." But whence it should 
come to pass that a mind enriched with the 
knowledge of so many things should not 
become more quick and sprightly, and that a 
gross and vulgar understanding should yet in- 
habit there without correcting and improving 
itself, where all the reasoning and judgments of 
the greatest minds the world ever had are col- 
lected and stored up, I am yet to seek. To 
admit into one's own brain such large portions 
of the brains of others, such great and high 
fancies (a young lady, one of our greatest 
princesses, said once to me, speaking of a certain 
person), one's own must necessarily be crowded 
and squeezed together intoa less compass to make 
room for the others. I should be apt to conclude 
that as plants are suffocated and drowned with 
too much moisture, and lamps with too much oil, 
so is the active part of the understanding with 
too much study and matter, which, being em- 
barrassed and confounded with the diversity of 
things, is deprived of the force and power to 
disengage itself; and by the pressure of this 
weight is bowed, subjected, and rendered of no 
use. But it is quite otherwise, for a soul 
stretches and dilates itself the more it fills. 
And thus, in the examples of elder times, we 
see men excellent at public business, great 



* l'laio, Tlinttriei. Montaijne, however, has preatlv 
IDiataken Pluto's sentiment, who says here no more tiia.ii 



captains, and great statesmen, very learned 
withal; whereas the mere philosophers, a sort 
of men retired from all public affairs, have been 
often laughed at by the comic Mer(J pni | 090 . 
writers of their own times; their phers ridiculed 
opinions and singularity of man- by the comic 
ners making them appear, to men 
of another method of living, ridiculous and 



And, in truth, would you make them judges 
of a law-suit, or of the actions of a man, they 
are ready to take it upon them; and straight 
begin to examine if he has life, if he has mo- 
tion, if man be any other than an ox : what it 
is to do and to suffer, and what animals law 
and justice are] Do they speak of the magis- 
trate or to him ? 'Tis with a rude, irreverent, 
and indecent liberty. Do they hear a prince 
or a king commended for his virtue'! They 
make no more of him than of a shepherd or 
neatherd, a lazy Corydon, that busies himself 
only about milking and shearing his herds and 
flocks; and this after a ruder manner than 
even the shepherd himself would. Do you 
repute any man the greater for being lord of 
two thousand acres of land? They laugh at 
such a pitiful pittance, laying claim them- 
selves to the whole world for their possession. 
Do you boast of your nobility and blood, being 
descended from seven rich successive ancestors'? 
They will look upon you with an eye of con- 
tempt, as men who have not a right idea of the 
universal image of Nature, and that do not 
consider how many predecessors every one of us 
has had, rich, poor, kings, slaves, Greeks, and 
barbarians. And though you were the fiftieth 
descent from Hercules, they look upon it as a 
great vanity so highly to value this, which is 
only a gift of fortune. And therefore did the 
vulgar sort nauseate them, as men ignorant of 
first principles, as presumptuous and insolent. 4 

But this Platonic picture is far different 
from that these pedants are pre- ... . 

sentedby; for those were envied S^heoid 
for raising themselves above the philosophers 
com mon sort of men, for despising ™'l^ s modern 
the ordinary actions and offices 
of life, for having assumed a particular and 
inimitable way of living, and for using a certain 
bombast and obsolete language quite different 
from the ordinary way of speaking. But these 
are contemned for being as much below the 
usual form, as incapable of public employment-, 
for leading the life, and conforming themselves 
to the mean and vile manners, of the vulgar. 
Odi homines ignava opera, philosophica sen- 
tential "I hate men who talk like philoso- 
phers, but do nothing." 

The true philosophers, if they were great in 



bourdoes that lie scarce knows whether he is a man or snine 
other animal: t&v to'wvtov o pin wXnaiov nai 6 ycirtiv 
MX'lOcv, iviiovbv Sn nedrTei, a\M Xtyov Kat it lii'Cpuiiriif 
iftVt tj ti iiWo tipi/jfia. 
' Pacuvius, iij/ud Allium Gellium, xjii, 8. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



science, were yet much greater in action. And, 
as it is said of the geometrician of Syracuse, 1 
who having been disturbed from his contem- 
plation, to put some of his skill in practice for 
the defence of his country, that he suddenly set 
on foot dreadful and prodigious engines, that 
wrought effects beyond all human expectation ; 
himself notwithstanding disdained all this me- 
chanical work, thinking in this he had violated 
the dignity of his art, of which these perform- 
ances of his he accounted but trivial experi- 
ments; — so they, whenever they have been put 
upon the proof of action, have been seen to fly 
to so high a pitch as made it very well appear 
their souls were strangely elevated and enriched 
with the knowledge of things. But some of 
them, seeing the reins of government in the 
hands of ignorant and unskilful men, have 
avoided all places and interest in the manage- 
ment of affairs; and he who demanded of 
Crates, how long it was necessary to philoso- 
phise, received this answer : " Till our armies 
are no more commanded by fools.'' 2 Heraclitus 
resigned the royalty 3 to his brother; and to the 
Ephesians, who reproached him that he spent 
his time in playing with children before the 
temple: "Is it not better," said he, "to do 
so than to sit at the helm of affairs in your 
company'!" Others, having their imagination 
advanced above the thoughts of the world and 
fortune, have looked upon the tribunals of jus- 
tice, and even the thrones of kings, with an 
eye of contempt and scorn; insomuch that 
Empedocles refused the royalty that the Agri- 
gentines offered him. 4 Thales, once inveigh- 
ing against the pains men put themselves to to 
become rich, was answered by one in the com- 
pany that he did like the fox, who found fault 
with what he could not obtain. Whereupon 
he had a mind, for the jest's sake, to show them 
the contrary; and having, upon this occasion, 
for once made a muster of all his learning and 
capacity, wholly to employ them in the service 
of profit, he set a traffic on foot which in one 
year brought him as great riches as the most 
experienced in that trade could, with all their 
industry, have raked together in the whole 
course of their lives. 5 That which Aristotle 
reports of some who said of him, of Anaxagoras, 
and others of their profession, that they were 
wise, but not prudent, in not applying their 
study to more profitable things, besides that I 
do not well digest this nice distinction, will not 
serve to excuse my pedants; for to see the low 
and necessitous fortune wherewith they are 
content, we have rather reason to pronounce 
that they are neither wise nor prudent. 



J Archimedes. Plutarch, Life of Marcellus, c. 6. 

» Diog. Laert. in vita. 

3 Diogenes Laertius, in the Life of Heraclitus, lib. ix. 
sect. G. By BaatXca is to be understood, according to Me- 
nage, not royalty in the proper sense of the word, but a par- 
ticular office which was so styled at Bpai'sus, as well as at 



But, letting this first reason alone, I think it 
better to say that this inconve- 
nience proceeds from their apply- ^e^of 'earn- 
ing themselves the wrong way to ing objected to. 
the study of sciences ; and that, 
after the manner we are instructed, it is no 
wonder if neither the scholars nor the masters 
become, though more learned, ever the wiser or 
more fit for business. In plain truth, the cares 
and expense our parents are at in our education 
point at nothing but to furnish our heads with 
knowledge; but not a word of judgment and 
virtue. Cry out to the people of one that passes 
by, " O ! what a learned !" and of another, 
"O! what a good man goes there," they 
will not fail to turn their eyes, and address 
their respect to the former. 6 There should then 
be a third crier, "O the blockheads!" Men 
are apt to enquire, "Does such a one under- 
stand Greek and Latin 1 - Is he a poet 1 or 
does he write prose?" But whether he be 
better or more discreet, which ought to be the 
main point, is enquired into last; we should 
rather examine who is better learned, than who 
is more learned. 

We only toil and labour to stuff the memory, 
and in the mean time leave the conscience and 
the understanding unfurnished and void. And, 
like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, 
and bring it home in their beak, without tasting 
it themselves, to feed their young; so our pe- 
dants go picking knowledge here and there out 
of several authors, and hold it at the tongue's 
end, only to distribute it amongst their pupils. 
And here I cannot but smile to think how I 
have paid off myself in showing the foppery of 
this kind of learning, who myself am so mani- 
fest an example ; for do I not the same thing 
throughout almost this whole book 1 I go here 
and there, culling out of several books the sen- 
tences that best please me, not to keep them (for 
I have no memory to retain them in), but to 
transplant them into this; where, to say the 
truth, they are no more mine than in their first 
places. We are, I conceive, knowing only in 
present knowledge, aud not at all 
in what is past, no more than in Pedants only 
that which is to come. But the Ivaindisphiyof 
worst of it is, their scholars and their learning, 
pupils are no better nourished by 
it than themselves : it makes no deeper impres- 
sion upon them than on the other, but passes 
from hand to hand, only to make a show, to be 
tolerable company, and to tell pretty stories; 
like a counterfeit coin, of no other use or 
value but as counters to reckon with, or set up 
at cards. Apud alios loqui didicerunt, non ipsi 



Athens and Rome, after their renunciation of a monarchi- 
cal government. 

* Diogenes Laertius, in villi. 

6 Id. in vita. Cicero, de Dirinatione, i. 49 ; who men- 
tions that the speculation by which our philosopher got so 
much money was buying up all the olive trees in the Mi- 
lesian field before they were in bloom. 

"Seneca, Epist. 88. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



81 



secum. 1 " They have learned to speak from 
others, not with themselves." Non est loquen- [ 
dum, sed gubernandum. 2 " The thing is not | 
to talk, but to govern." Nature, to show that 
there is nothing barbarous where she has the 
6ole command, does oftentimes, in nations where ' 
art has the least to do, cause productions of wit, ! 
such as may rival the greatest effects of art j 
whatever. In relation to what I -am now speak- 
ing of, the Gascon proverb, derived from a 
reed-pipe, is very quaint and subtle : Bouha \ 
pron bouha, mas a remuda Lous dits qu'em. | 
" You may blow till your eyes start out ; but 
if once you offer to stir your fingers, you will 
be at the end of your lesson." We can say, 
Cicero says thus; These were the manners 
of Plato ; These are the very words of Aris- 
totle. But what do we say ourselves that 
is our own 3 What do we do 1 — what do we 
judge ? A parrot could say as much as that. 

This kind of talking puts me in mind of that 
_ .... rich gentleman of Rome, who had 

The stupidity , 6 .. . ... ' 

of a Roman, been solicitous with very great 
who fancied expense, to procure men that 
ofie 3 arn. a nr n were excellent in all sorts of 
because he had science, whom he had always 
hfe n, a d me " in attending his person, to the end 
that when, amongst his friends, 
any occasion fell out of speaking on any subject 
whatsoever, they might supply his place, and 
be ready to prompt him, one with a sentence of 
Seneca, another with a verse of Homer, and so 
forth, every one according to his talent; and 
he fancied this knowledge to be his own, be- 
cause 'twas in the heads of those who lived upon 
his bounty. 3 As they also do whose learning 
consists in having noble libraries. I know one 
who, when I question him about his learning, 
he presently calls for a book to show me, and 
would not venture to tell me so much as that 
he had the piles in his posteriors, till first he 
had consulted his dictionary what piles and 
posteriors are. 

We take other men's knowledge and opinions 
No learning of u P on trutn i an( l that's all, wherein 
uae but that we should make them our own. 

ourown "***' We afe '" th ' S Ver y like nim wil0 ' 

having need of fire, went to a 
neighbour's house to fetch it; and, finding a 
very good one there, sat down to warm himself, 
without remembering to carry any with him 
home." What good does it do us to have the 
etomach full of meat, if it does not digest and 
be incorporated with us ; if it does not nourish 



i Cicero, T\seul. Quas. v. 36. 

Epist. 108. 

» Ottoueus Sabinus. He lived in the time of Seneca who. 

besides what Montaigne here savs of him. report! stories 

that are even more ri .inilousof this rich impertinent. His 

as so bad lliat he even- now and then forgot the 

namesof Ulysses. Achilles, ami l'riam. though he had known 

them as well as we know our pedagogues; vet he had a 

mind to he thought learned, and invented this compendious 

fiz, he bought slaves at a »reut price, one who 

r nf Homer, another of llesiod, and nine oflyric 

poetry, to whom he every now and then had 

liich in rehearsing he often stopped in the middle 



and support us ! Can we imagine that Lucullus, 
whom letters, without any experience, 5 made so 
great a leader, learned to be so after this per- 
functory manner? We suffer ourselves to lean 
and rely so very strongly upon the arm of 
another, that we prejudice our' own strength 
and vigour. Would I fortify myself against 
the fear of death ! It must be at the expense 
of Seneca. Would I extract consolation for 
myself or my friend ] I borrow it from Cicero ; 
whereas I might have found it in myself, had I 
been trained up to make use of my own reason. 
I have no taste for this relative and mendicant 
understanding; for though we could become 
learned by other men's reading, a man can 
never be wise but by his own wisdom. 

Miau oo<pi$riv os"tc uv% aVTQ) ooipoc.* 
"Who. in his own concern's not wise, 
I that man's wisdom do despise." 

From whence Ennius, Nequidquam sapere 
sapientem, qui ipse sibi prodesse non quiret? 
"That wise man knows nothing who cannot 
profit himself by his wisdom." A'on enim 
paranda nobis solum, sed fruevda sapientia 
est. 8 "For wisdom is not only to be acquired, 
but to be made use of." 



" If he be greedy, lying, or effeminate." 

Dionysius laughed at the grammarians, who 
cudgelled their brains to enquire into the miseries 
of Ulysses, and were ignorant of their own ; at 
musicians, who were so exact in tuning their 
instruments, and never tuned their manners; 
and at orators, who studied to declare what was 
justice, but never took care to do it. 10 If the 
mind be not better disposed, if the judgment be 
no better settled, I had much rather my scholar 
had spent his time at tennis, for at least his 
body would by that means be in better exercise 
and breath. Do but observe him when he 
comes back from school, after fifteen or sixteen 
years that he has been there : there is nothing 
so awkward and maladroit, so unfit for com- 
pany or employment; and all that you shall 
find he has got is that his Latin and Greek 
have only made him a greater and more con- 
ceited blockhead than when he went from 
home. He should bring back his mind replete 
with sound literature, and he brings it only 
swelled and puffed up with vain and empty 
shreds and snatches of learning, and really 
nothing more in him than he had before. 



* Plutarch, on Hearing. » Cicero, Acad. ii. 

<■ Euripides, apvd. Cicer. Epist. ad Famil. xiii. 1& 

1 Jlpud Cicer. Offic. iii. 15. 6 Cic. dt Finib. i. I. 

» Juvenal, viii. 14. 

io In all the editions of Montaigne, except that of Coste, 
Dionysius is mentioned ; yet the wise reflection! which 
Montaigne here ascribes to Dionysius were made by Oio- 
genes the Cynic, as may be seel 
written by Diogenes Laertius. 
F 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



These pedants of ours, as Plato says of the 
Sophists, their cousin-germans, 
of he p re h tender e / *re, of all men living they who 
to learning. most pretend to be useful to man- 
kind, and who alone of all men 
not only do riot better and improve what is 
committed to them, as a carpenter or a mason 
would do, but make them much worse, and 
make them pay for being made so, to boot. If 
the rule which Protagoras proposed to his 
pupils were followed, either that they should 
give him his own demand, or declare upon 
oath in the temple how much they valued the 
profit they had received under his tuition, and 
satisfy him accordingly ;' our pedagogues would 
find themselves sadly gravelled, especially if 
they were to be judged by the testimony of my 
experience. Our vulgar Perigordian patois does 
pleasantly call these pretenders to learning 
" lettre-ferits," letter-marked, men on whom 
letters have stamped and stunned by the blow 
of a mallet, as 'twere; and, in truth, for the 
most part they appear to have a soft place in 
their sculls, and to be deprived even of common 
sense. For you see the husbandman and the 
cobler go simply and plainly about their busi- 
ness, speaking only of what they know and 
understand ; whereas these fellows, in seeking 
to make a parade and a flourish with this ridicu- 
lous knowledge of theirs, that swims and floats 
in the superficies of the brain, are perpetually 
perplexing and entangling themselves in their 
own nonsense. They speak fine words some- 
times, 'tis true, but leave somebody that is wiser 
to apply them. They are wonderfully well 
acquainted with Galen, but not at all with the 
disease of the patient : they stun you with a 
long ribble-row of laws, but understand nothing 
of the case in hand ; they have the theories of 
all things, but 'tis some one else must put them 
in practice. 

I have set by when a friend of mine, in my 
own house, for sport's sake, has with one of 
these fellows run on a heap of nonsensical gali- 
matias, patched up of all sorts of disjointed 
pieces, without head or tail, saving that he now 
and then interlarded here and there some terms 
that had relation to their dispute, and held the 
blockhead in play a whole afternoon together, 
who all the while thought he had answered 
pertinently and learnedly to all his objections. 
And yet this was a man of letters and reputation, 
and nothing less than one of the long robe. 

Vos, O patricius sanguis, quos vivere fas est 
Occipiti cieco, postica; occurrite sannae.2 

" But you, patrician youths ! whose sculls are blind, 
Watch well your jeering friends, and look behind." 

Whosoever shall narrowly pry into and tho- 
roughly sift this sort of people wherewith the 
world is so pestered, will, as I have done, find 
that, for the most part, they neither understand 
others nor themselves ; and that their memories 



are full enough 'tis true, but the judgment 
totally void and empty; some excepted, whose 
own nature has of itself formed them into better 
fashion. As I have observed, for example, in 
Adrian Turnebus, who having 
never made other profession than ^LT,«?r?.C 

, . c i • i Auriiinub -tur- 

that or mere learning only, in nebus. 
which he was, in my opinion, 
the greatest man that has been these thousand 
years, had nothing at all in him of the pedant, 
but the wearing of his gown, and a little ex- 
terior behaviour, that could not be civilised to 
the garb, which are nothing; and I hate our 
people, who can worse endure an ill-cut robe 
than an ill-fashioned mind, and by the bow a 
man makes, by his behaviour, and even by the 
shape of his boots, will pretend to tell what sort 
of man he is. For within all this there was not 
a more refined and polished soul living upon 
earth. I have often purposely put him upon 
arguments quite wide of his profession, wherein 
I found he had so clear an insight, so quick an 
apprehension, and so solid a judgment, that a 
man would have thought he had never prac- 
tised any other thing but arms, or been all his 
life employed in affairs of state. 'Tis these are 
great and vigorous natures ; 



that can keep themselves upright in spite of a 
pedantic education. But it is not enough that 
our education does not spoil us ; it should alter 
us for the better. 

Some of our parliaments when they are to 
admit officers, examine them only 
as to their learning, to which n ™f/t e u ° n f . " 
some others also add a trial of out judgment, 
their understanding, by asking 
their judgment of some cases in law, of which 
the latter, methinks, proceeds with the better 
method : for although both are necessary, and 
that it is very requisite the men should be 
defective in neither; yet, in truth, knowledge 
is not so absolutely necessary as judgment, and 
the last may make shift without the other, but 
the other never without this. For as the Greek 
verse says, 

'ils ovih i) n&dricris ?}v n'rj vovs xapij. 4 

" To what use serves learning, if the under- 
standing be away?" Would to God that, for 
the sake of justice, our courts of judicature 
were as well furnished with understanding and 
conscience as they are with knowledge. Non 
vitce, sed scholcs dicimus. 5 " We do not study 
how to live, but how to dispute." Whereas 
we are not to tie learning to the soul, but to 
work and incorporate them together; not to 
tincture it therewith only, but to give it a 
thorough and perfect dye; and if it will not 
take colour, and meliorate its imperfect state, it 



Apud Stobicus, lift. iii. 37. 
' Senec. Epist. 106. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



were, without doubt, much better to let it 
alone. It is a dangerous weapon, and very 
likely to wound its master, if put into an 
awkward and unskilful hand. UtJ'uerit melius 
non didicisse.* " So that it were better never 
to have learned at all." 

And this, perhaps, is the reason why neither 
we, nor indeed the christian religion, require 
much learning in women; and that Francis, 
Duke of Brittany, son of John the Fifth, to 
one that was talking with him about his mar- 
riage with Isabella, the daughter of Scotland, 
and added that she was homely bred, and 
without any manner of learning, made answer, 
" That he liked her the better, and that a woman 
was wise enough if she could distinguish be- 
tween her husband's shirt and his doublet." 

So that it is no so great a wonder, as they 

make of it, that our ancestors 

Whether had letters in no greater esteem, 

!ih-uh,'!'r'iy e and that even t0 this da y thev 

necessary. are but rarely met with in the 

privy-councils of our princes : 
and if this end and design of acquiring riches, 
which is the only thing we propose to ourselves, 
by the means of law, physic, pedantry, and 
even divinity itself, did not uphold and keep 
them in credit, you would, without doubt, see 
them as poor and unregarded as ever. And 
what loss either, if they neither instruct us to 
think well, nor to do well! Poslqunm dncti 
prodierunt, boni desunt. 2 "After once they 
become learned, they cease to be good." All 
other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not 
the science of honesty and goodness. 
But the reason I glanced up6n but now, may 
it not also proceed hence, that 
ftaifcebut our stud ' es m France having 

little studied, almost no other aim but profit, 
except by those f ew of those who by nature would 

Who soucht to i . a* J -% , 

live by them. seem born to offices and employ- 
ments, rather of glory than gain, 
addicting themselves to letters; or for so little 
a while, being taken from their studies before 
they can come to have any taste of them, to a 
profession that has nothing to do with books, 
that there commonly remain no other to apply 
themselves wholly to learning but people of 
mean condition, who seek a livelihood thereby ; 
and by such people whose souls are, both by 
nature and education, and domestic example, of 
the basest metal, the fruits of knowledge are 
immaturely gathered, and ill digested. For it 
is not the proper business of knowledge to 
enlighten a soul that is dark of itself; nor to 
make a blind man to see. Her business is not 
to find a man eyes, but to guide, govern, and 
direct his steps, provided he has sound feet and 
straight legs to go upon. Knowledge is an 
excellent drug, but no drug has virtue enough 
to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if 
the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is 
put to keep. Such a one may have a sight 



Cicero, Tuse. Quccs. ii. 4. 
; Sciicc. Epist. 95. 



clear and good enough, who yet looks asquint, 
and consequently sees what is good, but does 
not follow it, and sees knowledge, but makes no 
use of it. Plato's principal institution, in his 
Republic, is to fit his citizens with employments 
suitable to their nature. Nature can do all, 
and does all. Cripples are very unfit for exer- 
cises of the body, and lame souls for exercises 
of the mind. Degenerate and vulgar souls are 
unworthy of philosophy. If we see a shoe- 
maker with his shoes out at the toes, we say, " It 
is no wonder ; for, commonly, none go worse shod 
than they." In like manner, experience doth 
often present us a physician worse physicked, a 
divine worse reformed, and most frequently a 
scholar of less sufficiency, than another. 

Aristo of Chios had reason to say that phi- 
losophers did their auditors harm, forasmuch as 
most of those that heard them were not capable 
of making any benefit of their instructions, and 
if they did not apply them to good, would 
certainly apply them to ill : cww* oug ex Aristippi, 
acerbos ex Zenonis schola exire? "They 
proceeded debauchees from the school of Aris- 
tippus, and sour churls from that of Zeno." 

In that excellent institution that Zenophon 
attributes to the Persians, we find 
that they taught their children ftePer^an" ; ' 
virtue, as other nations do letters. 
Plato tells us 4 that the eldest son in their royal 
succession was thus brought up ; as soon as he 
was born he was delivered, not to women, but 
to eunuchs of the greatest authority about their 
kings for their virtue, whose charge it was to 
keep his body healthful and in good plight; and 
after he came to seven years of age, to teach 
him to ride, and to go a hunting; when he 
arrived at fourteen, he was transferred into the 
hands of four men, the most noted in the king- 
dom for wisdom, justice, temperance, and valour; 
of whom the first was to instruct him in religion, 
the second to be always upright and sincere, 
the third to subdue his appetites and desires, 
and the fourth to despise all danger. It is a 
thing worthy of very great consideration that, 
in that excellent, and, in truth, for its perfection, 
prodigious form of civil govern- 

v . e . , , T & and of the La- 

ment set down by Lycurgus, ce demonians. 
though solicitous of the education 
of children, as a thing of the greatest concern, 
and even in the very seat of the Muses, he 
should make so little mention of learning; as if 
their generous youths disdaining all other sub- 
jection, but that of virtue only, ought to be 
supplied, instead of tutors to read to them arts 
and sciences, with such masters only as should 
instruct them in valour, prudence, and justice ; 
an example that Plato has followed in his laws. 
The manner of their discipline was to propound 
to them questions upon their judgment of men, 
and of their actions; and if they commended 
or condemned this or that person, or fact, they 
were to give a reason for so doing. By which 



64 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



means they at once sharpened their understand- 
ing, and learned what was right and lawful. 
Astyages, in Xenophon, asking her son Cyrus 
to give her an account of his last lesson, he 
made answer thus : " A great boy in the school, 
having a short cassock, by force took a longer 
from another that was not so tall as he, and 
gave him his own in exchange : whereupon I 
being appointed judge of the controversy, gave 
judgment that I thought it best each should 
keep the coat he had, for that they were both 
better fitted now than they were before. Upon 
which my master told me I had done ill, in that 
I had only considered the fitness of the gar- 
ments, whereas I ought to have considered the 
justice of the thing, which required that no one 
should have any thing forcibly taken from him 
that is his own." 1 And Cyrus added that he 
was whipped for his pains, as we are in our 
villages for forgetting the first Aorist of ivMu. 
My pedant must make me a very learned 
oration, indeed, in genere demonslrativo, before 
he can persuade me that his school is as good 
as that. They know how to. go the readiest 
way to work : and seeing that the sciences, when 
most rightly applied and best understood, can 
but teach us prudence, moral honesty, and 
resolution, they thought fit to initiate their 
children at once with the knowledge of effects, 
and to instruct them, not by hear-say and by 
rote, but by the experiment of action, in 
forming and moulding them ; not only by words 
and precepts, but chiefly by works and ex- 
amples ; to the end it might not be a knowledge 
of the mind only, but a complexion and a habit ; 
not an acquisition, but a natural possession. 
One asking, to this purpose, Agesilaus, what he 
thought most proper for boys to learn? " What 
they ought to do when they come to be men," 
said he. 2 It is no wonder if such an institution 
produced such admirable effects. 

They used to go, it is said, to the other cities 

of Greece for rhetoricians, pain- 
The difference ters, and music-masters ; but to 
stiuctfon given Lacedeemon for legislators, ma- 
to the children gistrates, and generals of armies, 
to fhose of and At Athens they learned to speak 
Athens. well, and here to do well ; there 

to disengage themselves from a 
sophistical argument, and to unravel ensnaring 
syllogisms ; here to evade the baits and allure- 
ments of pleasure, and with a noble courage 
and resolution to confute and conquer the 
menaces of fortune and death ; those cudgelled 
their brains about words, these made it their 
business to enquire into things; there was an 
eternal babble of the tongue, here a continual 
exercise of the soul. And therefore it is nothing 
strange if, when Antipater demanded of them 



' Cyrop. i. 3. 

* Plutarch, Apotii. of the Lacedemonians. 

3 H. ib. 



fifty children for hostages, they made answer, 
quite contrary to what we should do, that they 
would rather give him twice as many full grown 
men, so much did they value the loss of their 
country's education.' When Agesilaus invited 
Xenophon to send his children to Sparta to be 
bred, " It is not," said he, " there to learn 
logic or rhetoric, but to be instructed in the 
noblest of all sciences, namely, the science to 
obey and to command. 4 It is very pleasant to 
see Socrates, after his manner, _ 

„ ■ ,,. . , . How Socrates 

rallying Hippias, who recounts bantered a so- 
to him what a world of money he phist who had 
had got, especially in certain little t° t ar n t ° a thing a 
villages of Sicily, by teaching 
school, while he got never a penny at Sparta: 
" What a sottish and stupid people," says So- 
crates, " are they, without sense or understand- 
ing, who know neither mensuration nor nume- 
ration, and make no account either of grammar 
or poetry, and only busy themselves in studying 
the genealogies and successions of their kings, 
the foundation, rise, and declension of states, 
and such old wives' tales." 5 After which, having 
made Hippias acknowledge the excellency of 
their form of public administration, and the feli- 
city and virtue of their private life, he leaves 
him to guess at the conclusion he makes of the 
inutility of his pedantic arts. 

Examples have demonstrated unto us that, 
both in that military government, 
and all others of the like nature, The study of 

., , , „ ,, . .the sciences 

the study of the sciences does enervates 
more soften and enervate the courage, 
courage of men than fortify and 
incite it. The most potent empire that at 
this day appears to be in the whole world, is 
that of the Turks, a people equally remarkable 
for their estimation of arms, and the contempt 
of letters. Rome was more valiant before she 
grew so learned ; and the most warlike nations 
of our time are the most ignorant; of which 
the Scythians, Parthians, and the great Tamer- 
lane may serve for sufficient proof. When the 
Goths over-ran Greece, the only thing that 
preserved all the libraries from the fire was 
that some one possessed them with an opinion 
that they should do well to leave this kind of 
furniture entire to the enemy, as being most 
proper to divert them from the exercise of arms, 
and to fix them to a lazy and sedentary life. 6 
When our King Charles the Eighth, almost 
without striking a blow, saw himself possessed 
of the kingdom of Naples, and a considerable 
part of Tuscany, the nobility about him attri- 
buted this unexpected facility of conquest to this, 
that the princes and nobles of Italy more studied 
to render themselves ingenious and learned, 
than vigorous and warlike. 



«ld. Life of Agesilaus 
6 Plato, Hippias Majo 
» Philip Camerarius, , 



Hist. Cent- iii. 31. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



85 



CHAPTER XXV. 

OF THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 

To Madame Diana de Foix, Countess of 
Gurson. 

never yet saw that father who, let his son 
be never so decrepid or scald- 



e knew. but that, unless he were totally 

besotted and blinded with his 
paternal affection, he does not well enough 
discern his defects ; but because, notwithstand- 
ing all faults, he is still his. Just so it is 
with me. I see better than any other that 
these things I write are but the idle whimsies 
of a man that has only nibbled upon the out- 
ward crust of learning in his nonage, and 
only retained a general and formless image of 
it, a little snatch of every thing, and nothing 
of the whole a la Frangoise ,• for I know, in 
general, that there is a science of physic, a 
science of law, four parts in mathematics, and 
I have a general notion what all these aim at ; 
and, peradventure, I know too what the sciences 
in general pretend unto, in order to the service 
of human life; but to dive farther than that, 
and to have cudgelled my brains in the study 
of Aristotle, the monarch of all our modern 
learning, or particularly addicted myself to any 
one science, I have never done it: neither is 
there any one art of which I am able to draw 
the first lineaments ; insomuch that there is not 
a boy of the lowest form in a school that may 
not pretend to be wiser than I, who am not able 
to pose him in his first lesson, which, if I am at 
any time forced upon, I am necessitated in my 
own defence to ask him some universal ques- 
tions, such as may serve to try his natural un- 
derstanding; a lesson as strange and unknown 
to him as his is to me. 

I never seriously settled myself to the read- 
ing of any book of solid learning, 
Plutarch and but Plutarch and Seneca; and 
vou',T;' books t he re, like the Danaides, I eter- 
of Montaigne, nally fill, and it as constantly 
runs out; something of which 
drops upon this paper, but Very little or nothing 
stays behind with me. History is my delight, 
as to reading, or else poetry, for which I have, 
I confess, a particular kindness and esteem : 
for, as Cleanthes said, as the voice, forced 
through the narrow passage of a trumpet, comes 
out more forceable and shrill ; so, methinks, a 
sentence couched in the harmony of verse, darts 
more briskly upon the understanding, and strikes 1 
both my ear and apprehension with a smarter 
and more pleasing power. As to the natural 
parts I have, of which this is the specimen, I 
find them to bow under the burthen ; my fancy 



i Montaigne's expression is, me ficrt, and Rousseau, 
anion;.' Ins oih r obligations to our anilior in this ami the 

I I i i Bnj ' h tpl ' owes to tl icurrence of this word— 

from the Latin ferit— his discovery of the meaning of the 

8 



and judgment do but grope in the dark, tripping 
and stumbling in their way, and when I have 
gone as far as I can, I am in no degree satisfied, 
for I discover still a new and greater extent of 
land before me, but with troubled and imperfect 
sight, and wrapt up in clouds that I am not 
able to penetrate. And taking upon me to 
write indifferently of whatever comes into my 
head, and therein making use of nothing but 
my own proper and natural means, if I hap- 
pened, as I often do, accidentally to meet in 
any good author the same heads and common 
places upon which I have attempted to write, 
(as I did but lately in Plutarch's Discourse of 
the Force of the Imagination), to see myself so 
weak and miserable, so heavy and sleepy, in 
comparison with those better writers, I at once 
pity and despise myself. Yet do I flatter and 
please myself with this, that my opinions have 
often the honour and good fortune to tally 
with theirs, and that I follow in the same paths, 
though at a, very great distance, saying, they 
are quite right; I am farther satisfied to find 
that I have a quality, which every one is not 
blest withal, which is to discern the vast differ- 
ence betwixt them and me ; and notwithstanding 
all that, suffer my own ideas, poor as they are, 
to run on in their career, without mending or 
plaistering up the defects that this comparison 
has laid open to my own view. And in truth a 
man had need of a good strong 
back to keep pace with these M ° c d e v r e n r ^™ ter3 
people. The indiscreet scrib- poverty of their 
biers of our times, who, amongst genius, by pii- 
their laborious nothings, insert ancients.' 
whole sections, paragraphs, and 
pages, out of ancient authors, with a design by 
that means to do honour to their own writings, 
do quite contrary; for the infinite dissimilitude 
of ornaments renders the complexions of their 
own compositions so pale, sallow, and deformed, 
that they lose much more than they get. 

The philosophers, Chrysippus and Epicurus, 
were, in this, of two quite contrary humours; 
for the first did not only in his books mix the 
passages and sayings of other authors, but entire 
pieces, and in one. the whole Medea of Euripides; 
which gave Apollodorus occasion to say "that 
should a man pick out of his writings all that 
was none of his, he would leave nothing but 
blank paper:" 2 whereas, Epicurus, quite con- 
trary, in three hundred volumes that he left 
behind him, has not so much as one quotation/ 1 

A case in point occurred the other day : I was 
reading a French book, where, after I had a 
long time bpen dragging over a great many 
words, so dull, so insipid, so void of all wit or 
common sense that, indeed, they were only 
words, after a long and tedious travel I came, 
at last, to meet with a piece that was lofty, 
rich, and elevated to the very clouds. Now 



motto of the Solar Family ; le! ficrt que 1 

Confession.*, pari i. hook :i. 

'- Laertiue, Life of Chrytipput. 
■■>U.Lifeefr 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



had I found either the declivity easy, or the 
ascent more sloping, there had been some 
excuse ; but it was so perpendicular a precipice, 
and so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, 
that by the first words I found myself flying 
into the other world, and thence discovered 
the vale whence I came, so deep and low 
that I had never since the heart to descend into 
it any more. If I should set out my discourses 
with such rich spoils as these, the plagiarism 
would too manifestly discover the imperfection 
of my own writing. To reprehend the fault in 
others that I am guilty of myself appears to 
me no more unreasonable than to condemn, as 
I often do, those of others in myself. They 
are to be everywhere reproved, and ought to 
have no sanctuary allowed them. I know very 
well how impudently I myself, at every turn, 
attempt to equal myself to my thefts, and go 
hand in hand with them, not without a daring 
hope of deceiving the eyes of my reader from 
discerning the difference ; but, withal, it is as 
much by the benefit of my application that I 
hope to do it as by that of my invention, or 
any force of my own. Besides, I do not offer 
to contend with the whole body of these old 
champions, nor hand to hand with any one of 
them ; 'tis only by flights and little light skir- 
mishes that I engage them; I do not grapple 
with them, but try their strength only, and 
never engage so far as I make a show to do. 
If I could hold them in play I were a brave 
fellow ; for I never attack them but where they 
are strongest. To cover a man's self, as I have 
seen some do, with another man's armour, so as 
not to discover so much as their fingers' ends; 
to carry on his design, as it is not hard for a 
man that has any thing of a scholar in him, in 
an ordinary subject, to do, under old inventions, 
patched up here and there; and then to en- 
deavour to conceal the theft, and to make it 
pass for his own is, first, injustice and meanness 
of spirit in whoever does it; who, having 
nothing in them of their own fit to procure 
them a reputation, endeavour to do it by 
attempting to impose things upon the world in 
their own name, which they have really no 
manner of title to; and then a ridiculous folly 
to content themselves with acquiring the igno- 
rant approbation of the vulgar by such a pitiful 
cheat, at the price, at the same time, of dis- 
covering their insufficiency to men of under- 
standing, the only persons whose praise is worth 
any thing, who will soon smell out and trace 
them under their borrowed crust. For my own 
part there is nothing I would not sooner do than 
that; I quote others only in order the better to 
express myself.- In this I do not, in the least, 



i LeliusCapilupus, a nativeof Mantua, who flourished in 
the sixteenth century, was famous lor compositions of this 
kind, as may be seen under his name in Rayle's Dictionary, 
who says that the Cento, which he wrote against the monks, 
is inimitable; it is to be found at the end of the Regnura 
Papisticum of Neogeorgas. He wrote one also against the 
women, which Mr. Bayle also mentions as a very ingenious 
piece, but too satirical. It was inserted in a collection, 



glance at the composers of centos, who declare 
themselves for such ; of which sort of writers 
I have, in my time, seen many very ingenious, 
particularly one, under the name of Capilupus, 1 
besides the ancients. 2 These are really men of 
wit, and that make it appear they are so, both 
by that and other ways of writing; as for ex- 
ample, Lipsius, in that learned and laborious 
contexture of his politics. 

But be this how it will, and how inconsider- 
able soever these essays of mine 
may be, I will ingenuously con- Montaigne's 
fess I never intended to conceal 
them, any more than my old, 
bald, grizzled portrait before them, where the 
painter has presented you not with a perfect 
face, but with the resemblance of mine. For 
these are my own particular opinions and 
fancies, and I deliver them for no other but 
only what I myself believe, and not what 
others are to believe, neither have I any other 
end in this writing but only to discover myself, 
who shall, peradventure, be another thing to- 
morrow, if I chance to meet any book or friend 
to convince me in the mean time. I have no 
authority to be believed, neither do I desire it, 
being loo conscious of my own inerudition to 
be able to instruct others. 

A friend of mine then, having read the pre- 
ceding chapter, the other day, 
told me that I should have 
enlarged a little more upon the 
education of children. Now, ma- 
dam, were my abilities equal to the 
subject, I could not possibly employ them better 
than in presenting them to the little gentleman 
that threatens you shortly with a happy birth, 
and your friends are in daily hopes of (you are 
too generous to begin otherwise than with a 
male) ; for having had so great a hand in your 
marriage, I have a sort of right and interest in 
the greatness and prosperity of all that shall 
proceed from it ; besides, as you have been so 
long in possession of a title to the best of my 
services, I am obliged to desire the honour and 
advantage of every thing that concerns you. 
But, in truth, all I understand, as to this par- 
ticular, is only this, that the greatest andtnost 
important difficulty of human science is the 
nurture and education of children. i-For, as in 
agriculture, all that precedes planting, as also 
planting itself, is certain, plain, and easy; 
but, after that which is planted takes life and 
shoots up, there is a great deal more to be 
done, and much more difficulty to be got over 
to cultivate and bring it to perfection; so 
it is with men; it is no hard matter to plant 
them, but after they are born then begins the 



Montaigne's 
opinion con- 
cerning 
education. 



entitled Baudii Amoves, printed at Lcyden, in 1638. This 
Lelius had a nephew, named JuliusCapilitpus, who signal- 
ized himself by Centos, and even had a talent for it superior 
to his uncle, if we may believe Possevin. Poet. Select. Lib. 
xvii. 24. 

a At the Centos of Ausonius, composed wholly out of the 
verses of Virgil. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



87 



trouble, solicitude, and care, to 
o^uefing by train and bring them up. 1 The 
the first actions symptoms of their inclinations at 
what' u>ev will that tender a S e are so slight and 
lie hereafter. obscure, and the promises so 
uncertain and fallacious, that it 
is very hard to establish any solid judgment or 
conjecture upon them. Look at Cimon, for 
example, and Themistocles, and a thousand 
others, whose manhood has given the lie to the 
, ill-promise of their early youth. Bears' cubs 
and puppies discover their natural inclination; 
but men, so soon as they are grown up, imme- 
diately applying themselves to certain habits, 
engaging themselves in certain opinions, and 
conforming themselves to particular laws and 
customs, do easily change, or, at least, disguise, 
their true and real disposition. And yet it is 
hard to force the propensity of nature ; whence 
it comes to pass that, for not having chosen the 
right course, a man throws away very great 
pains, and consumes great part of his time in 
training up children to things for which, by 
their natural aversion, they are totally unfit. 
In this difficulty, nevertheless, I am clearly of 
opinion that they ought to be elemented in the 
best and most advantageous studies, without 
taking too much notice of, or being too super- 
stitious in, those light prognostics we too often 
conceive of them in their tender years ; to which 
Plato, in his republic, gives, methinks, too 
much authority. 

But, madam, learning is doubtless a very 

great ornament, and a thing of 

The great marvellous use, especially to per- 

iiulii v "i sound . , . , r . , J r /. 

learning. sons raised to that degree of 

fortune in which you are placed ; 
and, in truth, in persons of mean and low con- 
dition, it cannot perform its true and genuine 
office, being naturally more prompt to assist in 
the conduct of war, in the government of a 
people, and in negociating leagues with princes 
and foreign nations, than in forming a syllogism 
in logic, in pleading a process in law, or in 
prescribing a dose of pills in physic. Where- 
fore, madam, believing you will not omit this 
so necessary embellishment in the training of 
your posterity, yourself having tasted the 
delights of it, and being of a learned extrac- 
tion (for we yet have the writings of the 
ancient Counts of Foix, from whom my lord, 
your husband, and yourself are both descended, 
and Monsieur Francis de Candale, your uncle, 
does, every day, oblige the world with others, 
which will extend the knowledge of this quality 
in your family to many succeeding ages), I 
will, upon this occasion, presume to acquaint you 
with one particular fancy of my own, contrary 
to the common method, which is all I am able 
to contribute to your service in this matter. 
The charge of the tutor you shall provide 



• This sentiment is taken from one of Plato's Dialogues, 
entitled Theages, where a father applying, with his son, to 
Socrates, to consult hint to whom he should put his sod for 



for your son, upon the choice of whom depends 
the whole success of his education, has several 
other great branches which, how- 
ever, I shall not touch upon, as How much 
being unable to add anything of ^ZrJle'a thC 
moment to the common rules ; tutor, 
and also in this, wherein I take 
upon me to advise, he may follow it so far only 
as it shall appear rational and conducing to the 
end in view. For a boy of quality then, who 
pretends to letters, not upon the account of 
profit (for so mean an object as that is unworthy 
of the grace and favour of the muses; and, 
moreover, has reference to others), nor so much 
for outward ornament, as for his own proper 
and peculiar use, and to furnish and enrich 
himself within, having rather a desire to come 
out an accomplished gentleman than a mere 
learned man ; for such a one, I say, I would 
have his friends solicitous to find him out a 
tutor who has rather an elegant than a learned 
head, though both, if such a person can be 
found ; but, however, to prefer manners and 
judgment before reading, and that this man 
should pursue the exercise of his charge after a 
new method. 

'Tis the custom of schoolmasters to be eter- 
nally thundering in their pupils' 
ears, as they were pouring into a The tutor of a 
funnel, whilst the business of these lad ought to 
is only to repeat what the others m;ik f him 

i ( ., , f « AT T ,j speak, some- 

have said before. JNow 1 would times before, 

have a tutor to correct this error : an(l sometimes 
and that, at the very first outset, a ' ,,m ' 
he should, according to the ca- 
pacity he has to deal with, put it to the test, 
permitting his pupil himself to taste and relish 
things, and of himself to choose and discern 
them, sometimes opening the way to him, and 
sometimes making him break the ice himself; 
that is, I would not have him alone to invent 
and speak, but that he should also hear his 
pupil speak in turn. Socrates, and, since him, 
Arcesilaus, made first their scholars speak, and 
then spoke to them. 2 Obest plerumque iis qui 
discere volunt aucloritas eorum qui decent. 3 
"The authority of those who teach is very 
often an impediment to those who desire to 
learn." The tutor should make his pupil, like 
a young horse, trot before him, that he may 
judge of his going, and how much he is to 
abate of his own speed to accommodate himself 
to the vigour and capacity of the other. For 
want of which due proportion we spoil all: 
yet to know how to adjust it, and to keep within 
an exact and clue measure, is one of the hardest 
things I know, and 'tis the effect of a strong 
and well-tempered mind to know now to con- 
descend to his puerile motions and to govern 
and direct them. I walk firmer and more 
secure up hill than down. 



education, made the very same remark as Montaigne I 
in this place. > Laertius, in vita. 

s Cicero, de Nat. Dtor. i. 5. 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Such as, according to our common way of 
teaching, undertake, with one and the same 
lesson, and the same measure of direction, to 
instruct several boys of so differing and unequal 
capacities, need not wonder if, in a multitude 
of scholars, there are not found above two or 
three who bring away any good account of 
their time and discipline. Let the master not 
only examine him about the bare words of his 
lesson, but also as to the sense and meaning of 
them, and let him judge of the profit he has 
made, not by the testimony of his memory, but 
by that of his understanding. Let him make 
him put what he hath learned into a hundred 
several forms, and accommodate it to so many 
several subjects, to see if he yet rightly com- 
prehend it, and has made it his own; taking 
instruction by his progress from the institutions 
of Plato. 'Tis a sign of crudity and indiges- 
tion to throw up what we have eaten in the 
same condition it was swallowed down; the 
stomach has not performed its office unless it 
hath altered the form and condition of what 
was committed to it to concoct. Our minds 
work only upon trust, being bound and com- 
pelled to follow the appetite of another's fancy ; 
enslaved and captive under the authority of 
another's instruction, we have been so subjected 
to the trammels that we have no free nor natural 
pace of our own, our own vigour and liberty is 
extinct and gone. Nunquam tutela sua sunt. 1 
" They are never out of wardship." 

I was privately at Pisa carried to see a very 
honest man, but so great an Aristotelian that 
his invariable dogma was "That the touch- 
stone and square of all solid imagination and 
all truth was an absolute conformity to Aris- 
totle's doctrine, and that all besides was nothing 
but inanity and chimera ; for that he had seen 
all and said all." A position that having been 
a little too broadly and maliciously interpreted, 
brought him into and long kept him in great 
trouble in the inquisition at Rome. 

Let the tutor make his pupil examine and 
thoroughly sift every thing he reads, and lodge 
nothing in his head upon simple authority and 
upon trust. Let Aristotle's Principles be no 
more principles to him than those of Epicurus 
and the Stoics : let the diversity of opinions be 
propounded to, and laid before, him, he will 
himself choose, if he be able ; if not, he will 
remain in doubt. 

Che non men che saper, dubbiar m' aggrada.a 
" I love sometimes to doubt as well as know." 

For if he embrace the opinions of Xenophon 
and Plato, by the exercise of his reason they 
will no more be theirs, but become his own. 
Who follows another, follows nothing, finds 
nothing, nay, seeks nothing. Non sumus sub 
rege, sibi quisque se vindicet. 3 " We are not 
under a king; let everyone dispose of himself." 
Let him, at least, know that he does know. 



' Seneca, Epist. 33. 



a Dante, Inferno, 



'Tis for him to imbibe their knowledge, but not 
to adopt their dogmas; and no matter if he 
forgets where he had his learning, provided he 
knows how to apply it to his own use: truth 
and reason are common to every one, and are 
no more his who spoke them first than his who 
spake them after. 'Tis no more according to 
Plato than according to me, since both he and 
I equally see and understand in the same man- 
ner. Bees cull their several sweets from this 
flower and that blossom, here and there where 
they find them, but themselves after make the 
honey which is\ all and purely their own, and 
no longer thyme and marjoram : so the several 
fragments the pupil borrows from others he will 
transform and blend together to compile a work 
that shall be absolutely his own ; that is to say, 
his judgment, which his instruction, labour, 
and study should alone tend to form. He is 
not obliged to discover whence he had his 
materials, but only to produce what he has 
done with them. Men that live upon rapine 
and borrowing readily parade their purchases 
and buildings to every one, but do not proclaim 
how they came by the money. We do not see 
the fees and perquisites of a gentleman of the 
long robe ; but we see the noble alliances where- 
with he fortifies himself and his family, and the 
titles and honours he has obtained for him 
and his. No man accounts to the public for his 
revenue ; but every one makes a show of his 
purchases, and is content the world should know 
his good condition. 

The advantages of our study are to become 
Jjeiter andwiser. 'Tis, says Epi- 
charmus, the "understanding that What the ad- 
sees and hears, the understand- study are. 
ing that improves everything, 
that orders everything, and that acts, rules, 
and reigns. 4 All other faculties are blind and 
deaf, and without soul ; and certainly we render 
it timorous and servile in not allowing it the 
liberty and privilege to do anything of itself. 
Who ever asked his pupil what he thought of 
grammar and rhetoric, or of such and such a 
sentence of Cicero ] Our pedagogues stick them 
full feathered in our memories, and there esta- 
blish them like oracles, of which the very letters 
and syllables are the substance of the thing. 
To know by rote is no knowledge, 'tis no more 
than only to retain what one has intrusted to 
his memory. That which a man rightly knows 
and understands he is the free disposer of at 
his own full liberty, without any regard to the 
author from whom he had it, or fumbling over 
the leaves of his book. A mere bookish learn- 
ing is a poor stock to go upon : though it may 
serve for some kind of ornament, 
there is yet no foundation for philosophy is, 
any superstructure to be built according to' 
upon it, according to the opinion Hat0 - 
of Plato, who says that constancy, faith, and 
sincerity, are the true philosophy; and the 



3 Senec. Epis. 33. 



1 Clement. Alex. Slromat. ii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



89 



other sciences, that are directed to other ends, 
are but cozenage. I could wish to know 
whether Le Paluel orPompey, famous dancing- 
masters of my time, could have taught us to 
cut capers by only seeing them do it, without 
stirring from our places, as these men pretend 
to inform our understandings, without ever 
setting them to work ; or whether we could 
learn to ride, handle a pike, touch a lute, or 
sing, without practice, as these attempt to 
make us judge and speak well, without exer- 
cising us in judging or speaking. Now while 
we are in our apprenticeship to learning, 
whatsoever presents itself before us is a book 
worth attending to. An arch trick of a page, 
a blunder of a servant, or a jest at a table, are 
so many new subjects. 

And for this very reason acquaintance with 
the world is of very great use, and travel into 
foreign countries of singular advantage; not to 

bring back (as most of our young 
K^S y ° f Monsieurs do ) an account only of 
young."' 6 now man y paces Santa Rotonda 1 

is in circuit; or of the richness 
of Signiora Livia's attire ; or, as some others, 
how much Nero's face, in a statue in such an 
old ruin, is longer and broader than that made 
for him in such an old medal; but to be 
able to give an account of the humours, man- 
ners, customs, and laws of those nations where 
he has been. And, that we may whet and 
sharpen our wits, by rubbing them upon those 
of others, I would that a boy should be sent 
abroad very young and, in order to kill two 
birds with one stone, into those neighbouring 
nations whose language differs most from our 
own, and to which, if it be not formed betimes, 
the tongue will be grown too stiff to bend. 

'Tis the general opinion of all, that children 
should not be brought up in their parents' lap. 
Their natural affection is apt to make the most 
discreet of them all so over-fond that they can 
neither find in their hearts to give them due 
correction for the faults they commit, nor surfer 
them to be brought up in those hardships and 
hazards they ought to be. They would not 

endure to see them return all 
rondness of dust and sweat from their exer- 
Z'uZlT cise, to drink cold water when 
education. they are hot, or see them mount 

an unruly horse, or take a foil in 
hand against a rough fencer, or so much as to 
discharge a carbine. And yet there is no remedy; 
whoever will have a boy to be good for any 
thing when he comes to be a man, must by no 
means spare him when young, and must very 
often transgress the rules of physic: — 



" Me i. iiis! sharp colli find senrrhiii;.' Imat despise, 
Ami inusl tempt danger u line must danger lies." 

It is not enough to fortify his soul, you are also 
to make his sinews strong; for the soul will be 



' The Pantheon. 

8* 



» Horace, Od. ii. 3, 5. 



oppressed, if not assisted by the body, and 
would have too hard a task to discharge two 
offices alone. I know very well how much 
mine groans under the disadvantage of a body 
so tender and delicate that eternally leans and 
presses upon her: and often in my reading 
perceive that our masters, in their writings, 
make examples pass for magnanimity and for- 
titude of mind, which really have more to do 
with toughness of skin and hardness of bones. 

I have seen men, women, and children, born 
of so hard and insensible a constitution of body* 
that a sound cudgelling has been less to them 
than a flirt with a finger would have been to 
me, and that would neither cry out, nor wince 
at a good swinging beating; when wrestlers 
counterfeit the philosophers in patience, it is 
rather strength of nerves than stoutness of 
heart. Now to be inured to labour is to be 
able to endure pain. Labor callum obducit 
dolori? "Labour supplies pain with a certain 
callosity that hardens it to the blow." A boy 
must be broken in by the pain and hardship of 
severe exercise, to inure him to the pain and 
hardship of dislocations, colics, cauteries, and 
even of imprisonment and the rack itself, for 
he may come, by misfortune, to be reduced to 
the worst of these, which (as this world goes) 
sometimes befal the good as well as the bad. 
As for proof, in our present civil war, whoever 
draws his sword against the laws threatens all 
honest men with the whip and the halter. 

And, moreover, by living at home, the au- 
thority of this tutor, which ought to be sovereign 
over the boy he has received into his charge, is 
often checked, interrupted, and hindered by the 
presence of parents; to which may also be 
added, that the respect the whole family pay 
him, as their master's son, and the knowledge 
he has of the estate and greatness he is heir La, 
are, in my opinion, no small inconveniences at 
these tender years. 

In one's converse with the world, I h&ve 
often observed this vice, that in- 
stead of gathering observations Tnat a retired 
from others, we make it our whole gj-eatfy desir- 
business to give them our own, able in youth, 
and are more concerned how to 
expose and set out our own commodities than 
how to acquire new. Silence and modesty are 
very advantageous qualities in conversation, 
and one should therefore train up the boy to 
be sparing, and a good husband of what he 
knows, when once acquired ; and to forbear 
taking exceptions at, or reproving every idlo 
saying, or ridiculous story, spoken or told in his 
presence ; for it is a great rudeness to controvert 
every thing that is not agreeable to our ow-i 
palate. Let him be satisfied with correcting 
himself, and not seem to condemn every tli ng 
in another he would not do himself, nor dispute 
against common customs. Licet sapere sine 
pompd, sine invidid.* " Let him be wise 



i Cicero, TVse. Qk<w. ii. 14. 



i Seneca, Epist. 103. 



90 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



without assumption and without envy." Let him 
avoid this pedagoguish and uncivil fashion, 
this childish ambition of coveting to appear 
something better and greater than other people, 
proving himself in reality something less; and 
as though finding fault were a proof of genius, 
seeking to found a special reputation thereon. 
For, as it becomes none but great poets to make 
use of the poetic licence, so it is intolerable 
that any but men of great and illustrious souls 
should be privileged above the authority of 
^custom. Si quid Socrates el Aristippus contra 
morem el consuetudinemfecerunt ; idem sibi ne 
arbitretur licere : magnis enim Mi et divinis 
bonis kanc licentiam assequebantur. 1 "If 
Socrates and Aristippus have transgressed the 
rules of custom, let him not imagine that he is 
licensed to do the same ; for it was by great and 
sovereign virtues that they obtained this pri- 
vilege." Let him be instructed not to engage in 
discourse, or dispute but with a champion 
wrirthy of him, and even there, not to make 
use of all the little subtleties that may serve 
his purpose ; but only such as may best serve 
him upon that occasion. Let him be taught 
to be nice in the choice of his reasons, to see 
they are pertinent, and to affect brevity ; above 
all, let him be lessoned to acquiesce and submit 
to truth as soon as ever he shall discover it, 
whether in his opponent's argument, or upon 
better consideration of his own ; for he should 
never be preferred to the chair for a mere clatter 
of words and syllogisms, nor be engaged to 
any argument whatever, than as he shall in his 
own judgment approve it ; nor be bound to that 
trade, where the liberty of recantation, and 
getting off upon better thoughts, are to be sold 
for ready money. Neque, ut omnia quae 
prsescripta <$r imperata sint, defendat, necessi- 
tate ulla cogitur. 2 "Neither is there any 
necessity or obligation upon him at all, that he 
should defend all things that are recommended 
to and enjoined him." 

If his tutor be of my humour, he will form 
his will to be a very good and loyal subject to 
his prince, very affectionate to his person, and 
very stout in his quarrel; but withal, he will 
cool hi him the desire of having any other tie 
V to his service than public duty; because, 
besides several other inconveniences, that are 
inconsistent with the liberty every honest man 
ought to have, a man's judgment being bribed 
and pre-possessed by these particular obligations 
and favours, is either blinded and less free to 
exercise its function, or shall be blemished either 
with ingratitude or indiscretion. 

"ponprinces. A man . that is PU rel y * courtier 

can neither have power nor wit 
to speak or think otherwise than favourably of 
a master, who, amongst so many thousands of 
other subjects, has picked out him with his own 
hand, to nourish and advance him. This favour, 
and the profit flowing from it, must needs, and 



2 Cicero, Acad. Ques. iv. 3. 



not without some show of reason, corrupt his 
freedom of speaking, and dazzle him. And we 
commonly see these people speak in another 
kind of phrase than is ordinarily spoken by the 
rest of the nation, and are not much to be 
believed in such matters. 

Let conscience and virtue he eminently ma- 
nifest in his speech, and have 
only reason for their 
Make him understand that to 
acknowledge the error he shall discover in his 
own argument, though only found out by him- 
self) it is an effect of judgment and sincerity, 
which are the principal things he is to seek 
after. That obstinacy and contention are 
common qualities, most appearing in and best 
becoming a mean soul. That to recollect and 
correct himself, and to forsake a bad argument 
in the height and heat of dispute, are great and 
rare philosophical qualities. Let 
him be directed, being in com- H ? mu ?L bl ^ 
pany, to have his eye and ear in when'in com- 
every corner of the room ; for I pany, to be 
find that the places of greatest l^f'^ 
honour are commonly possessed by said or done, 
men that have least in them, and 
that the greatest fortunes are not always ac- 
companied with the ablest parts. I have been 
present, when, whilst they at the upper end 
of the table have been only commending the 
beauty of the Arras, or the flavour of the wine, 
many fine things have been lost or thrown away 
at the lower end of the table. Let him examine 
every man's talent; a peasant, a bricklayer, or 
any casual passenger, a man may learn some- 
thing from every one of these in their several 
capacities, and something will be picked out 
of their discourse, whereof some use may be 
made at one time or another; nay, even the 
folly and weakness of others will contribute to 
his instruction. By observing the graces and 
manners of all he sees, he will create to himself 
an emulation of the good, and a contempt of 
the bad. 

Let an honest curiosity be planted in him to 
enquire after every thing, and whatever there is 
of singular and rare near the place where he 
shall reside, let him go and see it ; a fine house, 
a fountain, an eminent man, the place where 
a battle was anciently fought, the passage of 
Ceesar or of Charleinaigne, 



Let him inquire into the manners, revenues, 
and alliances of princes, things in themselves 
very pleasant to learn and very useful to know. 
In thus conversing with men, I 
mean) and principally, those who fitaue^fudy " 
only live in the records of history ; 
let him, by reading those books, converse with 



Propertius, iv. 3. 39. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



91 



the great and heroic souls of better ages, It is 
an idle study, I confess, to those who choose to 
make it so, by doing it after a negligent man- 
ner; but to those also who choose to make it 
so, by care and observation, it is a study of 
inestimable fruit and value ; and the only one, 
as Plato reports, the Lacedaemonians reserved 
to themselves. 1 What profit shall he not reap, 
as to the business of men, by reading the lives 
of Plutarch 1 But, withal, let my tutor reaiem i 
ber to what end his instructions are principally 
directed, and that he do not so much imprint 
in his pupil's memory the date of the ruin of 
Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and 
Scipio; nor so much where Marcellus died as 
why it was unworthy of his duty that he died 
there. Let him read history, not as an amusing 
narrative, but as a discipline of the judgment. 
'Tis this study to which, in my opinion, of all 
others we apply ourselves with the most differ- 
ing and uncertain measures. I have read an 
hundred things in Livy, that another has not, 
or not taken notice of, at least; and Plutarch 
has read a hundred more than ever I could find, 
or than peradventure the author ever writ. To 
some it is merely a grammar-study ; toothers, 
the very anatomy of philosophy, by which the 
most secret and abstruse parts of our human 
nature are penetrated into. There are in Plu- 
tarch many long discourses very worthy to be 
carefully read and observed, for he is, in my 
opinion, of all other, the greatest master in that 
kind of writing; but withal, there are a thou- 
sand others which he has only touched and 
glanced upon, where he only points with his 
ringer to direct us which way we may go if we 
will, and contents himself sometimes with only 
giving one brisk hit in the nicest article of 
the question, whence we are to grope out the 
rest; as for example, where he says, "That 
the inhabitants of Asia came to be vassals to 
one only, for not having been able to pronounce 
one syllable, which is no." 2 Which saying of 
his gave perhaps matter and occasion toBoetius 
to write his " Voluntary Servitude." 3 Even this, 
but to see him pick out a light action in a man's 
life, or a word that does not seem to be of any 
such importance, is itself a whole discourse. 
It is a pity that men of understanding should so 
immoderately affect brevity ; no doubt but their 
reputation is the better for it: but in the mean 
time we are the worse. Plutarch had rather 
we should applaud his judgment than commend 
his knowledge, and had rather leave us with an 
appetite to read more, than glutted with that 
•we have already road. He knew very well 
that a man may say too much even upon the 



I 1'latci, Hi/ijiins Major. 

» I'lutarch, In his Treatise ok F/i/se Shame. 

a This was Montaigne's friend, of wl I shall have oc- 
casion to say more elsewhere. His name was Stephen Hoc- 
tins, ami he' composed that hook of Voluntary Servitude, 

»' h " '' "< bern ntioned hy Montaigne, and of which we 

shall lindlum discoursing more parlimlurlv in the 27th chap. 

°l 'bis I k, nmler the article of Friendship. One thing 

very surprising is that, in almost all tl lilinns which 1 

have consulted, instead of lioctius we read llmolia, u coun- 



best subjects, and that Alexandridcs did justly 
reproach him who made very elegant, but too 
long, speeches to the Ephori, when he said, 
" O stranger ! thou speakest the tilings thou 
oughtest to speak, but not after the manner 
thou shouldest speak them." 4 Such as have 
lean and spare bodies stuff themselves out with 
clothes; so they who are defective in matter 
endeavour to make amends with words. 

Human understanding is marvellously en- 
lightened by daily conversation 
with men, for we are otherwise ,vnVnc'''u"ri.i 
in ourselves stupid and dull, and greatly assists 
have our sight limited to the ^' e 2S?® r ' 
length of our own noses. One 
asking Socrates of what country he was, he did 
not make answer, " Of Athens," but, " Of the 
world ;" 5 having an imagination rich and ex- 
pansive, he embraced the whole world for his 
country, and extended his society, his friendship, 
and his knowledge, to all mankind ; not as we 
do, who look no farther than our feet. When 
the vines of our village are nipped with the 
frost, the parish-priest presently concludes that 
the indignation of God is gone out against all 
the human race, and that the cannibals have 
already got the pip. Who is it that, seeing 
these civil wars of ours, does not cry out, 
That the machine of the whole world is up- 
setting, and that the day of judgment is at 
hand! without considering that many worse 
things have been seen, and that, in the mean 
time, people are very merry in ten thousand 
other parts of the earth, notwithstanding. For 
my part, considering the licence and impunity 
that always attend such commotions, I wonder 
they are so moderate, and that there is no more 
mischief done. To him that feels the hail-stones 
patter about his ears, the whole hemisphere 
appears to be in storm and tempest; like the 
ridiculous Savoyard, who said very gravely, 
" That if that simple king of France had 
managed well he might in time have come to 
be steward of the household to the duke his 
master." The fellow could not, in his shallow 
imagination, conceive that there could be any 
thing greater than a Duke of Savoy. And, in 
truth, we are all of us insensibly in this error, 
an error of very pernicious consequence. But 
whoever shall represent to his fancy, as in a 
picture, that great image of our mother nature, 
pourtrayed in her full majesty and lustre ; who- 
ever in her face shall read so general and so 
constant a variety, whoever shall observe him- 
self in that figure, and not himself but a whole 
kingdom, no bigger than the least touch of a 
pencil, in comparison of the whole, that man 



try of Greece, and that in those which have short marginal 
lemmas of what is contained in the pages, we are told, 
upon account of this passage in Plutarch, that this country 
of Greece voluntarily submitted to slavery; a ratal acci- 
dent, which care has been taken to point out in the margin. 
by these words, which are by no means equivocal. ■■ The 
voluntary slavery of the nicotians." Thus a very material 
confusion has arisen from a small error in typography, 

* Id. Apothegms. 

» Id. On Banishment. Cicero. Tusc. Qurc. v. 2,. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



alone is able to value things according to their 
true estimate and grandeur. 

This great world, which some do yet multiply 
as several species under one ge- 
mirror in d \vhich nus ' ' s l ' le m i rror wherein we are 
an should look, to behold ourselves, to be able to 
know ourselves as we ought to do. 
In short, I would have this to be the book my 
young gentleman should study with the most 
attention; for so many humours, so many sects, 
so many judgments, opinions, laws, and customs, 
teach us to judge aright of our own, and inform 
our understanding to discover its imperfection 
and natural infirmity, which is no trivial lesson. 
So many mutations of states and kingdoms, 
and so many turns and revolutions of public 
fortune, will make us wise enough to make no 
great wonder of our own. So many great 
names, so many famous victories and conquests 
drowned and swallowed in oblivion, render our 
hopes ridiculous of eternizing our names by the 
taking of half a score light horse, or a paltry 
turret, which only derives its memory from its 
ruin. The pride and arrogance of so many 
foreign pomps and ceremonies, the inflated 
majesty of so many courts and grandeurs, 
accustom and fortify our sight, without winking, 
to behold and endure the lustre of our own. 
So many millions of men buried before us, en- 
courage us not to fear to go seek such good com- 
pany in the other world, and so of -all the rest. 
Pythagoras was wont to say, that our life 
resembled the great and populous assembly of 
the Olympic Games: some exercise the body 
for glory, others carry merchandize to sell for 
profit ; there are also some, and those none of 
the worst sort, who pursue no other advantage 
than only to look on, and to consider how and 
why every thing is done, and to be unactive 
spectators of the lives of other men, thereby 
the better to judge of and regulate their own. 

As examples, all the instruction couched in 
philosophical discourses may be taken, to which 
all human actions, as to their best rule, ought 
to be especially directed: where a man shall 
be taught to know, 

Quid fas optare : quid asper 
Utile nuiuiuus habet ; patriae, carisqne propinquis 
Quantum elargiri deceat: quern te Deus esse 
Jussit; et liumana qua parte locatus es in re. 
Quid suinus, aut quidnam victim gignimur.i 
"Think what we are, and for what ends design'd; 
How we may best through life's long mazes"windj 
What we should wish for— how we may discern 
The bounds of wealth, and its true uses learn ; 
How fix the portion which we ought to give 
To friends, relations, country— how to live 
As fits our station ; and how best pursue 
What God has placed us in this world to do ;" 

what it is to know, and what to be ignorant; 
what ought to be the end and design of study; 
what valour, temperance, and justice are ; the 



i Pcrsins, iii. 67. 

2 JEncid, iii. 459. 

a Horace, Epist. i. 2, 40. 

* Seneca, Epist. 88. 

5 Diogenes Laertius, in the Life of Socrates. Socrates 
prima* plulosophium deoocaoit i calo ct coegit de vita et 
moribus rcbusauc bonis ct malts quiererc. " Socrates first 



difference betwixt ambition and avarice, servi- 
tude and subjection ; licentiousness and liberty ; 
by what token a man may know true and solid 
content ; how far death, pain, and disgrace are 
to be feared, 

Et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem.2 
" And what thou may'st avoid, and what must undergo." 

By what secret springs we move, and the reason 
of our various irresolutions. For, methinks, 
the first doctrine with which one should season 
his understanding ought to be that which 
regulates his manners and his sense; that 
teaches him to know himself, and how both 
well to die and well to live. Amongst the 
liberal sciences, let us begin with that which 
makes us free ; 4 not that they do not all serve, 
in some measure, to the instruction and use of 
life, as all other things, in some sort, also do; 
but let us make choice of that which directly 
and professedly serves to that end. If we were 
once able to restrain the offices of human life 
within their just and natural limits, we should 
find that most of the sciences in use are of no 
great use to us, and, even in those that are, 
that there are many very unnecessary cavities 
and dilatations which we had better let alone, 
and, following Socrates' direction, limit the 
course of our studies to those of real utility : 5 

Sapere aude : 
Incipe. Vivendi recte qui prorogal horam, 
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille 
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis aevuni. 8 

" Dare to be wise ; and now 
Begin: the man who has it in his power 
To practise virtue, and puts olf the hour, 
Waits, like the clown, to see the brook run low 
Which onward flows, and will for ever flow." 

'Tis a great foolery to teach our children 

Quid moveant Pisces, animosaque signa Leonia, 
Lotus, et Hesperia quid Capricornus aqua. 7 
" What influence Pisces and fierce Leo have, 
Or Capricornus in the Hesperian wave." 

The knowledge of the stars and the motion of 
the eighth sphere before their own. 

Ti TrXcJaSiaai Kap.ol 
Tt (5' aspaatv /3ouT£U. 8 



Anaximenes, writing to Pythagoras, "To 
what purpose," said he, "should I trouble 
myself in searching out the secrets of the stars, 
having death or slavery continually before my 
eyes'?" (For the kings of Persia were at that 
time preparing to invade his country.) Every 
one ought to say the same; "Being assailed, 
as I am, by ambition, avarice, temerity, and 
superstition, and having within so many other 
enemies of life, shall I go cudgel my brains 
about the world's revolutions'!" 9 

After having taught our pupil what will 



called down philosophy from the heavens and made life and 
manners, and good and evil, the objects of its enquiry."— 
Cicero, Tusc. quest. V. 4. 

« Horace, Epis. i. 2, 40. 

' Propert. iv. ], 85. 



10. 



Laertius, in 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



make him more wise and good, 

In what way y ou may tnen snow n j m the ele- 

thc sciences J ■>. . , . 

should he ments of logic, physic, geometry, 

taught. and rhetoric; and the science 

which he shall then himself most 
incline to, his judgment being, beforehand, 
formed and fit to choose, he will quickly make 
his own. The way of instructing him ought to 
be, sometimes by discourse, and sometimes by 
reading; sometimes his governor shall put the 
author himself, which he shall think most 
proper for him, into his hands, and sometimes 
only the marrow and substance of it ; and if 
the governor himself be not conversant enough 
in books to turn to all the fine discourses the 
book contains, there may some man of letters be 
joined to him, that, upon every occasion shall 
supply him with what he desires and stands 
in need of, to recommend to his pupil. And 
who can doubt but that this way of teaching is 
much more easy and natural than that of Gaza? 1 
In which the precepts are so intricate, and so 
harsh, and the words so vain, empty, and insig- 
nificant, that there is no hold on them ; nothing 
that quickens and elevates the wit and fancy : 
whereas, here the mind has what to feed upon 
and to digest. This fruit, therefore, is not only, 
without comparison, much finer, but will also 
be much more early ripe. 

'Tis a thousand pities that matters should be 
at such a pass, in this age of ours, that philo- 
sophy, even with men of understanding, should 
be looked upon as a vain and fantastic name, 
a thing of no use, no value, either in opinion 
or effect; and I think 'tis these miserable 
ergotisms, by taking possession of the avenues 
unto it, are' the cause. People are much to 
blame to represent it to children as a thing of 
so difficult access, and with such a frowning, 
grim, and formidable aspect. Who is it has 
disguised it thus with this false, pale, and 
hideous countenance ? There is nothing more 
airy, more gay, more frolic, I had like to have 
said, more wanton. She preaches nothing but 
feasting and jollity; a melancholy, thoughtful, 
look shows that she does not inhabit there. 
Demetrius, the grammarian, finding in the 
Temple of Delphos, a knot of philosophers set 
chattering together, said to them, "Either I 
am much deceived, or, by your cheerful and 
pleasant countenance, you are engaged in no 
very deep discourse." To which one of them, 
Heracleon, the Megarean, replied, "Tis for 
such as puzzle their brains about enquiring 
whether the future tense of the verb Bdxhu be 
spelt with a douhle a,, or that hunt after the 
derivation of the comparatives ^Eiptoy, &t\tuyv, 
and the superlatives Xupijw, Btxrtjw, to knit 



' A literary man of the fifteenth rcnturv, born at Thessa- 
loniea, who took np his residence in Italy. He is the 
author of an indifferent lireek grammar, very obscure and 
complicated in its rules. 

» Plutarch, Of oracles that have ceased. 

» Juvenal, ix. 18. 



their brows whilst discoursing of their science ; 
but as to philosophical discourses they always 
amuse and cheer up those that treat of them, 
and never deject them, or make them sad." 2 

Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in tegro 
Corpore, deprendas ct gaudia ; suinit utrumque 
Inde babitum facies.s 

" For still we find 

The face the unerring index of the mind. 
And as this feels or fancies joys or woes, 
That pales witU anguish, or with rapture,glows." 

The soul that entertains philosophy ought 
by its necessarily healthy condi- 
tion, to render the body healthful Philosophy 
too ; she ou^ht to make her tran- soothes the 

.,, . ,° . n , . DOuy as wen 

quality and satisfaction shine, so as the mind, 
as to appear without, and her con- 
tentment ought to fashion the outward behaviour 
to her own mould, and consequently to fortify 
it with a graceful confidence, an active and 
joyous carriage, and a serene and contented 
countenance. The most certain sign of wisdom 
is a continual cheerfulness; her 

State is like that of things in Cheerfulness a 

the regions above the moon, sign of wisdom, 
always clear and serene. 'Tis 
Baroco and Baralipton 4 that render their dis- 
ciples so dirty and ill-favoured, and not she; 
they do not so much as know her but by hear- 
say. 'Tis she that calms and appeases the 
storms and tempests of the soul, and who 
teaches famine and fevers to laugh and sing; 
and this not by certain imaginary epicycles, 
but by natural and manifest reasons. She has 
virtue for her end ; which is not, as the school- 
men say, situate upon the summit of a steep, 
rugged, and inaccessible precipice. Such as 
have approached her find it, quite the contrary, 
to be seated in a fair, fruitful, and flourishing 
plain, whence she easily discovers all things 
below her; but to which any one may arrive 
if he know the way, through shady, green, 
and sweet-scented walks and avenues, by a 
pleasant, easy, and smooth descent, like that 
of the celestial arches. 'Tis for not having 
frequented this supreme, this beautiful, trium- 
phant, and amiable, this equally delicious and 
courageous virtue, this so professed and impla- 
cable enemy to anxiety, sorrow, fear, and 
constraint, who, having nature for her guide, 
has fortune and pleasure for her companions, 
that they have gone according to their own 
weak imagination, and created this ridiculous, 
this sorrowful, querulous, despiteful, threaten- 
ing, terrible image of it, and placed it upon a 
solitary rock amongst thorns and brambles, and 
made of it a hobgoblin to frighten people from 
daring to approach it. 



« Two of the terms of ancient scholastic logic. The whole 
of the nineteen fictitious words which expressed tuo nine- 
teen forms of syllogism were these: 

Barbara, eclarent, darii, ferio, baralipton, 
Celantes, dabitis, fapesmo, friscsomorum, 
Cesare, camestres, festino, baroco, darapti, 
Felapton, disarnis, datisi, bocardo, ferison. 



94 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Virtue ought 
> be repre 



But the tutor that I would have, knowing it 

to be his duty to possess his pupil 

with as much or more affection, 

sented to youth than reverence, to virtue, will be. 

"ma raore n<1 able to inform him that the P 0ets ' 

amiable than have evermore accommodated 
vice - themselves to the public humour, 

and make him sensible that the gods have 
planted far more toil in the avenues of the cabi- 
nets of Venus, than in those of Minerva. And 
when he*shall once find him begin to apprehend 
he shall represent to him a Bradamante or an 
Angelica for a mistress ; 2 a natural, active, 
generous, not masculine, but manly beauty, in 
comparison of soft, delicate, artificial, simper- 
ing, and affected charms ; the one in the habit 
of an heroic youth with a glittering helmet on 
her brow; the other tricked up in curls and 
ribbons, like a silly minx ; he will then judge 
his love to be brave and manly, if he finds 
him choose quite contrary to that effeminate 
shepherd of Phrygia. 

Such a tutor will make a pupil to digest this 
new lesson, that the height and value of true 
virtue consists in the facility, utility, and plea- 
sure of its exercise; so far from difficulty that 
boys as well as men, and the innocent as well 
as the subtle, may make it their own ; and 'tis 
by order and good conduct, not by force, that it 
is to be acquired. Socrates, her first favourite, 
is so averse to all manner of violence as totally 
to throw it aside, to slip into the more natural 
facility of her own progress. "Pis the nursing- 
mother of all human pleasures, who, in render- 
ing them just, renders them also pure and 
permanent; in moderating them, keeps them 
in breath and appetite; in interdicting those 
which she herself refuses, whets our desire to 
those which she allows ; and, like a kind and 
liberal mother, abundantly allows all that 
nature requires, even to satiety, if not to lassi- 
tude ; unless we choose to say that the regimen 
that stops the toper's hand before he has drunk 
himself drunk, the glutton's before he has 
eaten to a surfeit, and the wencher's career 
before he needs a surgeon, is an enemy to 
pleasure. If the ordinary fortune fail her, she 
does without her, or frames another, wholly her 
own, not so fickle and unsteady. She can be 
rich, potent, and wise, and knows how to lie 
upon a soft and perfumed couch. She loves 
life, beauty, glory, and health ; but her proper 
and peculiar office is to know how regularly to 
make use of all these good things, and how 
to part with them without concern; an office 
much more noble than troublesome, and without 
which the whole course of life is unnatural, 
turbulent, and deformed ; and there it is indeed 
that men may justly represent those monsters 



i Hesiod, TZf>y. kol rip., 27. 2 Two heroines in Ariosto. 

i In M. Naigeon's edition the passage stands thus:" That 
his tutor in good time sirantrle him, if lie is without wit- 
nesses ; or that he be put," &c. " This remarkable passage," 
observes M. Naigeon, " is not found in any edition of the 
Essays; but it is in the hand-writing of Montaigne, in the 
copy which he corrected. The remedy pointed out by this 



upon rocks and precipices. If this pupil shall 
happen to be of so cross and contrary a dis- 
position that he had rather hear an idle tale 
than the true narrative of some noble expedi- 
tion or some wise and learned discourse ; who 
at the beat t>f a drum, that excites the youthful 
ardour of his companions, leaves that to follow 
another that calls to a morrice-dance or the 
bears ; and who would not wish nor find it more 
delightful to return all over dust victorious from 
a battle than from tennis or a ball, with the 
prize of those exercises; I see no other remedy 3 
but that he be bound apprentice in some good 
town to learn to make minced-pies, though he 
were the son of a duke ; according to Plato's 
precept, "That children are to be placed out 
in life not according to the condition of the 
father, but according to their own capacities." 

Since philosophy is that which instructs us 
to live, and that infancy has there „. ., 

as other a ? es, ™.io"?phy 



-_ — .. — — _ Q — , uugm to ue 

why is it not communicated to taught to 
children betimes 1 children. 

Udum et molle lutum est ; nunc, nunc properandus, et acri 
Fingendus sine fine rota. 4 



They begin to teach us to live when we 
have almost done living. A hundred students 
have got the pox before they have come to 
read Aristotle's Lecture on Temperance. Cicero 
said that, though he should live two men's ages, 
he should never find leisure to study the lyric 
poets; and I find the Sophists yet more de- 
plorably unprofitable. The boy we would 
train has a great deal less time to spare; he 
owes but the first fifteen or sixteen years of his 
life to his tutor, the remainder is due to action : 
therefore let us employ that short time in ne- 
cessary instruction. Away with your crabbed 
logical subtleties ; they are abuses, things by 
which our lives can never be amended. Take me 
the plain discourses of philosophy, learn first 
how rightly to choose, and then rightly to apply 
them; they are more easy to be understood than 
one of Boccacio's novels ; a child from nurse is 
much more capable of them than of learning to 
read or to write. Philosophy has discourses 
equally proper for childhood as for old age. 

I am of Plutarch's mind, that Aristotle did 
not so much trouble his great dis- 
ciple with the knack of forming tho'dofinstruct- 
syllogisms, or with the elements ing Alexander 
of geometry, as with infusing into the Great - 
him good precepts concerning valour, prowess, 
magnanimity, temperance, and the contempt of 
fear; and with this ammunition sent him, whilst 
yet a boy, with no more than 30,000 foot, 



philosopher is one of those acts of rigour which the public 
i nterestor reasons of state sometimes command.and always 
justify." If this passage does not appear in any of the edi- 
tions of Montaigne, it is doubtless because his enlightened 
mind recognised, upon reflection, the horrible abuses to 
t\ In. ii tin- introduction of such a remedy would lead. 
* Persius, iii. 23. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



95 



4,000 horse, and but 42,000 crowns, to sub- 
jugate the empire of the whole earth. As for 
the other arts and sciences, Alexander, he says, 
highly indeed commended their excellence, and 
had them in very great honour and esteem, but 
was not ravished with them to that degree as 
to be tempted to effect the practise of them in 
his own person. 



Epicurus, in the beginning of his letter to 
Meniceus, says that neither the youngest should 
refuse to philosophise, nor the eldest grow weary 
of it. 2 And who does otherwise seem tacitly 
to imply that either the time of living happily 
is not yet come, or that it is already past. Yet, 
for all that, I would not have this pupil of ours 
imprisoned and made a slave to his book ; nor 
would 1 have him given up to the morose and 
melancholic humour of a sour, ill-natured pe- 
dant. I would not have his spirit cowed and 
subdued by applying him to the rack and tor- 
menting him, as some do, fourteen or fifteen 
hours a-day, and so make a pack-horse of him. 
Neither should I think it good when, by reason 
of a solitary and melancholy complexion, he is 
discovered to be too much addicted to his book, 
to nourish that humour in him, for that renders 
him unfit for civil conversation, and diverts 
him from better employments. And how many 
have I seen in my time totally brutified by an 
immoderate thirst after knowledge ! Carneades 
was so besotted with it that he would not find 
time so much as to comb his head or pare his 
nails. 3 Neither would I have his generous 
temper spoiled and corrupted by the incivility 
and barbarity of that of another. French 
wisdom was anciently turned into a proverb, 
" Early, but of no continuance ;" and in truth 
we yet see that nothing can be more ingenuous 
and pretty than the children of France; but 
they ordinarily deceive the hope and expectation 
that have been conceived of them, and, grown 
up to be men, have nothing extraordinary or 
worth taking notice of. I have heard men of 
good understanding say these colleges of ours. 
to which we send our young_ people (and of 
which we have but too many), make them such 
animals as they are. 

But to our young friend, a closet, a garden, 
the table, his bed, solitude and company, morn- 
ing and evening, all hours shall be the same, 
and all places to him a study; 
Philosophy, the for philosophy, who, as the for- 

inrmntrix ot . ". P . ' , J ' , 

„ „rrs, is no matrix ot judgment and manners, 

where inactive, shall be his principal lesson, has 

that privilege to have a hand in 

everything. The orator Isocrates being at a 



i IVrsiiis. v. I'A, 
I Laertius, in pita. 
'■> Laertius, in vit&. 
I Plutarch, Table-Talk. 



feast intreated to speak of his art, all the com- 
pany were satisfied with and commended his 
answer. "It is not now a time," said he, "to 
do what I can do; and that which it is now 
time to do I cannot do." 4 For to make orations 
and rhetorical disputes in a company met to- 
gether to laugh and make good cheer had been 
very unseasonable and improper, and as much 
might be said of all the other sciences. But 
as to philosophy, that part of it at least that 
treats of man, and of his offices and duties, it 
has been the joint opinion of all wise men that, 
out of respect to the sweetness of her conversa- 
tion, she is ever to be admitted in all sports and 
entertainments. 6 And Plato having invited 
her to his feast, we see after how gentle and 
obliging a manner, accommodated both to time 
and place, she entertained the company, though 
in a discourse of the sublimest and most salutary 
nature. 

iEquS pauperibus prodest, locupletibus a?que, 
Et, neglecta, aeque pueris senibusque nocebit.' 

" It profits poor and rich alike ; and when 
Neglected, t' old and young is hurtful then." 

By which method of instruction, my young 
pupil will be much more and better employed 
than those of the college are. But as the steps 
we take in walking to and fro in a gallery, 
though three times as many, do not tire a man 
so much as those we employ in a formal journey ; 
so our lesson, occurring as it were accidentally, 
without any set obligation of time or place, 
and falling naturally in with every action, will 
insinuate insensibly itself. Our very exercises 
and recreations, running, wrestling, music, 
dancing, hunting, riding, and fencing, will 
prove to be a good part of our study. I would 
have his outward behaviour and mien, and the 
disposition of his limbs, formed at the same time 
with his mind. It is not a soul, it is not a body, 
that we are training up ; it is a man, and we 
ought not to divide him into two parts; and, as 
Plato says, we are not to fashion one without 
the other, but make them draw together like 
two horses harnessed to a coach. 7 By which 
saying of his, does he not seem to allow more 
time for, and to take more care of, exercises for 
the body, and to believe that the mind in a 
good proportion does her business at the same 
time too 1 

As to the rest, this method of education ought 
to be carried on with a firm 
gentleness, quite contrary to the Severity an 
practice of our pedants, who education, 
instead of tempting and alluring 
children to letters, present nothing before them 
but rods and ferules, horror and cruelty. Away 
with this violence! away with this compulsion! 
than which, I certainly believe nothing mo;e 
dulls and degenerates a well-born nature. If 



5 Plutarch, Table-Talk. 

• Horace, Epist. i. 25. 

» Plutarch, on the Preservation of Health. 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



you would have him fear shame and chastise- 
ment, do not harden him to them. Inure him 
to heat and cold, to wind and sun, and to dangers 
that he ought to despise. Wean him from 
all effeminacy in clothes and lodging, eating 
and drinking; accustom him to every thing, 
that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, 
but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man. 
I have ever, from a child to the age wherein I 
now am, been of this opinion, and am still con- 
stant to it. But, amongst other things, the 
strict government of most of our colleges has 
always displeased me, and perad venture they 
might have erred less perniciously on the 
indulgent side. They are mere gaols, where 
imprisoned youths are taught to be debauched, 
by being punished for it before they are so. 
Do but come in when they are about their 
lesson, and you shall hear nothing but the out- 
cries of boys under execution, and the thunder- 
ing of pedagogues, drunk with fury. A very 
pretty way this to tempt these tender and 
timorous souls to love their book ! leading them 
on with a furious countenance, and a rod in 
hand ! a wretched and pernicious way ! besides 
what Quintilian has very well observed, that 
this insolent authority is often attended by very 
dangerous consequences, and particularly our 
way of chastising. 1 How much more decent 
would it be to see their classes strewed with 
leaves and flowers, than with bloody stumps of 
birch! Were it left to my ordering, I should 
paint the school with pictures of joy and glad- 
ness, Flora and the graces, as the philosopher 
Speusippus did his; 2 ~that where their profit is 
"they might there have their pleasure too. Such 
viands as are proper and wholesome for children 
should be seasoned with sugar, and such as are 
dangerous to them with gall. It is admirable 
to see how solicitous Plato is in his laws for the 
gaiety and diversion of the youth of his city, 
and how he enlarges upon their races, sports, 
songs, leaps, and dances: of which he says 
that antiquity has given the ordering and 
patronage to the gods themselves, to Apollo, 
Minerva, and the Muses. He insists upon a 
thousand precepts for exercise; but as to the 
lettered sciences says very little, and only seems 
particularly to recommend poetry upon the 
account of music. 

All singularity in our manners and condition 

should be avoided, as obnoxious 
Singularity of to soc i e ty. Who is not astonished 
avoided. at s0 strange a constitution as 

that of Demophoon, steward to 
Alexander the Great, who sweated in the shade, 
and shivered in the sun I s 1 have seen those 
who have run from the smell of an apple with 
greater precipitation than from a harquebuse 
shot ; others are afraid of a mouse ; others 



i Instit. Orat. i. 3. 

2 Laertius, in vita. 

3 Sextus Empiricus. Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 
* Plutarch, On Tastes and Distastes. 



vomit at the sight of cream ; others at seeing a 
bed shaken; and there was Germanicus, who 
could neither endure the sight nor the crowing 
of a cock. 4 There may, perad venture, be some 
occult case for these aversions "in these cases; 
but certainly, in my opinion, a man might con- 
quer them, if he took them in time. Precept has 
in this wrought so effectually upon me, though 
not without some endeavour on my part, I 
confess, that, beer excepted, my appetite accom- 
modates itself indifferently to all sorts of diet. 

Young bodies are supple; one should there- 
fore in that age bend and ply them 

ii & i - j .. j Young men 

to all fashions and customs: and, should be habi- 

provided a man can restrain the tuated to ail 

appetite and the will within limits, to' S beabie S to aS 

let a young man be rendered fit comply with 

for all nations and all companies, ?!? em l " excess ' 

, . , , r if need be. 

even to debauchery and excess, 
if occasion be; that is, where he shall do it 
out of complaisance to the customs of a place. 
Let him be able to do every thing, but love to 
do nothing but what is good. The philosophers 
themselves do not justify Calisthenes for for- 
feiting the favour of his master, Alexander the 
Great, by refusing to pledge him a cup of wine. 
Let him laugh, carouse, and debauch with his 
prince : nay, I would have him, even in his 
debauches, excel his companions in ability and 
vigour, so that he may not give over doing it 
either through defect of power or knowledge 
how to do it, but for want of will. Mul- 
tum interest, utrum peccare aliquis nolit, aut 
nesciat. 5 " There is a vast difference betwixt 
forbearing to sin, and not knowing how to sin." 
I thought I passed a compliment upon a Lord, as 
free from these excesses as any man in France, 
by asking him, before a great deal of good 
company, how many times in his life he had 
got drunk in Germany, in the time of his being 
there about his majesty's affairs; which he also 
took as it was intended, and made answer, 
three times ; and withal, told us the whole story 
of his bouts. I know some who, for want of 
this faculty, have been put to great inconveni- 
ence in negotiating with that nation. I have 
often with great admiration reflected upon the 
wonderful constitution of Alcibiades, who so 
easily could transform himself to so various 
fashions, without any prejudice to his health ; 6 
one while out-doing the Persian pomp and 
luxury, and another the Lacedaemonian aus- 
terity and frugality; as temperate in Sparta, as 
voluptuous in Ionia. 

Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et rea.» 



I would have my pupil to be such a one, 



• Seneca, Epist. 90. 
' Plutarch, in vita. 
' Horace, Epist. i. 17. 23. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



97 



Cluem duplici panno palientia velat, 

Mirahor, vital via si conversa decebit, 

Personamque feret non incoiicinnus utramque.i 

" But that a man whom patience taught to wear 
A coat that's patched, should ever learn to bear 
A changed life with decency and grace, 
May justly, I confess, our wonder raise." 

These are my lessons, and he who puts them 
in practice shall reap more advantage than he 
who has had them read to him only, and only 
knows them. If you see him, you hear him ; 
if you hear him, you see him. " The gods 
forbid," says one in Plato, " that to philoso- 
phise should be only to read a great many 
books, and to learn the arts." 2 Hanc amplis- 
simam omnium artium bene vivendi disciplinam, 
vita magisquam Uteris persequuti sunt? " They 
have more illustrated and improved this dis- 
cipline of living well, which of all arts is the 
greatest, by their lives, than by their reading." 
Leo, prince of the Phlasians, asking Heraclides 
Ponticus of what art or science he made pro- 
fession ; " I know," said he, " neither art nor 
science, but I am a philosopher." 4 One re- 
proaching Diogenes that, being ignorant, he 
should pretend to philosophy; "I, therefore," 
answered he, " pretend to it with so much the 
more reason." 6 Hegesias intreated that he 
would read a certain book to him. " You are 
an amusing person," said he, " you who choose 
those figs that are true and natural, and not 
those that are painted, why do you not also 
choose exercises which are natural and true, 
rather than those written ?" 6 

A man should not so much repeat his lesson 

as practise it: let him repeat it 
TyoC/man in his actions. We shall discover 
makes ought to if there be in him prudence, by 
i! i'u'''ictions his undertakings; if goodness and 

justice, by his deportment; if 
grace and judgment, by his speaking; if 
firmness, by his sickness; if modesty, by his 
recreations; temperance, by his pleasures; 
order, by the management of his affairs; 
and indifference, by his palate, whether what 
he eats or drinks be flesh or fish, wine or 
water. Qui disciplinam suam non ostentalionem 
scientice, sed legem vita putet, quique obtem- 
peret ipse sibi et decretis pareaW " Who 
considers his own discipline, not as a vain 
ostentation of science, but as a law and rule of 
life ; and who obeys his own decrees, and 
observes that regimen he has prescribed to him- 
self." The conduct of our lives is the true 
mirror of our doctrine. Zeuzidamus, to one 
who asked him why the Lacedaemonians did 
not commit their constitutions of chivalry to 
writing, and deliver them to their young men 
to read, made answer that it was because they 
would inure them to action and not to words. 8 



' Horace. Kpist. i. 25. 

» In the Rivals. 

» Cicero, Tusc. Q«<rs. iv. 3. 

* It was not llirarliilrs, lint Pythagoras, who returned 
this answer to Leo ; but it is from a hook of Heraclides, a 
disciple of Plato, that Cicero quotes this passage, in his 



With such a one compare, after fifteen or six- 
teen years' study, one of our college Latinists, 
who has thrown away so much time in nothing 
but learning to speak. The world is nothing 
but babble; and I never yet saw that man who 
did not rather prate too much than speak too 
little; and yet half of our lives is lost this 
way. We are kept four or five years to learn 
words only, and to tack them together into 
phrases ; as many more to put larger masses of 
these into four or five parts; and other five 
years, at least, to learn succinctly to mix and 
interweave them after some subtle and intricate 
nanner. Let us leave such work to those who 
make it their trade. 

Going one day to Orleans, I met, in the 
plain, on this side Clery, two 
pedants travelling to Bourdeaux, The story of 
about fifty paces distant from one go? n £ e t d agogue8 
another ; and, a good way farther bourdeaux. 
behind them, I saw a troop of 
horse with a gentleman at the head of them, 
the late Monsieur le Compte de la Rouche- 
foucault. One of my people enquired of the 
foremost of these Domines who that gentleman 
was that came after him ; he, not having seen 
the train that followed after, and thinking my 
man meant his companion, pleasantly answered, 
" He is not a gentleman ; he is a grammarian, 
and I am a logician." Now we, on the 
contrary, who do not here seek to breed a 
grammarian or a logician, but a 
gentleman, let us leave them to A youth of a 
throw away their time at their *°° d ht fa ,™|£ 
own fancy : our business lies more carefully 
elsewhere. Let but our pupil be jjjjj' ™no W j" d „ e 
well furnished with things, words f° things than 
will follow but too fast; he will of words, 
pull them after him, if they do 
not come voluntarily. I have observed some 
to make excuses that they cannot express 
themselves, and pretend to have their fancies 
full of a great many very fine things, which 
yet, for want of eloquence, they cannot bring 
out; a mere shift and nothing else. Will 
you know what I think of it? I think they 
are nothing but shadows of some imperfect 
images and conceptions that they know not 
what to make of within, nor consequently how 
to bring out: they do not yet themselves 
understand what they would be at, and if you 
but observe how they haggle and stammer upon 
the point of parturition, you will soon conclude 
that their labour is not in delivery, but in con- 
ception, and that they are but licking their 
formless embryo. For my part I hold, and 
Socrates is positive in it, that whoever has in 
his mind a vivid and clear idea, will express it 
well enough in one way or other; and if he be 
dumb, by signs. 



Tusr.. Quasi, v. 3. Plato was not born till above one hun- 
dred years after Pythagoras. 



■ Laertius, in vita. 

Id, lb. 

1 Cicero, Tusc. Qiubs. ii. 4. 



' Plutarch, Apothegms. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Verbaque prawisam rem non invita sequentur.i 

" When once a thing conceiv'd is in the wit, 
Words soon present themselves to utter it." 

And as another, as poetically, says in prose, 
Cum res animum occupavere, verba ambiunt? 
"When things are once formed in the fancy, 
words offer themselves." And this other, Ipsae 
res verba rapiunt. 3 "The things themselves 
force words to express them." He knows 
nothing of ablative, conjunctive, substantive, 
or grammar, no more than his lacquey or a 
fish-wife of the Petit-Pont; and these yet will 
give you your fill of talk, if you will hear 
them, and, peradventure, shall trip as little in 
their language as the best masters of art in 
France. He knows no rhetoric, nor how, in a 
preface, to bribe the benevolence of the cour- 
teous reader; neither does he care, nor is it 
very necessary he should know it. Indeed all 
this fine sort of painting is easily obscured by 
the lustre of a simple truth ; these fine inge- 
nious flourishes serve only to amuse the vulgar, 
of themselves incapable of more solid and 
nutritive diet, as Aper does very evidently 
demonstrate in Tacitus. 4 The ambassadors of 
Samos, prepared with a long elegant oration, 
came to Cleomenes, King of Sparta, to incite 
him to the war against the tyrant Polycrates; 
he, after he had heard their harangue with 
great gravity and patience, gave them this 
short answer: "As to the exordium, I re- 
member it not, nor consequently the middle of 
your speech, and as to your conclusion, I will 
not do what you desire." 5 A very pretty 
answer this, methinks, and a pack of learned 
orators no doubt finely gravelled! And what 
did this other say? The Athenians were to 
choose one of two architects for a great build- 
ing they designed; the first, a pert affected 
fellow, offered his service in a long premeditated 
discourse upon the subject, and by his oratory 
inclined the voices of the people in his favour; 
but the other had his say in three words, 
" Lords of Athens, what this man hath said, I 
will do." 6 When Cicero was in the height and 
heat of his eloquence, many were struck with 
admiration; but Cato did only laugh at it, 
saying, "We have a pleasant Consul." 7 Let 
it go before, or come after, a good sentence, a 
thing well said is always in season ; if it neither 
suit well with what went before, nor has any 
very close coherence with what follows after, it 
is good in itself. I am none of those who 
think that good rhyme makes a good poem, 



i Horace, dc Arte Poet. 311. 

2 Seneca, Controv. iii. 

a Cicero, dc Finib. iii. 5. 

< Dc causis corrupta cloquentia. 

5 Plutarch, Apothegms. 

c Plutarch, Instructions to those who manage state affairs. 

7 Montaigne gives too general a latitude to Cato's reflec 
(ions, though, perhaps, lie did .so for the purpose. Cato did 
not ridicule Cicero's eloquence in the general, but only hi 
abuse of it while he was consul. When he was pleadin 
one day for iU'irena against Cato, he fell to ridiculing th 
gravest principles of the stoic philosophy in too comic i 



Let the writer make short long, and long short, 
if he will, 'tis no great matter ; if there be 
invention, and that the wit and judgment have 
well performed their office, I will say, here's 
a good poet, but an ill rhymer. 

Emunctee naris, durus componcre versus.^ 
"He rallied with a gay and easy air. 
But rude his numbers, and his style severe." 

Let a man, says Horace, divest his work of all 
measures : 

Tempora certa modosque et quod prius online verbum est, 
roftcrius facias, pnupouens ultima primia * * * 
lnvenias etiam disjecti membra poetai.9 

" Let tense and mood, and words be all misplaced, 
Those last that should be first, these first the last; 
Though all things be thus shuffled out of frame, 
You'll find the poet's fragments not to blame." 

He will never the more forfeit his praise; 
the pieces will be fine by them- 
selves. Menander's answer had l "^"H™^ e 
this meaning, who, being re- true poetry, 
proved by a friend, the time 
drawing on at which he had promised a 
comedy, that he had not yet put his hand to it, 
" It is ready," said he, " all but the verses." 10 
Having contrived the subject and disposed the 
scenes in his head, he took little care for the 
rest. Since Ronsard and Du Bellay have given 
reputation to our French poetry, every little 
dabbler swells his words as high, and makes his 
cadences very near as harmonious, as they. 
Plus sonat, quarn valet. 11 " More sound 
than sense." There were never so many 
poetasters as now ; but though they find it no 
hard matter to rhyme nearly as well as 
their masters, they yet fall altogether short 
of the rich descriptions of the one, and the 
delicate invention of the other. 

But what will become of our young gentle- 
man if he be attacked with the 
sophistic subtilty of some syllo- f"^^'^" 1 
gism? "A Westphalia ham makes .condemned, 
a man drink, drink quenches 
thirst, therefore a Westphalia ham quenches 
thirst." Why, let him laugh at it, and it will 
be more discretion to do so than to go about 
to answer it, 12 or let him borrow this pleasant 
evasion from Aristippus ; why should I trouble 
myself to untie that which, bound as it is, gives 
me so much trouble'! A person offering at 
this dialectic juggling against Cleanthes, Chry- 
sippus took him short, saying, "Reserve these 
baubles to play with children, and do not by 
such fooleries divert the serious thoughts of a 
man of years." 13 If these ridiculous subtleties 



which Cicero had so lately cast a I lies great man, who was 
much more a stoic bv his manners than bv his di 
Plutarch, Life of Cato. 

8 Horace, Sat. i. 4-8. 

9 Id. lb. 58. 
io Plutarch, Whether the Athenians were more eminent in 

arms than in letters. 
11 Seneca, Epist. 4. 
]- Seneca, Epist. 49. 
13 Laestius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



contorta et aculeata sophismata, 1 " Perplexed 
and crabbed sophisms," are designed to possess 
him witli an untruth, they are then dangerous ; 
but if they remain without effect and only 
make him laugh, I do not see why a man need 
to be fortified against them. There are some 
so ridiculous as to go a mile out of their way 
to hook in a fine word. Aut qui non verba 
rebus aptant, sed res extrinsecas arcessunt, 
quibus verba conveniant. 2 " Who do not fit 
words to the subject, but seek out things quite 
from the purpose to fit those words they are so 
enamoured of." And, as another says, Qui 
alicujus verbi decore placentis, vocenlur ad id 
quod non proposuerant scribere. 3 " Who, by 
their fondness of some fine sounding word, are 
tempted to something they had no intention 
to treat of." I, for my part, rather bring in a 
fine sentence by head and shoulders to fit my 
purpose than divert my designs to hunt after a 
sentence. 'Tis for words to serve and to follow 
us ; and let Gascon come in play where French 
will not do. 4 I would have things so possess 
the imagination of him that hears that he 
should have something else to do than to think 
of words. The way of speaking that I love 
is natural and plain, as well in writing as 
speaking, and a sinewy and significant way 
of expressing one's self, short and pithy, and 
not so elegant and artificial as prompt and 
vehement. 

Ha;c demiim sapiet dictio, qute feriet.s 
"The language which strikes the mind will please it." 

Rather hard than harsh, free from affectation ; 
irregular, incontinuous, and bold, where every 
piece makes up an entire body : not like a 
pedant, a preacher, or a pleader, but rather a 
soldier-like style, as Suetonius calls that of 
Julius Cassar ; and yet I see no reason why he 
should call it so. 6 

I have been ready enough to imitate the 
negligent garb which is observable among the 
young men of our time, to wear my cloak on 
one shoulder, my bonnet on one side, and one 
stocking in something more disorder than the 
other, which seems to express a kind of manly 
disdain of those exotic ornaments, and a con- 
tempt of art; but I find that negligence of 

even greater use in the form of 
Affectation s p ea kin£. All affectation, parti- 

a courtier. cularly in the rrench gaiety and 

freedom, is ungraceful in a cour- 
tier, and in a monarchy every gentleman ought 
to be fashioned according to the court model; 
for which reason an easy and natural negligence 
does well. I like not a piece of stuff where 



> Cicero, Acad. ii. 24. 

a Seneca, Bpist. 5°. 

11 Rousseau also savs 

I'aide d'uii solccismi' V 



'- Uuintilian, viii. 3. 



declaration, therefore, seems unnecessary; but it shows, at 
leant, that he u as as little a slave to purism as ourGascon. 
6 liuran, apud Fabricius, UMiot. Lai. ii. 10. 



the knots and seams are to be seen, and as 
little do I like, in a fine proportioned man, to 
be able to tell all the bones and veins. Quae 
veritati operarn dat oratio, incarnposita sit, et 
simplex. * * * Quis accurate loquitur, nisi qui 
vult putide Inqui V * * * " Let the language 
that is dedicated to truth be plain and unaffected. 
For who studies to speak quaintly and accu- 
rately that does not, at the same time, design to 
perplex his auditory 1" That eloquence preju- 
dices the subject it would advance which wholly 
attracts us to itself. And as, in our outward 
habit, 'tis a ridiculous effeminacy to distinguish 
ourselves by a particular and unpractised garb 
or fashion ; so, in language, to study new 
phrases, and to affect words that are not of 
current use, proceeds from a childish and 
scholastic ambition. As for me, may I never 
use any other language than what is under- 
stood in the markets of Paris ! Aristophanes, 
the grammarian, was quite out, when he 
reprehended Epicurus for this plain way of 
delivering himself, and that the end and design 
of his oratory was only perspicuity of speech.* 
The imitation of words, by its own facility, 
immediately disperses itself through a whole 
people. But the imitation of invention and 
judgment in applying those words is of a slower 
progress. The generality of readers, when 
they find a like robe, very mistakingly imagine 
they have the same body inside it, but force 
and sinews are not to be borrowed, though the 
attire may. Most of those I converse with 
speak the same language I here write; but 
whether they think the same thoughts I cannot 
say. The Athenians, says Plato, study length 
and elegance of speaking ; the Lacedaamonians 
affect brevity; and those of Crete aim more at 
fecundity of conception than fertility of speech. 
and these are the best. 9 Zenon used to say 
that he had two sorts of disciples, one that he 
called (faokoysj, curious to learn things, and 
these were his favourites; the other, xoyo^asj, 
that cared for nothing but words. 10 Not but 
that proper speaking is a very good and com- 
mendable quality ; but 'tis not so excellent and 
so necessary as some would make it ; and I am 
scandalized that our whole life should be spent 
in nothing else. I would first understand m_, 
own language and that of my neighbours, with 
whom most of my business and conversation 
lies. 

No doubt but Greek and Latin are very 
great ornaments and of great 
use, but we buy them too dear. I Tll< ? mmlc '" 
will here mention one way which ",','',1',', learned 
also has been experimented in my Latin ; 
own person, by which they are 



"The expression is in Suctoniiis's Life ef Casar, near 
e beginning. Mont.njiie. hm. v r. was misled by the 

niiiion edition, which reads," Elnij tia militari ; <|ua re 

t csquavit," &c; whereas the later and better ..litmus 
ii thus, "Eloquentia. militaiii|im re. aut cequavit," 
null removes Montaigne's objection to the passage. 
' Seneca, Episl. 40, 73. * Laertius, Life of Kpieurus. 
» Laws, I. *> Stobteus, Scnn. M. 



100 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



to be had cheaper than in the usual mode, and 
such may make use of it as will. My late 
father having made the most precise enquiry 
that any man can possibly make amongst men 
of the greatest learning and judgment, of an 
exact method of education, was by them cau- 
tioned of the inconvenience then in use, and 
informed that the tedious time we applied to 
the learning of the languages of those people 
who, themselves, had them for nothing, was 
the sole cause we could not arrive to the gran- 
deur of soul and perfection of knowledge of 
the ancient Greeks and Romans: I do not, 
however, believe that to be the only cause; the 
expedient my father, however, found out for 
this was that, in my infancy, and before I began 
to speak, he committed me to the care of a 
German (who since died a famous physician in 
France), totally ignorant of our language, but 
very fluent and a great critic in Latin. This 
man, whom he had sent for out of his own 
country, and whom he entertained, at a very 
great salary, for this only end, had me con- 
tinually with him. To whom there were also 
joined two others of the same nation, but of 
inferior learning, to attend me, and sometimes 
to relieve him; who all of them conversed with 
me in no other language but Latin. As to the rest 
of his family, it was an inviolable rule that 
neither himself, nor my mother, nor man, nor 
maid, should speak any thing, in my company, 
but such Latin words as every one had learnt 
to gabble with me. It is not to be imagined 
how great an advantage this proved to the 
whole family; my father and my mother, by 
this means, learning Latin enough to under- 
stand it perfectly well, and to speak it to such 
a degree as was sufficient for any necessary 
use ; as also those of the servants did who were 
most frequently with me. To be short, we did 
Latin it at such a rate that it overflowed to 
all the neighbouring villages, where there yet 
remain, and have established themselves by 
custom, several Latin appellations of artizans 
and their tools. As for myself, I was above 
six years of age before I understood either 
French or Perigordin any more than Arabic, 
and without art, book, grammar, or precept, 
whipping, or the expense of a tear, had by 
that time learned to speak as pure Latin as my 
master himself. If, for example, they were to 
give me a theme after the College fashion, they 
gave it to others in French, but to me they 
gave it in the worst Latin, to turn it into that 
which was pure and good; and Nicholas 
Grouchy, who wrote a book de Comitiis 
Romanorum; William Guerente, who has 
written a Commentary upon Aristotle; George 
Buchanan, that great Scotch Poet, and Marc 
Antony Muret, whom both France and Italy 
have acknowledged for the best orator of his 
time, my domestic tutors, have all of them often 
told me that I had in my infancy that language 
so very fluent and ready that they were afraid 
to enter into discourse with me. Buchanan, 
whom I since saw attending the late Mareschal 



de Brissac, then told me that he was about to 
write a Treatise of Education, the example of 
which he intended to take from mine, for he 
was then tutor to that Count de Brissac, who 
afterwards proved so valiant and so brave a 
gentleman. 

As to Greek, of which I have but little 
smattering, my father also de- 
signed to have taught it me by • 
art, but in a new way, and as a sort of sport ; 
tossing out declensions to and fro, after the 
manner of those who, by certain games, at 
tables and chess, learn geometry and arithmetic; 
for he, amongst other rules, had been advised 
to make me relish science and duty by an 
unforced will, and of my own voluntary mo- 
tion, and to educate my soul in all liberty 
and delight, without any severity or constraint. 
Which he was an observer of to such a degree, 
even of superstition, that some being of opinion 
it troubles and disturbs the brains of children 
suddenly to wake them in the morning, and to 
snatch them violently and over-hastily froni 
sleep (wherein they are much more profoundly, 
involved than we), he only caused me to be 
waked by the sound of some musical instru- 
ment, and was never unprovided of a musician 
for that purpose. By which example you may 
judge of the rest, this alone being sufficient to 
recommend both the prudence and affection of 
so good a father ; who, therefore, is not to be 
blamed if lie did not reap the fruits answerable 
to so excellent a culture. Of which, two 
things were the cause : first, a sterile and im- 
proper soil ; for though I was of a strong and 
healthful constitution, and of a disposition 
tolerably gentle and tractable, yet I was, 
withal, so heavy, idle, and sluggish, that they 
could not rouse me even to any exercise of 
recreation, nor get me out to play. What I 
saw, I saw clear enough, and under this lazy 
complexion, nourished a bold imagination, and 
opinions above my age. I had a slothful wit, 
that would go no faster than it was led, a slow 
understanding, a languishing invention, and, 
above all, an incredible defect of memory ; so 
that it is no wonder if, from all these, nothing 
considerable could be extracted. Secondly, 
like those who, impatient of a long and steady 
cure, submit to all sorts of prescriptions and 
receipts, the good man being extremely timo- 
rous of any way failing in a thing he had so 
wholly set his heart upon, suffered himself, at 
last, to be over-ruled by the common opinion, 
which always follows the lead of what has 
gone on before, like cranes; and falling in with 
the method of the time, having no longer about 
him those persons he had brought out of Italy, 
and who had given him his first models of 
education about him, he sent me, at six years 
of age, to the College of Guienne, at that time 
the best and most flourishing in France. And 
there it was not possible to add any thing to the 
care he had to provide me the most able tutors, 
with all other circumstances of education, 
reserving also several particular rules contrary 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



101 



to the College practice ; but so it was that, with 
all these precautions, it was a College still. My 
Latin immediately grew corrupt, and, by dis- 
continuance, I have since lost all manner of 
use of it ; and so this new plan of education 
served me to no other end than only, at my 
first coming, to prefer me to the first forms: 
for at thirteen years old, that I left the College, 
I had gone through my whole course, as they 
call it, and, in truth, without any manner of 
improvement, that I can honestly brag of, in 
all this time. 
The first thing that gave me any taste of 
books was the pleasure I took in 
fiIst nt taLtefor readin 8' lhe fables of Ovid's Me- 
readiilg. tamorphoses; and with them I 

was so taken that, being but seven 
or eight years old, I would steal from all other 
diversions to read them, both by reason that 
this was my own natural language, the easiest 
book that I was acquainted with, and for the 
subject the most accommodated to the capacity 
of my age : for as for Lancelot du Lake, Amadis 
de Gaul, Huon of Bourdeaux, and such trum- 
pery, which children are most delighted with, 
I had never so much as heard their names, no 
more than I yet know what they contain; so 
exact was the discipline wherein I was brought 
up. This made me think the less of the other 
lessons prescribed me ; and here it was infinitely 
to my advantage to have to do with an under- 
standing tutor, who was wise enough to connive 
at this and other truantries of the same nature; 
for by this means I ran through Virgil's iEneids, 
and then Terence, and then Plautus, and some 
Italian comedies, allured by the pleasure of the 
subject ; whereas had he been so foolish as to 
have taken me off this diversion, I do really 
believe I had brought nothing away from the 
college but a hatred of books, as almost all our 
young gentlemen do. But he carried himself 
very discreetly in that business, seeming to 
take no notice, and heightened my appetite by 
allowing me only such time for this reading as 
I could steal from my regular studies. For the 
chief things my father expected from them to 
whom he had delivered me for education was 
affability of manners and good humour; and, 
to say the truth, my temper had no other vice 
but sloth and want of mettle. The fear was 
not that I should do ill, but that I should do 
nothing. Nobody suspected that I should be 
wicked, but most thought I should be useless ; 
they foresaw idleness, but no malice in my 
nature ; and I find it falls out accordingly. 
The complaints I hear of myself are these : 
"He is idle, cold in the offices of friendship and 
relationship, and remiss in those of the public : 
he is too particular, he is too proud." The 
most injurious do not say, " Why has he taken 
such a thing? — why has he not paid such a 
one }" But " Why does he part with nothing'! 
Why does he not give?" And I should take 
it for a favour that men would expect from me 



Virgil, i'c/u^r. i 



no greater effects of supererogation than these. 
But they are unjust to exact from me what I 
do not owe far more rigorously than they exact 
from others that which they do owe; and in 
condemning me to it they efface the gratifica- 
tion of the act, and deprive me of the gratitude 
that would be due to me upon such a bounty ; 
whereas the active benefit ought to be of so 
much the greater value from my hands, by how 
much I am not passive that way at all. I can 
the more freely dispose of my fortune the more 
it is mine, and of myself the more I am my own. 
Nevertheless if I were good at setting out my 
own actions, I could peradventure very well 
repel these reproaches, and could give some to 
understand that they are not so much offended 
that I do not enough, as that I am able to do 
a great deal more than I do. 

Yet for all this heavy disposition of mine, 
my mind, when retired into itself, was not 
altogether idle nor wholly deprived of solid 
inquiry nor of certain and clear judgments 
about those objects it could comprehend, and 
could also without any helps digest them; but, 
amongst other things, I do really believe it had 
been totally impossible to have made it to sub- 
mit by violence and force. Shall 1 here acquaint 
you with one faculty of my youth'? I had 
great boldness and assurance of countenance, 
and to that a flexibility of voice and gesture to 
any part I undertook to act ; for before 

Alter ab undecimo turn me vix ceperat annus, 1 
" 1 had hardly entered on my twelfth year," 

I played the chief parts in the Latin tragedies 
of Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret, that were 
acted in our college of Guienne with very great 
form; wherein Andreas Goveanus, our prin^ 
cipal, as in all other parts of his undertaking, 
was, without comparison, the best of that em- 
ployment in France, and I was looked upon as 
one of his chief actors. 'Tis an exercise that I 
do not disapprove in young people of condition, 
and I have since seen our princes, after the 
example of the ancients, perform such parts in 
person well and commendably ; and it was more- 
over allowed to persons of the greatest quality 
to profess and make a trade of it in Greece. 
Aristoni tragico actori rem aperet: huic el 
genus et fortuna honesta erant ; nee ars, quia 
nihil tale apud Gtcbcos pudori est, ea defor- 
mabat? "He imparted this affair to Aristo 
the tragedian, a man of a good family and 
fortune, which nevertheless did neither of them 
receive any blemish by that profession, nothing 
of that kind being reputed a disparagement in 
Greece." I have always taxed those with 
impertinence who condemn these entertain- 
ments, and those, with injustice, who refuse 
to admit such comedians as are worth seeing 
into our towns, and grudge the people that 
public diversion. A sensible plan of govern- 
ment takes care to assemble its citizens not only 
to the solemn duties of devotion, but also to 






i Livy, i. 24. 



102 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sports and spectacles. They find society and 
friendship augmented by it; and besides, can 
there possibly be afforded a more orderly diver- 
sion than what is performed in the sight of 
every one, and very often in the presence of the 
supreme magistrate himself] I, for my part, 
think it desirable that the prince should some- 
times gratify his people at his own expense, 
with paternal kindness as it were, and that in 
great and popular cities there should be theatres 
erected for such entertainments, if but to divert 
them from worse and more private actions. 

To return to my subject: there is nothing 
like alluring the appetite and affection, other- 
wise you make nothing but so many asses laden 
with books, and by virtue of the lash give them 
their pocket full of learning to keep ; whereas, 
to do well, you should not only lodge it with 
them, but make them espouse it. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THAT IT IS FOLLY TO MEASURE TRUTH AND 
ERROR BY OUR OWN CAPACITY. 

'Tis not perhaps without reason that we attri- 
bute facility of belief and easiness of persuasion 
to simplicity and ignorance, for I have heard 
belief compared to an impression stamped upon 
the soul, which, by how much softer and of less 
resistance it is, is the more easily imposed. Ut 
necesse est lancem in libra, ponderibus impositis, 
deprimi, sic animum perspicuis cedere. 1 "As 
the scale of the balance must give way to the 
weight that presses it down, so the mind must 
of necessity yield to demonstration." By how 
much the soul is more empty and without 
counterpoise, with so much greater facility it 
yields under the weight of the first persuasion. 
This is the reason that children, the common 
people, women, and sick folks, are most apt to 
be led by the ears. But then, on the other 
hand, 'tis a very great presumption to slight 
and condemn all things for false that do not 
appear to us likely to be true ; which is the 
ordinary vice of such as fancy themselves wiser 
than their neighbours. I was myself once one 
of these; and if I heard talk of dead folks walk- 
ing, of prophecies, enchantments, witchcrafts, 
or any pther story, I had no mind to believe, 



"Can you in earnest laugh at all the schemes 
Of magic terrors, visionary dreams, 
Portentous prodigies, and imps of hell, 
The nightly goblins and enchanting spell?" 

I presently pitied the poor people that were 
abused by these follies ; whereas I now find 
that I myself was to be pitied as much at least 
as they; not that experience has taught me 



anything to supersede my former opinion, 
though my curiosity has endeavoured that way; 
but reason has instructed me that thus reso- 
lutely to condemn anything for false and im- 
possible is to circumscribe and limit the will of 
God and the power of nature within the bounds 
of my own capacity, than which no folly can 
be greater. If we give the names of monster 
and miracle to everything our reason cannot 
comprehend, how many such are continually 
presented before our eyes ! Let us but consider 
through what clouds, and as it were groping 
through what darkness, our teachers lead us 
to the knowledge of most of the things we 
apply our studies to, and we shall find that it 
is rather custom than knowledge that takes 
away the wonder, and renders them easy and 
familiar to us. 

Jam nemo, fessus saturusque videndi, 

Suspicere in cceli dignatur lucida templa. 3 

" Already glutted with the sight, now none 
Heaven's lucid temples deigns to look upon." 

And that if those things were now newly pre- 
sented to us we should think them as strange 
and incredible, if not more so, than any others. 

Si nunc prjmum mortalibus adsint 

Ex improviso, ceu sint objecta repente, 
Nil magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici, 
Aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes. 1 
" Were those things suddenly and by surprise 
Just now presented, new to mortal eyes, 
At nothing could they be astonish'd more, 
Nor could have formed a thought of them before." 

He that had never seen a river imagined the 
first he met with to be the sea ; and the greatest 
things that have fallen within our knowledge 
we conclude the extremes that nature makes 
of the kind. 

Scilicet, et fluvius qui non est maximus, ei est 
Q.ui non ante aliquein majorcm vidit; et ingens 
Arbor, homoque viiietur; ei omnia de genere omni 
Maxima qua; vidit quisque, haec ingentia fingit.s 

" A little river unto him does seem, 
Tiiat bigger never saw, a mighty stream: 
A tree, a man, all things seem to his view 
O' til' kind the greatest that ne'er greater knew." 

Consuetudine oculoriirn., assuescunt animi, 
neque admirantur, neque requirunt ratinnes 
earum rerurn quas semper vident. e "Things 
grow familiar to men's minds by being often 
seen ; so that they neither admire nor are 
inquisitive into things they daily see." The 
novelty, rather than the greatness, of things 
tempts us to inquire into their causes. But we 
are to judge with more reverence, and with 
greater acknowledgment of our own ignorance 
and infirmity, of the infinite power of nature. 
How many unlikely things are there testified 
by people of very good repute, which if we 
cannot persuade ourselves absolutely to believe, 
we ought at least to leave them in suspense ! 
For to condemn them as impossible is by a 



Cicero, Mad. Quaes, iv. ii. 12. 
> Horace, Epiet. ii. 2, 208. 
i Lucretius, ii. 1037. The text has satiate videndi. 



i Lucretius, ii. 1034. 

* Id. vi. 674. 

'' Cicero, de Natura Dear. ii. 38. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



temerarious presumption to pretend to know 
the utmost bounds of possibility. Did we 
rightly understand the difference betwixt the 
impossible and the unusual, and what is con- 
trary to the order and course of nature and 
against the common opinion of men, in not 
believing rashly, and on the other hand in being 
not too incredulous, we should then observe 
the rule of Ne quid nimis, enjoined by Chilo. 1 
When we find in Froissard that the Count de 
Foix knew in Beam the defeat of John King 
of Castile at Juberoth the next day after, and 
the means by which he tells us he came to do 
so, we may be allowed to be a little merry at 
it, as also at what our annals report, that Pope 
Honorius, the same day that King Philip 
Augustus died at Mante, performed his public 
obsequies at Rome, and commanded the like 
throughout Italy ; the testimony of these authors 
not being perhaps of authority enough to re- 
strain us. But if Plutarch, besides several 
examples that he produces out of antiquity, 
tells us, of his certain knowledge, that in the 
time of Domitian the news of the battle lost 
by Antony in Germany was published at 
Rome many days' journey thence 2 and dispersed 
throughout the whole world the same day it 
was fought: and if Caesar was of opinion that 
it has often happened that the report has pre- 
ceded the event, shall we say that, forsooth, 
these simple people have suffered themselves to 
be deceived with the vulgar, not having been 
so clear-sighted as we? Is there anything 
more delicate, more clear, more sprightly than 
Pliny's judgment, when he is pleased to set it 
to work? — anything more remote from vanity? 
Setting aside his great learning, of wiiich I 
make less account, in which of these two do 
any of us excel him ? Yet there is no schoolboy 
that does not convict him of lying, and that 
pretends not to instruct him in the progress of 
the works of nature. 

When we read in Bouchet the miracles of 
St. Hilary's relics, never heed them ; his autho- 
rity is not sufficient to take from us the liberty 
of contradicting him : but generally to condemn 
in a lump all such stories seems to me a singular 
impudence. The great St. Augustine tells us 
he himself saw a blind child recover sight upon 
the relic of St. Gervaise and St. Protasius at 
Milan ; 3 a woman at Carthage cured of a cancer 
by the sign of the cross made upon her by a 
woman newly baptized; Hesperius, a familiar 
friend of his, to drive away the spirits that 
haunted his house with a little earth of the 



1 Mr|il('» nvav, Aristotle in his Rhetoric, and Pliny (JVM. 

mat., vii. :)•!), ascribe this maxim to Chilo, as dors Hio- 

'ims intliel.ifeofThalos; but he afterwards its- 

mh.'s it to Solon in his Lite of Solon. It has brim also 

attributed to others. See Menace's Observations on Dio- 

rtius ill the Life of Thnles. 

" Above SKI leagues, savs Plutarch, in his Life of Paulus 
JEmitius, but the real distance is only -.>50 leagues. 

s Dc Civit. Dei, xxii. 8. 

« St. Austin, however, does not nscribe this expulsion of 
the evil spirits to that small quantity of the earth of our 



sepulchre of our Lord; 4 and this earth being 
transported thence into the church, a paralytic 
to have there been suddenly cured by it ; a 
woman in a procession, having touched St. 
Stephen's shrine with a nosegay, and after 
rubbing her eyes with it to have recovered her 
sight lost many years before; with several 
other miracles, of which he professes himself to 
have been an eye-witness. Of what shall we 
accuse him and the two holy bishops Aurelius 
and Maximinus, both of whom he attests to the 
truth of these things? Shall it be of ignorance, 
simplicity, and facility, or of knavery or im- 
posture? Is any man now living so impudent 
as to think himself comparable to them either 
in virtue, piety, learning, judgment, or capa- 
city? Qui ut ratinnem nullum affcrrent, ipsa 
auctoritate me fravgerenl'fi "Who, though 
they should give me no reason for what they 
affirm, would yet convince me with their 
authority ?" 'Tie a presumption of great danger 
and consequence, besides the absurd temerity 
it draws after it, to contemn what we do not 
comprehend. For after that, according to your 
fine understanding, you- have established the 
limits of truth and error, and that afterwards 
there appears a necessity upon you of believing 
stranger things than those you have contra- 
dicted, you are already obliged to quit your hold 
and to acquiesce. That which seems to me so 
much to disorder our consciences, in the com- 
motions we are now in concerning religion, is 
the Catholics dispensing so much with their 
belief. They fancy they appear moderate and 
wise when they give up to the Huguenots some 
of the articles in question; but besides that 
they do not discern what advantage it is to 
those with whom we contend for us to begin 
to give ground and to retire, and how much 
this animates the enemy to follow up his blow, 
the articles which they select as the most in- 
different are sometimes of very great import- 
ance. We are either wholly and absolutely to 
submit ourselves to the authority of our eccle- 
siastical polity, or totally throw off all obedience 
to it; 'tis not for us to determine what and 
how much obedience we owe to it. And this I 
can say, having myself made trial of it, and 
having formerly taken the liberty of my own 
swing and fancy, and neglected certain of the 
observations of our church which seemed to me 
vain and unmeaning, that, coming afterwards 
to discourse the matter with learned men, I 
have found those very things to be built upon 
very good and solid foundation; and that 



Lord's sepulchre, which Hesperius bail in bis house; for. 
according to St. Austin, one of his priests having, at the 
entreaty of Hesperius repaired to his house rind ntliued the 
sacrifice of (he hodv of Christ, and having pen ■■•'■ e-n i -ilv 
to God to put a stop to this disturbance (iod ..rd -o at the 

very instant. As to the earth taken from the I 

chre, Hesperius kept it -i-i i"lml >» b k handier. 

to secure him from the insults ,,| tic de\ i!s. v\ ho had been 
very mischievous to his slaves and cattle; for (hough he 
was protected against the evil spirits of the earth, yet this 
influence did not extend to the rest of his family. 
6 Cicero, TVsc. Qua*, i. 21. 



104 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



nothing but dulness and ignorance make us 
receive them with less reverence than the rest. 
Why do we not consider what contradictions 
we find in our own judgments, how many- 
things were yesterday articles of our faith that 
to-day appear mere fables 1 Glory and curiosity 
are the scourges of the soul ; of which the last 
prompts us to thrust our noses into everything, 
and the other forbids us to leave anything 
doubtful and undecided. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Having observed the method of a painter I 
have, that serves me, I had a mind to imitate 
his way. He chooses the best place, the middle 
of a panel, wherein to draw a picture, which he 
finishes with his utmost care and art, and the 
empty space he fills with grotesque, odd, fan- 
tastic figures, without any grace but what they 
derive from their variety and the extravagance 
of their shapes. And, in truth, what are these 
things I scribble, other than grotesques, mon- 
strous pieces of patchwork, without any certain 
figure, or any other than accidental order, 
coherence, or proportion 1 

Definit in piscem muher formosa superne. 1 



In this second part I go hand in hand with 
my painter, but fall very short of him in the 
first, and the better; my power of handling 
not being such that I dare to offer at a fine 
piece richly painted and set off according to art. 
I have therefore thought best to borrow one of 
Estienne de la Boetie, 2 and such a one as will 
honour and adorn all the rest of my work; 
namely, a discourse that he called Voluntary 
Servitude, which others have since "further 
baptized Le Contre-Un, 3 a piece written in his 
younger years, by way of essay, in honour of 
liberty against tyrants, and which has since 
been in the hands of several men of great learn- 
ing and judgment, not without singular and 
merited commendation, for it is finely written 
and as full as anything can possibly be. Yet 
I may confidently say it is far short of what 
he is able to do ; and if in that more mature 
age wherein I knew him, he had taken a 
design like this of mine, to commit his thoughts 



i Horace, de Arte, Poet. 4. 

2 Yet it is not here ; and why Montaigne has not inserted 
it he tells us at the end of the chapter. 

3 Meaning a discourse against monarchy, or government 
by one person alone, agreeably lo what Montaigne says at 
the end of this chapter, " That if Boetius could have made 
his option, he would rather have been born at Venice than 
at Sarlac." 

* Promulgated in 1.502, in the reign of Charles IX., then a 
minor. This edict permitted to the Huguenots the public 



to writing, we should have seen a great many 
rare things, and such as would have gone very 
near to have rivalled the best writings of an- 
tiquity : for in natural parts, especially, I know 
no man comparable to him. But he has left 
nothing behind him save this treatise only (and 
that too by chance, for I believe he never saw 
it after it first went out of his hands), and some 
observations upon that edict of January, 4 made 
famous by our civil wars, which also shall else- 
where, perad venture, find a place. These were 
all I could recover of his remains; I, to whom, 
with so affectionate a remembrance, upon his 
death-bed, he by his last will bequeathed his 
library and papers, the little, book of his works 
only excepted, which I committed to the press. 5 
And this particular obligation I have to this 
treatise of his, that it was the occasion of my 
first coming acquainted with him ; for it was 
showed to me long before I saw him, and gave 
me the first knowledge of his name; proving 
so the first cause and foundation of a friendship 
which we afterwards improved and maintained 
so long as God was pleased to continue us 
together, so perfect, inviolate, and entire, that 
certainly the like is hardly to be found in story, 
and amongst the men of this age there is no 
sign nor trace of any such thing. So many 
concurrents are required to the building of such 
a one, that 'tis much if fortune bring it but 
once to pass in three ages. 

There is nothing to which nature seems so 
much to have inclined us as to society ; and Aris- 
totle says 6 that good legislators had more respect 
to friendship than to justice. Now" the most 
supreme point of its perfection is 
this: for generally all those that f h T p w haHt is. 
pleasure, profit, public or private 
interest, create and nourish, are so much the 
less noble and generous, and so Friendship 
much the less friendships, by how does not tally 
much they mix up another cause }V:° 1 }. erljr W1 | h 
and design than friendship itself. f connection 
Neither do the four ancient kinds, distinguished 
natural, sociable, hospitable, and by the ancients, 
venerean, either separately or jointly make up 
a true and perfect friendship. 

That of children to parents is rather respect: 
friendship being nourished by communication, 
which cannot, by reason of the great disparity, be 
betwixt them ; but would rather perhaps violate 
the duties of nature; for neither are all the 
secret thoughts of fathers fit. to be communi- 
cated to children, lest it beget an indecent 
familiarity betwixt them; nor can the advices 



exercise of their religion. The parliament at first refused 
to register it, saying, " Nee possumus, nee debemus ;" but 
they consented, niter receiving two positive orders from the 
king on the subject. The edict contains a rule of conduct 
for the Protestants, which, among other tilings, directs that 
" they shall advance nothing against the Council of Nicea, 
against the symbol, or against the Old and New Testa- 
ment." 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and reproofs, which is one of the principal 
offices of friendship, be properly performed by 
the son to the father. There are some countries 
where 'tis the custom for children to kill their 
fathers; and others where the fathers kill their 
children, to prevent their being sometimes an 
impediment to one another in their designs; 
and moreover, the expectation of the one does 
naturally depend upon the ruin of the other. 
There have been great philosophers who have 
made nothing of this tie of nature ; as Aristip- 
pus for one, who, being pressed home about the 
affection he owed to his children, as being 
come from him, presently fell to spit, saying 
that also came from him, and that we did also 
breed worms and lice; 1 and that other, that 
Plutarch endeavoured to reconcile to his brother, 
"TTrrafee never the more account of him," 
said he, "for coming out of the same place." 2 
This name of brother does indeed carry with it 
an amiable and affectionate sound, and for that 
reason he and I called one another brothers. 3 
But the complication of interests, the division 
of estates, the raising of the one at the undoing 
of the other, does strangely weaken and slacken 
the fraternal tie: and brothers pursuing their 
fortune and advancement by the same path, 
'tis hardly possible but they must of necessity 
often justle and hinder one another. Besides, 
why should the correspondence of manners, 
parts, and inclinations, which beget true and 
perfect friendships, always meet and concur in 
these relations ? The father and the son may 
be of quite ^contrary humours, and brothers 
be without any manner of sympathy in their 
natures. He is my son, he is my father; but 
he is passionate, ill-natured, or a fool. And 
moreover, by how much these are friendships 
that the law and natural obligation impose 
upon us, so much less is there of our own 
choice and free will, which free will of ours 
has no creation properly its own than through 
affection and friendship. Not that I have not in 
my own person experienced all that can possibly 
be expected of that kind, having had the best 
and most indulgent father, even to an extreme 
old age, that ever was, and who was himself 
descended from a family for many generations 
famous and exemplary for brotherly concord: 

— Et ipse 
Notus in fratrcs animi paterni.4 



We are not here to bring the love we bear to 
women, though it be an act of our own choice, 
into comparison ; nor rank it with the others. 
Its fire, I confess, 



i l.aertius, in vita. a Plutarch, on. Brotherly Love. 

> That ,s to say Hint, according to the usage established 
in Montaigne's time, they gave one another tiie style of 
brothers, as il was to he ihe token an, I pledge of the friend- 
ship which they had contracted. And upon the same prin- 



" Nor is my goddess ign'rant what I am, 
Who pleasing sorrows mixes with my flame ;" 

is more active, more eager, and more sharp; 
but, withal, 'tis more precipitous, fickle, moving 
and inconstant: a fever subject to intermission 
and paroxysms, that has hold but on one part of 
us; whereas, in friendship, 'tis a general and uni- 
versal fire, but temperate and equal, a constant 
and steady heat, all easy and smooth, without 
poignancy or roughness. Moreover, in love, 
'tis no other than a frantic desire for that which 
flies from us: 

Come segue la lepre il cacciatore 
Al freddo, al caldo, alia montagna, al lito; 
Ne pin la stiina poi che presa vede; 
E sol dietro a chi fugge aflretta il piede;6 

"Like hunters that the flying hare pursue 
O'er hill and dale, through heat and morning dew, 
Which being ta'en, the quarry they despise, 
Being only pleased in following that which flies." 

So soon as ever it enters into the terms of 
friendship, that is to say, into a concurrence of 
desires, it, vanishes and is gone, fruition destroys 
it, as having only a fleshly end, subject to 
satiety. Friendship, on the contrary, is enjoyed 
proportionably as it is desired, and only grows 
up, is nourished and improves by enjoyment, 
as being spiritual, and the soul growing still 
more perfect by use. Under this perfect friend- 
ship I cannot deny but that the other vain 
affections have, in my younger years, found 
some place in my thoughts, to say nothing of 
him, who himself confesses it but too much in 
his verses: so that I had both these passions, 
but always so that I could myself well enough 
distinguish them, and never in any degree of 
comparison with one another ; the first main- 
taining its flight at so lofty a height as with 
disdain to look down and see the other flying 
at a far humbler pitch below. 

As to marriage, besides that it is a covenant 
the making of which is only free, but the con- 
tinuance in it forced and compelled, having 
another dependance than that of our own free 
will, and a bargain, moreover, commonly con- 
tracted to other ends, there happen a thousand 
intricacies in it to unravel, enough to break the 
thread, and to divert the current, of a lively 
affection: whereas, friendship has no manner 
of business or traffic with any thing but itself. 
Moreover, to say truth, the ordinary talent of 
women is not such as is sufficient to maintain 
the conference and communication required to 
the support of this sacred tie; nor do they 
appear to be endued with firmness of mind to 
endure the constraint of so hard and durable a 
knot. Doubtless if there could be such a free 
and voluntary familiarity contracted, where not 
only the souls might have this entire fruition, 
but the bodies also might share in the alliance, 
and the whole man be engaged in it, the friend- 






ciple Mademoiselle do (,'ournay styled herself Montaigne's 
daughter, and not because Montaigne married her mother, 
as I have heard il allirmed. 

I Horace. 0* "■ '-i. b\ 

» Catul., lx. 7, 17. * Ariosto, a., Stanza 7. 



106 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ship would certainly be more full and perfect 
but there is no example that this sex ever arrive! 

at such perfection, and, by the 
Sainet^nature ancient schools, is wholly rejected, 
very much in That other, the Grecian license, 
use among the justly abhorred by our manners, 
£££& M ° n " from having, according to their 
opinion of it. practice, a so necessary disparity 

of age and difference of offices 
betwixt the lovers, answers as little to the per- 
fect union and harmony of the lovers that we 
here require. Quis est enirn isle amor am 
citice? Cur neque deformem adolescentem 
quisquam amat, neque formosum senern . ?I 
"For what is the love of friendship? Why 
does no one love a deformed youth or a comely 
old man V The very picture that ihe Academy 
presents of it will not, as I conceive, contradict 
me when I say that the first fury inspired by 
the son of Venus, in the heart of the lover, 
upon the sight of blooming youth, to which 
they allow all the insolent and passionate efforts 
that an immoderate ardour can produce, was 
simply founded upon an external beauty, the 
false image of corporal generation ; for upon 
the soul it could not ground this love, the sight 
of which, as yet, lay concealed, was but now 
springing up, and not of maturity to blossom. 
Which fury, if it seized upon a mean spirit, 
the means by which he preferred his suit were 
rich presents, advancement to dignities, and 
other such trumpery, which they by no means 
approve : if on a more generous soul the pur- 
suit was suitably generous, by philosophical 
instructions, precepts to revere religion, to obey 
the laws, to die for the good of his country; by 
examples of valour, prudence, and justice, the 
lover studying to render himself acceptable by 
the grace and beauty of his soul, that of his 
body being long since faded and decayed, 
hoping by this mental society to establish a 
more firm and lasting contract. When this 
courtship came to its effect, in due season, for 
that which they do not require in the lover, 
namely leisure and discretion in his pursuit, 
they strictly require in the person loved ; foras- 
much as he is to judge of an internal beauty, 
of difficult knowledge, and obscure discovery, 
then there sprung in the person loved, the 
desire of a spiritual conception by the mediation 
of a spiritual beauty. This was the principal, 
the corporeal but an accidental and secondary 
part, all contrary to the lover. For this reason 
they prefer the person beloved, maintaining 
that the gods, in like manner, prefer him too, 
and very much blame the poet jEschylus for 
having, in the loves of Achilles and Patroclus, 
given the lover's part to' Achilles, who was in 
the first flower and pubescency of his youth, 
and the handsomest of all the Greeks. After 



i Cicero, Tusc. Qums. iv. 33. 

2 Id. ib. iv. 34. 3 r,l. de Jmicitiu, c. 20. 

1 In the collection, before mentioned,— Paris. 1571. The 
following are some of the verses spoken of by Montaigne : 
Prudentem bona pars vulgo male credula nulli 
Fidit amicitise, uisi quant exploraverit etas, 



this general familiarity and mutual community 
of thoughts, is once settled, supposing the 
sovereign and most worthy part to govern and 
to perform its proper offices, they say that 
thence great utility was derived, both to pri- 
vate and public concerns, that the power of 
countries received its beginning thence, and 
that it was the chief security of liberty and 
justice. Of which the salutary loves of H&r- 
modus and Aristogiton is an instance; and, 
tfterelbre, it is' that" tliey called it sacred and 
divine, and conceived that nothing but the 
violence of tyrants and the baseness of the 
common people was inimical to it. In short, 
all that can be said in favour of the Academy 
is that it was a love which ended in friendship ; 
which well enough agrees with the stoical 
definition of love : Amorem conation esse ami- 
cilia; faciendee expulchritudinis specie. 2 " That 
love is a desire of contracting friendship from 
the beauty of the object." 

I return to my own more just and true 
description. Omnino amicitise, corroborates 
jam conjirmatis que "it iiigeniis, el atatibus 
judicandse sunt. 3 " Those are only to be 
reputed friendships that are fortified and 
confirmed by judgment and length- of time." 
For "the "rest, what we commonly call friends 
and friendships are nothing but an acquaint- 
ance and connection, contracted either by 
accident or upon some design, by means of 
which there happens some Tittle intercourse 
betwixt our souls: but, in the friendship I 
speak of, they mingle and melt into one 
piece, with so universal a mixture that there is 
left no more sign of the seam by which they 
were first conjoined. If any one should im- 
portune me to give a reason why I loved him, 
I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than 
by making answer, " Because it was he ; 
because it was I." There is beyond what I am 
able to say, I know not what inexplicable and 
inevitable power that brought on this union. 
We sought one another long before we met, 
and from the characters we heard of one 
another, which wrought more upon our affec- 
tions than in reason mere reports should do, 
and, as I think, by some secret appointment 
of heaven; we embraced each other in our 
names; and at our first meeting, which was 
accidentally at a great city entertainment, we 
found ourselves so mutually pleased with one 
another, we became, at once, mutually so 
endeared, that thence-forward nothing was 
so near to us as one another. He wrote an 
excellent Latin satire, which is printed, 4 wherein 
he excuses and explains the precipitateness of 
our intimacy, so suddenly come to perfection. 
Having so short a time to continue, as being 
begun so late, for we were both full grown 



Et vario casus luctantem exercuit usu. 
At nos jungit amor paullo magis animus, et qui 
Nil tanien ad suinmum reliqui sibi fecit amorem 
Te, Montaigne, mini casus sociavit in oiunes 
Et natura potens, et amoris gratior illex 
Virtus ******** 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



107 



men, and lie some years the older, there was no 
time to lose ; nor was it tied to conform itself to 
the example of those slow and regular friend- 
ships that require so many precautions of a long 
preliminary conversation. This has no other 
idea than that of itself, and can have no relation 
but to itself. 'Tis no one particular consider- 
ation, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a 

thousand. 'Tis I know not what 
ItV'llnnle quintessence of all this mixture 
friendship, which, seizing my whole will, 

carried it to plunge and lose 
itself in his ; and that having seized his whole 
will, hrought it, with equal concurrence and 
appetite, to plunge and lose itself in mine. I 
may truly say lose, reserving nothing to our- 
selves that was either his or mine. 

When Laelius, in the presence of the Roman 
Consuls, who, after they had sentenced Tiberius 
Gracchus, prosecuted all those who had any 
familiarity with him also, came to ask Caius 
Blosius, who was his chief friend and confidant, 
how much he would have done for him] he 
made answer, "All things." "How! All 
things!" said Lffilius. "And what if he had 
commanded you to fire our temples'?" "He 
would never have commanded me that," replied 
Blosius. " But what if he had ]" said Laslius. 
" I would have obeyed him," said the other: 1 
If he was so perfect a friend to Gracchus as 
the histories report him to have beenrOiere was 
yet no necessity of offending the Consuls by 
such a bold confession, though he might still 
have retained the assurance he had of Grac- 
chus's disposition. Still those who accuse this 
answer as seditious, do not well understand the 
mystery ; nor pre-suppose, as was the fact, that 
he had Gracchus's will in his sleeve, both by 
the power of a friend and the perfect knowledge 
lie had of the man. They were more friends 
than citizens, and more friends to one another 
than either friends or enemies to their country, 
or than friends to ambition and innovation. 
Having absolutely given up themselves to one 
another, each held absolutely the reins of the 
other's inclination, which they governed by 
virtue, and guided by the conduct of reason; 
which, without these, it is not possible to do, 
and, therefore, Blosius's answer was such as it 
ought to have been. If their actions flew out 
of the handle, they were neither, according to 
my notion, friends to one another nor to them- 
selves. As to the rest, this answer carries no 
worse sound than mine would do to one that 
should ask me, "If your will should command 
you to kill your daughter, would you do if!" 
And that I should make answer that I would; 
for this expresses no consent to such an act, 
forasmuch as I do not, in the least, suspect my 
own will, and as little should I that of such a 



' Plut, Lives of the Qracchi, c. 5. Cic, De Amicit. c. 2. 

■' . Villus (I, 'llins, i. :l. l)„, L .,.,ir S I, annus. In the Life of 
/}m..,<mr,lmt..s ilassny,,,, |„ ,|,„ w,<r man. i, 7, as A, is- 
totlehadd before, in his Rhetoric, il. 13, where we read 

ill'' «''' I anal.', viz. "Thai a man should he haled as il' 

some day hereafter lie should he loved ;" winch is not in 



friend. 'Tis not in the power of all the elo- 
quence in the world to dispossess me of the 
certainty I have of the intentions and resolu- 
tions of mine ; nay, no one action of his, what 
face soever it might bear, could be presented to 
me, of which I could not presently, and at first 
sight, find out the moving cause. Our souls 
have drawn so unitedly together, and we have, 
with so mutual a confidence, laid open the very 
bottom of our hearts to one another's view, 
that I not only knew his as well as my own, 
but should, certainly, in any concern of mine, 
have trusted my interest much more willingly 
with him than with myself. Let no one, there- 
fore, rank common friendship with such a one as 
this. I have had as much experience of these 
as another, and of the most perfect 
of their kind ; but I do not advise jjjj^n ° f 
that any should confound the friendship, 
rules of the one and the other ; 
for they would find themselves much deceived. 
In ordinary friendships you must walk bridle 
in hand, with prudence and circumspection, for 
in them the knot is not so sure that a man may 
not fully depend upon its not slipping. " Love 
him," said Chilo, " so as if you were one day 
to hate him ; and hate him so as you were one 
day to love him." 2 A precept that, though 
abominable in the sovereign and perfect friend- 
ship which I speak of, is, nevertheless, very 
sound as to ordinary cases, and to which the 
saying that Aristotle had so frequently in his 
mouth, "O my friends, there is no friend," 3 
may very fitly be applied. In this glorious 
commerce, the good offices, and benefits, by 
which other friendships are sup- 
ported and maintained, do not Amongst 
deserve so much as to be men- 
tioned, and are, by this concur- 
rence of our wills, rendered of no 
use. As the kindness I have for myself receives 
no' increase, for any thing I relieve myself 
withal, in time of need, whatever the Stoics 
say, and as I do not find myself obliged to 
myself for any service I do myself, so the union 
of such friends, being really perfect, deprives 
them of all idea of acknowledgment of such 
duties, and makes them loathe and banish from 
their conversation these words implying a 
difference and distinction, benefit, obligation, 
entreaty, thanks, and the like. All things, 
wills, thoughts, opinions, goods, wives, children, 
honour, and life, being, in effect, common 
betwixt them, and their condition being no 
other than one soul in two bodies, according to 
the very proper definition of Aristotle, 4 they 
can neither lend nor give any thing to one 
another. This is the reason why the law-givers, 
to honour marriage with some imaginary re- 
semblance of this divine alliance, interdict all 



friends all 
things are 



Diogenes Laertiu 
should only be lo 
Cicero says that he 
from Bias, one of 

3 Laertius, in vt 

< Id. lb. 


. As to the first article, "That a man 

cd as if lir were some day to he hated," 
cannot illumine such an expression came 
the seven wise men. i)c Amicilid, 16. 



108 



ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



gifts betwixt man and wife ; inferring by that 
that all should belong to each of them, and 
that they have nothing to divide between or to 
give one another. If, in the friendship of 
which I speak, one could give to 
in perfect the other, the receiver of the 

gVvTrls^biiged benefit would be the man that 
to the receiver, obliged his friend; for each of 

them, above all things, studying 
how to be useful to the other, he that affords 
the occasion is the generous man, in giving his 
friend the satisfaction of doing that which, 
above all things, he does most desire. When 
the philosopher, Diogenes, wanted money, he 
used to say that he re-demanded it of his friends, 
not that he demanded it; 1 and to let you see 
the practice of this, I will here produce an 
ancient and singular example: Eudamidas, a 
Corinthian, had two friends, Charixenus, a 
Syconian, and Aretheus, a Corinthian ; this man 
coming to die, being poor, and his two friends 
being rich, he made his will, after this manner: 
"I bequeath to Aretheus the maintenance of 
my mother, to support and provide for her in 
her old age ; and to Charixenus I bequeath the 
care of marrying my daughter, and to give her 
as good a portion as he is able ; and in case one 
of these chances to die, I hereby substitute the 
survivor in his place." 2 They who first saw 
this will made themselves very merry at the 
contents; but the heirs being made acquainted 
with it, accepted the legacies with very great 
content; and one of them, Charixenus, dying 
within five days after, and Aretheus having 
thus the charge of both devolved solely to him, 
he nourished the old woman with very great 
care and tenderness, and, of five talents he had, 
gave two and a half in marriage with an only 
daughter he had of his own, and two and a 
half in marriage with the daughter of Euda- 
midas, and in one and the same day solemnized 
both their nuptials. This example is very full 

to the point, if one thing were not 
Bhilai fndi? d " t0 be ° b J ected > namely, the mul- 
visibie. ' titude of friends ; for the perfect 

friendship I speak of is indivisible ; 
each one gives himself so entirely to his friend 
that he has nothing left to distribute to others: 
nay, is sorry that he is not double, treble, or 
quadruple, and that he has not many souls and 
many wills to confer them all upon this one 

object. Common friendships will 
friendships" 7 admit of division, one may love 
may be shared the beauty of this, the good hu- 
person" y mour °*" t ' mt P erson > tae liberality 

of a third, the paternal affection 
of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and 
so on. But this friendship that possesses the 
whole soul, and there rules and sways with an 
absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival. If 
two, at the same time, should call to you for 
succour, to which of them would you run? 
Should they require of you contrary offices, 
how could you serve them both"! Should one 



Laertius, in vita. 



'■ Lucian, Tozairs, c. 22. 



commit a thing to your secresy that it were of 
importance to the other to know, how would 
you disengage yourself] The one particular 
friendship disunites and dissolves 
all other obligations whatsoever. p^e^end 
The secret I have sworn not to ship dissolves 
reveal to any other I may, with- jj",^" obh " 
out perjury, communicate to him ° 
who is not another, but myself. 'Tis miracle 
enough, certainly, for a man to double himself, 
but they that talk of tripling, talk they know 
not of what. Nothing is extreme that has its 
like; and whoso shall suppose that, of two, I 
love one as much as the other, that they love 
one another too, and love me as much as I love 
them, does multiply into a society that which 
is the most single and one of all things, and 
wherein, moreover, one only is the hardest 
thing in the world to find. The remaining 
part of this story suits very well with what I 
said before; for Eudamidas, as a bounty and 
favour, bequeathes~Eo"his~"friends a legacy of 
employing themselves in his service ; he leaves 
them heirs to this liberality of his, which con- 
sists in giving them the opportunity of conferring 
a benefit upon him, and, doubtless, the force of 
friendship is more eminently apparent in this 
act of his than in that of Aretheus. In short, 
there are effects not to be imagined nor com- 
prehended by such as have no experience of 
them, and which make me infinitely honour 
and admire the answer of that young soldier to 
Cyrus, by whom, being asked how much he 
would take for a horse, with which he had won 
the prize of a race, and whether he would 
exchange him for a kingdom? "No, truly, 
sir," said he, " but I would give him with all 
my heart for a true friend, could I find a man 
worthy of that relation." 3 He did well in 
saying, could I find, for though a man may 
almost everywhere meet with men sufficiently 
qualified for a superficial acquaintance, yet, in 
this, where a man is to deal from the very 
bottom of his heart, without any manner of 
reservation, it will be requisite that all the 
wards and springs be true and plain, and per- 
fectly sure. In leagues that hold 
but by one end, we have only to What is neces- 
provide against the imperfections s , ar y >" con [ e : 

J, . ?■ i i ^1 . deracies and in 

that particularly concern that domestic ac- 
end. It can be of no importance quaihtance, 
to me of what religion my phy- 
sician or my lawyer is, provided the one be a 
good lawyer, and the other a good physician ; 
this consideration has nothing in common with 
the offices of friendship, and I am of the same 
indifferency in the domestic acquaintance my 
servants must necessarily contract with me; I 
never enquire, when I take a footman, if he be 
chaste, but if he be diligent; and am not 
solicitous if my chairman be given to gaming, 
so he be strong and able, or if my cook be a 
swearer, so he be a good cook. I do not, 
however, take upon me to direct what other 



s Cyropadia, i 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



men should do in such matters — there are those 
that meddle enough with that — but only give 
an account of what I do myself. 

Mihi sic usus est : tibi, ut opus est facto, face.' 

"This has my practice been : but thou may'st do 
What thy affairs or fancy prompt thee to." 

At table, I prefer the witty before the 
grave: in bed, beauty before goodness; and 
in common discourse, eloquence, whether or 
no there be sincerity in the case. And as 
he 2 that was found astride upon a stick, playing 
with his children, entreated the person who had 
surprised him in that posture to say nothing of 
it till he himself came to be a father, supposing 
that the fondness that would then possess his 
own soul would render him a more equal judge 
of such an action, so I also could wish to speak 
to such as have had experience of what I say ; 
though, knowing how remote a thing such a 
friendship is from the common practice, and how 
rarely such is to be found, I despair of meeting 
with any one qualified to be a judge. For 
even the discourses left us by antiquity upon 
this subject seem to me flat and low, in com- 
parison of the sense I have of it, and in this 
particular the effects surpass the very precepts 
of philosophy. 

Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.s 



Menander^of old declared him to be happy 
thattSad the good fortune to meet with but the 
shadow of a friend ; 4 and doubtless he had good 
reason to say so, especially if he spoke by ex- 
perience : for, in good earnest, if I compare all 
the rest of my life, — though, thanks be to God, 
I have always passed my time pleasantly enough 
and at my ease, and, the loss of such a friend 
excepted, free from any grievous affliction, and 
in great tranquillity of mind, having been con- 
tented with my natural and original conve- 
niences and advantages, without being solicitous 
after others, — If I should compare it all, I say, 
with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy 
the sweet society of this excellent man, 'tis 
nothing but smoke, but an obscure and tedious 
night. From the day that I lost him, 

Quem semper acerbum, 

Semper lionoratum (sic Hi voluistis!) habebo.s 



I have only led a sorrowful and languishing 
life; and the very pleasures that present them°- 
selves to me, instead of administering anything 



> Terence, Heautont., i. 1. 28. 

" Jigesilaus. Plutarch, in vita. 

a Horace, Sat. i. 5. 44. 

« Plutarch, on Brotherly Love. 

« JEncid, v. 49. 

o Terence, Heautont., i. 97. Montaigne has here made 
some little variation in Terence's words, for the sake of ap- 
plying them to his subject. 

10 



of consolation, double my affliction for his loss. 
We were halves throughout, and to that degree 
that, methinks, by outliving him I defraud him 
of his part. 

Nee jus esse ulla me voluptate hie frui 

Decrevi, tantisper diim ille abest, meus particeps.a 



I was so accustomed to be always his second 
in all places, and in all things, that, methinks, 
I am no more than half a man, and have but 
half a being. 

Illam mete si partem animal tulit 
Maturior vis, quod moror altera? 

Nee carius a?quc, nee snperstos 

Integer. Ille dies utramque 
Duxit ruinam.? 

" For. since that half my soul was snatched away 
Bv riper age, whv does the other stay 1 
Which now's not dear, nor truly does survive 
That day our double ruin did contrive." 

There is no act or imagining of mine wherein 
I do not miss him. For as he surpassed 
me by infinite degrees in virtue and all other 
accomplishments, so he also did in all offices 
of friendship. 



"Why should we stop the flowing tear? 
Why blush to weep for one so dear ?" 

O misero frater adempte mihi ! 
Omnia tecum una perierunt yaudia nostra, 

Qua; tuus in vita, dulcis alebat amor. 
Tu mea, tu morions l'rr?isti coininnda, frater; 

Tecum una tota est nostra sepulta anima: 
Cujusego interim tota de mente fugavi 

Hffic studia, atque omnes delicias animi. 

Alloquar? audiero nunquam tua verba loquentem? 

Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, 
Aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo.s 

" Ah ! brother, what a life did I commence, 
From that sad day when thou wert snatched from hence! 
Those joys are vanished which my heart once knew. 
When in sweet converse all our moments flew: 
With thee departing, my good fortune fled, 
And all my soul is lifeless since thou'rt dead. 
The Muses at thy fun'ral I forsook, 
And of all joy my leave for ever took. 
Dearer than life ! am I so wretched then, 
Never to hear or speak to thee again ? 
Nor see those lips, now frozen up by death ? 
Yet I will love thee to my latest breath!" 

But let us hear a boy of sixteen speak: — 
In this place I had intended to have inserted 
his Memoirs upon the famous edict of January ; 
but as I have since found that they are already 
printed, 10 and with a malicious design, by some 
who make it their business to molest and en- 
deavour to subvert the state of our government, 
not caring whether they mend and reform it or 



1 Horace, Od. ii. 17. 5. « Id. i. 34. 1. 

Catullus, Ixviii. 20. lxv. 9. 

>° Stephen de la Boetic's Traite de la Servitude Volontaire 
was printed for the first time in l.>7t\ in the third volume 
of the Memoires dc I' Estat de la France sous Cliarlcs !X. 
The second title of this work, I.e Contr'un (translated by 
He Thou, Jlntllrmtiir,,,,). is rendered by Vernier, in his 
Notice sur les Esaais dc Montaigne. " Lcs Qnair&s Contre 
an,"— a curious blunder. 



110 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



no; and that they have mixed up this writing 
of his with others of their own 
E?tfen S ne°de leaven, I desist from that purpose. 
Boetie. But that the memory of the 

author may not suffer with such 
as were not acquainted with his principles, I 
here give them to understand that it was written 
by him in his very early years, and that by way 
of exercise only, as a common theme that has 
been tumbled and tossed about by a thousand 
writers. I make no question but that he 
himself believed what he wrote, being so con- 
scientious that way that he would not so much 
as lie in jest: and I moreover know that, could 
it have been in his own choice, he would rather 
have been born at Venice than at Sarlac, and 
he had reason: but he had another maxim 
sovereignly imprinted in his soul, religiously to 
obey and submit to the laws under which he 
was born. There never was a better citizen, 
nor more anxious for his country's peace; 
neither was there ever a greater enemy to all 
the commotions and innovations of his time: 
so that he would, without doubt, much rather 
have employed his talent to the extinguishing 
of those civil flames than have added any fuel 
to them: for he had a mind framed to the 
model of better ages. But in exchange of this 
serious piece, I will present you with another 
of a more gay and frolic air from the same 
hand, and writ the same age. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

NINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE 
LA BOETIE. 

To Madame de Grammont, Countess of 
Guissen. 

Madam, I offer you nothing of mine, either 
because it is already yours, or because I find 
nothing in my writings worthy of you. But I 
have a great desire that these verses, into what 
part of the world soever they may travel, may 
carry your name in the front, for the honour 
will accrue to them, by having the great Cori- 
sande d'Andoins for their safe conduct. 1 I 
conceive this present, madam, so much the 
more proper for you, both by reason there are 
few ladies in France who are so good judges of 
poetry and make so good use of it as you do ; 
as also that there is none who can give it the 
spirit and life you can, by that incomparable 
voice nature has added to your other perfec- 
tions. These verses, madam, deserve your 
esteem, and you will concur with me in this, 
that Gascony never yielded any with more 



i Diana, Viscountess of Louvigni, surnamcd the Fair 
Corisandc of Andouins, married in J.jlu I'liililjert, Count of 
Grammont andGuichc. who died at the siege of La Fere, in 
1580. Andouins, or Anduins, was a Barony ol Beam, three 
leagues from Pau. The King of Navarre, afterwards 
Henry IV.. fell in love with the fair widow, and at one time 
had even an idea of marrying her. Count Hamilton, in 



invention, finer expression, or that more evi- 
dently show themselves to have flowed from a 
master-hand. And be not jealous then that 
you have but the remainder of what I published 
some years since, under the name of Monsieur 
de Foix, your worthy kinsman; for certainly 
these have something in them more sprightly 
and luxuriant, as being written in a greener 
youth, when he was enflamed with a certain 
noble ardour, madam, of which I will tell you in 
your ear. The others were written since, when 
he was a suitor, in honour of his wife, and 
already smack somewhat of matrimonial cold- 
ness. And, for my part, I am of the same 
opinion with those who hold that poetry appears 
nowhere so gay as in a wanton and irregular 
subject. 

[These nine-and-twenty sonnets that were 
inserted here, are since printed with Boetie 's 
other works. They are very indifferent com- 
positions, being little else than amorous com- 
plaints, expressed in a rough 'style, exhibiting 
the follies and outrages of a restless passion, 
overgorged as it were, with jealousies, fears, 
and suspicions. Indeed, Montaigne himself, 
in the editions subsequent to that of 1588, 
omits them, observing, " These verses are to be 
found elsewhere."] 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

OF MODERATION. 

As though we had an infectious touch, we, by 

our manner of handling, corrupt 

things that in themselves are Whether 

laudable and good. We may too vehemently 

grasp virtue so hard that it be- sought after. 

comes vice, if we embrace it too 

eagerly and with too violent a desire. Those 

who say there is never any excess in virtue, 

forasmuch as it is no virtue when it once 

becomes excess, only play upon words. 



' Mad grow the wise, the just unjust ; 
When e'en to virtue they prescribe i 



This is a subtle consideration in philosophy. 
A man may both be too much in love with 
virtue and be excessive in a just action. Holy 
Writ agrees with this : " Be not wiser than 
you should, but be soberly wise." 3 I have 
known a great man prejudice the opinion men 
had of his religion, by pretending to be devout 



his Epistle to Count Grammont, thus reminds him of his 
illustrious ancestors :— 

" Honneur des rives eloignees 
Oil Corisande vit le jour," &c. 

2 Horace, Epist. i. 615. 

3 Romans, xii. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Ill 



beyond all examples of others of his condition. 1 

I love temperate and moderate nature. An 

immoderate zeal, even for that 

real forThat ate which is S°° (1 ' thou S h il does not 
which is good, offend, does astonish me, and puts 

me to study what name to give 
it. Neither the mother of Pausanias, 2 who was 
the first suggester of her son's death, and lay 
the first stone towards it ; nor Posthumius, the 
dictator, who put his son to death, whom the 
ardour of youth had pushed upon the enemy a 
little before the rest of his squadron ; 3 appear to 
me so just as strange; and I should neither 
advise, nor like to follow, a virtue so savage 
in itself, and that costs so dear. The archer 
that shoots over the mark misses as much as he 
that falls short; and 'tis equally troublesome 
to my eyes to look up at a great light as to 
look down into a dark abyss. Callicles, in 
Plato, 4 says that the extremity of philosophy 
is hurtful, and advises not to dive into it beyond 
the limits of profit; that taken moderately it is 
pleasant and useful, but that in the extreme it 
renders a man brutish and vicious; a contemner 
of religion and the common laws; an enemy 
to civil conversation and all human pleasures ; 
incapable of all public administration ; unfit 
either to assist others or to relieve himself; and 
a fit object to be injured and affronted without 
remedy. He says true, for in its excess it 
enslaves our natural freedom, and by an im- 
pertinent subtlety leads us out of the fair and 
beaten way that nature has traced out for us. 

The love we bear to our wives is 

Love to wives very l awm l an( J yet theology 
restrained by ., .', .. . ' , *, , . °.{ 
divinity. thinks fat to curb and restrain it. 

As I remember, I have read one 
place of St. Thomas of Aquin, where he con- 
demns marriage within any of the forbidden 
degrees, — for this reason, amongst others, that 
there is danger lest the friendship a man bears 
to such a woman should be immoderate ; for if 
the conjugal affection be full and perfect betwixt 
them, as it ought to be, and that it be over 
and above surcharged with that of kindred 



1 It is likelv that Montaigne means Henry III. of 
France. TheCaidinul d'Ossat.writine to Louisa, his queen 
dowager, told her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as 



upon the words of the Car- 
oned, p. 74, torn. i. of the 



too, there is no doubt but such an addition will 
carry the husband beyond the bounds of reason. 5 

Those sciences that regulate 
the manners of men, divinity and Divinity and 

, ., , -nt • philosophy dic- 

piulosophy, will have a say in tateineverj 

everything. There is no action 
so private that can escape their 
inspection and jurisdiction. They are best 
skilled who themselves can regulate and control 
their liberty ; and not be like women who are 
ready enough to expose their persons for an 
amorous embrace, though they are too shy, 
forsooth, to do so to the physician, however 
great the need. Let me, therefore, in behalf 
of these sciences, teach those husbands, if such 
there be, who are too sensual, this lesson — that 
the very pleasures they enjoy in their converse 
with their wives are reproachable, if immode- 
rate; and that a licentious and riotous abuse 
of them is a fault, as much as an illicit embrace. 
Those immodest tricks and postures that the 
first ardour suggests to us in this 'affair are not 
only indecently but prejudicially practised upon 
our wives. Let them at least learn impudence 
from another hand ; they are always apt enough 
for our business, and I, for my part, always 
went the plain way to work. 

Marriage is a solemn and religious con- 
nection, and therefore the pleasure we extract 
thence should be sober and serious, and mixed 
with a certain degree of gravity ; it should be 
a kind of discreet and conscientious pleasure. 
And the chief end of it being generation, some 
make a question whether, when men have 
not that object in view, as when their wives 
are superannuated or already with child, it 
be lawful to embrace them. 'Tis homicide, 
according to Plato; 6 and certain nations (the 
Mahometan amongst others) abominate all 
conjunction with women with child, and so do 
others with women in their courses. Zenobia 
would never admit her husband for more than 
one encounter, after which she left him to his 
own swing for the whole time of her concep- 
tion, and not till after that would again receive 



he walled up. and hv this m< ansstarvd Pan -a ni as, so that 
he died with hunger, &c." The name of Pausunias's 
mother was Alcithea, as we are informed by Thucydides's 
scholiast, who only says that it was reported that when 
they set aliout. walling up the gales of the chapel in whici. 
Pausanias had taken refuge, his mother Alcithea laid the 
first stone. 

3 Opinions differ as to the truth of this matter. Livy 
thinks he has good authority for n-.i. rtiue it. h cause it does 

as T. , Manilas was, ahoul 11)11 vn.-ir.- after his time ; for Man- 
ilas having put his son to death for tli • I i U ■ • cause, obtained 



npcria, if l'ostliniiiius hail Ii.tii the Yost who set so ha • 

■ i i no .-\ampli'. (T. I.nn-, iv. •_»'. and viii. 7.1 — II •., 

■ ■A.-i.-r. Montaigne has Valerius Ma.\ I- on In- - e. 

iresslv that Posthumius . i 
ul to death, ii. 7ii; and Diodorus of Sii ily, xii. 19. 
< In the Oorgias. 

a St. Thomas Aquinas, Socundo Secunda, qmes. 154, art. 9. 
" Laics, viii. 



112 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



him. A noble and worthy example of conjugal 
continency. 1 It was doubtless from some las- 
civious poet, and one that himself was in great 
distress for a little of this sport, that Plato 
borrowed this story: 2 that Jupiter was one 
day so hot upon his wife that, not having so 
much patience as till she could get to the 
couch, he threw her upon the floor, where the 
vehemence of pleasure made him forget the 
great and important resolutions he had but 
newly taken with the rest of the gods in his 
celestial council, and to boast that he had had 
as good a bout as when he got her maiden- 
head unknown to her parents. 

The Kings of Persia were wont to invite their 

wives to the beginning of their 
Wives of the festivals; but when the wine be- 
hoTrecKat gan to work in good earnest, 
their festivals, and that they were to give the 

reins to pleasure, they sent them 
back to their private apartment, that they might 
not participate of their immoderate lust, sending 
for other women in their stead, with whom 
they were not obliged to so great a decorum 
and respect. All pleasures, and all sorts of 
gratifications, are not properly and fitly con- 
ferred upon all sorts of persons. Epaminondas 
had imprisoned a young man for certain de- 
bauches; Pelopidas requested he might be set 
at liberty, which Epaminondas denied to him, 
but granted it at the first word to a wench of 
his, who made the same intercession ; saying, 
" That it was a gratification due to such a one 
as she, but not to a captain." 3 Sophocles being 
joint praetor with Pericles, seeing a fine boy 
pass by, " O ! what a handsome boy is that," 
said he. "It would be well enough for any 
other than a praetor," answered Pericles, " who 
ought not only to have his hands, but his 

eyes chaste." 4 iElius Verus, the 
Conjugal love Emperor, answered his wife, who 
accompanied reproached him for his amours 
with respect. with other women, that he did 

it upon a conscientious account, 
inasmuch as marriage was a state of honour 
and dignity, not of wanton and lascivious 
desire. 5 And our ecclesiastical history preserves 
the memory of that woman in great veneration 
who parted from her husband because she 
would not comply with his indecent and inor- 
dinate desire. In fine, there is no so just and 
lawful pleasure wherein intemperance and excess 
is not to be condemned. 

But, in truth, is not man a most miserable 

creature the while ? It is scarce, 
Man a mise- by his natural condition, in his 

power to taste one pleasure pure 

and entire ; and yet he must be 



Trebellius Pollio, Trig h 



T,jr 



a MontaisiK' here lnu«h= ai Homer without think in? of 
it, for this fiction is taken from the flimJ, xiv. 104. See 
Plato's Republic, iii. 433. If Montaigne had looked into 
Iloincr he would not have been so mistaken as he has been 
in some circumstances of Hits affair. 



contriving doctrines and precepts to curtail that 
little he has. He is not yet wretched enough, 
unless by art and study he augments his own 
misery. 

Fortune miseras auximus arte vias.« 



Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent, 
when she exercises it in lessening the number 
and sweetness of those pleasures that are natu- 
rally our due, as she employs it favourably and 
well in artificially disguising and* tricking out 
the ills of life, to alleviate the sense of them. 
Had I ruled the roast, I should have taken an- 
other and more natural course, which, to say 
the truth, is both convenient and sacred, and 
should, perad venture, have been able to have 
limited it, too; notwithstanding that both our 
spiritual and corporal physicians, as by compact 
betwixt themselves, can find no other way to 
cure, nor other remedy for the infirmities of the 
body and the soul, than what is oft-times worse 
than the disease, by tormenting us more, and 
by adding to our misery and pain. To this end 
watchings, fastings, hair-shirts, remote and 
solitary banishments, perpetual imprisonments, 
whips, and other afflictions, have been intro- 
duced amongst men: but so that they should 
carry a sting with them, and be real afflictions 
indeed ; and not fall out so as it once did to one 
Gallio, who having been sent an exile to the 
Isle of Lesbos, news was not long after brought 
to Rome that he there lived as merry as the day 
was long; and that what had been enjoined 
him for a penance turned to his greatest plea- 
sure and satisfaction. Whereupon the Senate 
thought fit to recal him home to his wife and 
family, and confine him to his own house, to 
accommodate their punishment to his feeling 
and apprehension. 7 For to him whom fasting 
would make more healthful and more sprightly, 
and to him to whose palate fish was more ac- 
ceptable than flesh, these would be no proper nor 
salutary recipe; no more than in the other sort 
of physic, where the drugs have no effect upon 
him who swallows them with appetite and plea- 
sure. The bitterness of the potion, and the 
abhorrence of the patient, are necessary circum- 
stances to the operation. The nature that 
would eat rhubarb like buttered turnips, would 
frustrate the use'and virtue of it; it must be 
something to trouble and disturb the stomach 
that must purge and cure it. And here the 
common rule, that things are cured by their 
contraries, fails ; for in this, one ill is cured by 
another. 



s Plutarch, Instruct, to those zcho manage State Jlffairs. 
* Cicero, Offie., i. 40. 
6 .ffilian. Spart. in vita. 
o Propertius, iii. 7. 32. 
i Tacitus, Annals, vi. 2. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



This notion somewhat resembles the ancient 
one, of thinking to gratify the 
taroan C flesh °a g ous an d nature by massacre and 
practice for- murder; an opinion once uni- 
Sfreligionr 8 ' versal] y received in all reli- 
gions, even in the time of our fa- 
thers. Amurath, at the taking of the Isthmus, 
immolated six hundred young Greeks to his 
father's soul, as a propitiatory sacrifice for the 
sins of the deceased. And in the new coun- 
tries discovered in this age of ours, which are 
pure, and virgins yet, in comparison of ours, 
this practice is in some measure everywhere 
received. All their idols reek 

taKe'w 8 ' 1 With llUman blo " od ' n0t with ™t 
world. various examples of horrid cru- 

elty. Some they burn alive, and 
half-broiled take them off the coals to tear 
out their hearts and entrails; others, even 
women, they flay alive, and with their bloody 
skins clothe and disguise others. Neither are 
we without great examples of constancy and 
resolution in this affair. The poor souls that 
are to be sacrificed, old men, women, and chil- 
Wonderfui dren, go about some days before 

firmness of to beg alms for the offering of 
those who are their sacrifice, and present them- 

saenficed there. , ■ , V , 

selves, singing and dancing about 

with the spectators, to the slaughter. 

The ambassadors of the king of Mexico, 

setting forth to Fernando Cortez the power and 

greatness of their master, after having told him 

that he had thirty vassals, of whom each was 

able to raise an hundred thousand fighting men, 

and that he kept his court in the fairest and best 

„, ,. . fortified city under the sun, added 

The prodigious .. , . ., * , , ,- , 

number sacri- at last ; that he yearly onered to 
ficed by the the gods fifty thousand men. In- 
Mexico!" deecI > tne y affirmed that he main- 

tained a continual war with some 
potent neighbouring nations, not only to keep 
the young men in exercise, but principally to 
have wherewithal to furnish his sacrifices with 
his prisoners of war. At a certain town in 
another place, for the welcome of 
paid VyThe t,,e sa id Cortez, they sacrificed 
Americans to fitly men at once. I will tell you 

Cort'e a a nd ° tllis one tale more ' and l have 

done. Some of these people being 
beaten by him, sent to acknowledge him, and 
to treat with him of a peace, whose messengers 
carried him three sorts of presents, which they 
presented in these terms : — " Behold, lord, here 
are five slaves; if thou art a furious god, that 
feedest upon flesh and blood, eat these, and we 
will bring thee more; if thou art an affable 
god, behold here incense and feathers ; if thou 
art a man, take these fowls and these fruits that 
we have brought thee." 



J Plutarch, in vita, c. 8. 

s Id., Life of Flaminius, c. 3. 

3 Livy, xxxi. 34. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

OF CANNIBALS. 

When Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, invaded Italy, 
having viewed and considered the order of the 
army the Romans sent out to meet him, — "I 
know not," said he, " what kind of barbarians 
(for so the Greeks called all other nations) these 
may be ; but the disposition of this army that I 
see has nothing of the barbarian in it."' As 
much said the Greeks of that which Flaminius 
brought into their country: 2 and Philip, be- 
holding, from an eminence, the order and 
disposition of the Roman camp, led into his 
kingdom by Publius Sulpitius Galba, spoke to 
the same effect. 3 By which it appears how 
cautious men ought to be of taking tilings upon 
trust from vulgar opinion, and that we are to 
judge by the eye of reason, and not from com- 
mon report I have long had a man in my 
house that lived ten or twelve 
years in the new world discovered Reflections on 
in these latter days, and in that oAhe'new^ 
part of it where Villegaignon world, 
landed, which he called Antar- 
tic France. 4 This discovery of so vast a coun- 
try seems to be of very great consideration ; and 
we are not sure that hereafter there may not 
be another found, so many wiser men than we 
having been deceived in this. I am afraid our 
eyes are bigger than our bellies, and that we 
huve more curiosity than capacity ; for we grasp 
at all, but catch nothing but air. 

Plato 5 brings in Solon, relating that he had 
heard from the Priests of Sais, in _, . . 
Egypt, that of old, and before the Atlantis 
deluge, there was a great island, 
called Atlantis, situate directly at the mouth 
of the Strait of Gibraltar, which contained 
more ground than both Africa and Asia put 
together ; that the kings of that country, who 
not only possessed that isle, but extended their 
dominion so far into the continent that they 
had a country as large as Africa to Egypt, and 
as long as Europe to Tuscany, had attempted 
to encroach even upon Asia, and to subjugate 
all the nations that border upon the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, as far as the Great Gulph; 6 and to 
that effect had over-run all Spain, the Gauls, 
and Italy, as far as Greece, where the Athenians 
stopped the torrent of their arms: but some 
time after both the Athenians, they, and their 
island, were swallowed by the flood. It is very 
likely that this violent eruption 



said, for instance, that the 
then cut off Sicily from Italy ; 



i Brazil, where he arrived in 1557. 
■ In the Timaus. 
I The Black Sea. 



114 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Hsc loca vi quondam et vasta convulsa i 



' 'Tis said those places by the o'erbearjng flood, 
Too great and violent to be withstood, 
Split, and were thus from one another rent, 
Which were before one solid continent." 



Cyprus from Syria ; the isle of Negropont from 
the Continent of Beeotia ; and elsewhere, united 
lands that were separate before, by filling up 
the channel betwixt them with sand and mud ; 

Sterilesque diii palus, aptaque remis, 
Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum. 2 

"Where once bare remigahle marshes, now 
Peed neighb'ring cities and admit the plough." 

But there is no great appearance that this isle 
was this new world so lately discovered; for 
that almost touched upon Spain, 3 and it were 
an incredible effect of an inundation to have 
carried so prodigious a mass above twelve hun- 
dred leagues : besides that our modern navi- 
gators have already almost discovered it to be 
no island, but firm land and continent, with the 
East Indies on the one side, and the land under 
the two poles on the other ; or, if it be separated 
from them, 'tis by so narrow a strait that it 
never more deserves the name of an island for 
that. It should seem that, in this great body, 
there are two sorts of motions, the one natural, 
and the other febrific, as there are in ours. 
When I consider the impression that my own 
river, Dordoigne, has made, in my time, on the 
right bank of its descent, and that, in twenty 
years, it has gained so much, and undermined 
the foundation of so many houses, I perceive 
it to be an extraordinary agitation; for, had it 
always gone on at this rate, or were hereafter to 
do it, the aspect of the world would be totally 
changed. But rivers alter in this respect, some- 
times spreading out against the one side, and 
sometimes against the other, and sometimes 
quietly keeping the channel. I do not speak 
of sudden, inundations, the causes of which 
every body understands. In Medoc, by the 
sea-shore, the Sieur d'Arsac, my brother, had 
an estate, he had there, buried under the sands 
which the sea vomits before it; the tops of 
some houses are yet to be seen, but his good 
land is converted into pitiful barren pasturage. 
The inhabitants of the place affirm that, of 
late years, the sea has driven so vehemently 
upon them that they have lost four leagues of 
land. These sands are her harbingers : and we 
now see great heaps of moving sand that march 
half a league before her, and take possession 
of the land. 

The other testimony from antiquity, to which 
some would apply this discovery of the new 



1 JEncid, iii. 414. 

2 Horace, de Art. Poet. 65. 

a Plato does not say any thing of the sort. The reader 



world, is in Aristotle; at least, if that little, 
book of unheard-of miracles be his. He there 
tells us that certain Carthaginians, having 
crossed the Atlantic sea, without the Straits of 
Gibraltar, and sailed a very long time, dis- 1 
covered, at last, a great and fruitful island, all 
covered over with wood, and watered with 
several broad and deep rivers, far remote from 
any continent, and that they, and others, after 
them, allured by the pleasantness and fertility 
of the soil, went thither, with their wives and 
children, and began to plant a colony. But 
the senate of Carthage, perceiving their people, 
by little and little, to grow thin, issued out an 
express prohibition, that no one, upon pain of 
death, should transport themselves thither ; and 
also drove out the new inhabitants, fearing, 'tis 
said, lest, in process of time, they should so 
multiply as to supplant themselves and ruin 
their state. But this relation of Aristotle's 
does no more agree with our new found lands 
than the other. This man that I have is a 
plain ignorant fellow, and, therefore, the more 
likely to tell truth : for though 
your better-bred sort of men are The .qualities 

' , ..... requisite in an 

much more curious in their ob- historian, 
servation, and discover a great 
deal more, they gloss upon it, and, to give 
the greater weight to what they deliver, 
and allure your belief, they cannot forbear a 
little to alter the story. They never represent 
things to you simply as they are, but rather as 
they appeared to them, or as they would have 
them appear to you, and, to gain the reputation 
of men of judgment, and the better to induce 
your faith, are willing to help out the business 
with something more than is really true, of 
their own invention. Now, in this case, we 
should either have a man of irreproachable 
veracity, or so simple that he has not where- 
withal to contrive and to give a colour of truth 
to false relations, and that can have no ends in 
forging an untruth. Such a one is mine ; and, 
besides the little suspicion the man lies under, 
he has divers times brought me several seamen 
and merchants that, at the same time, went 
the same voyage. I shall, therefore, content 
myself with his information, without enquiring 
what the cosmographers say to the business. 
We need topographers to trace out to us the 
particular places where they have been ; but 
for having had this advantage over us, to have 
seen the Holy Land, they would 
have the privilege, forsooth, to tell $3£"5o*SSfi 
us stories of all the other parts of on a subject 
the world besides. I would have £? Vtfu they 
every one write what he knows, 
and as much as he knows, but no more ; and 
that not in this only, but in all other subjects : 
for such a person may have some particular 
knowledge and experience of the nature of 



will observe in flu- following passages pcvrr.-il geographical 
blunders, which were, doubtless, spread abroad by the first 
travellers in America. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



115 



such a river, or such a fountain, that as to other 
things knows no more than what every body 
does, and yet, to keep a clutter with this little 
pittance of his, will undertake to write the 
whole body of physics: a vice whence many 
great inconveniences derive their original. 
Now, to return to my subject, 1 find that 
there is nothing barbarous and 
Barbarism, savage in this nation, by any 

taki'l/iVr tiling that I can gather, except- 

ing that every one gives the title 
of barbarism to every thing that is not in use 
in his own country: as, indeed, we have no 
other level of truth and reason than the example 
and idea of the opinions and customs of the 
place wherein we live. There is always the 
perfect religion, there the perfect government, 
there the perfect every thing. This nation are 
savages, in the same way that we say fruits are 
wild, which nature produces of herself, and by 
her own ordinary progress ; whereas, in truth, we 
ought rather to call those wild whose natures we 
have changed by our artifice, and diverted from 
the common order. In those, the genuine, 
most useful, and natural virtues and properties, 
are vigorous and active, which we have dege- 
nerated in these, by accommodating them to 
the pleasure of our own corrupted palate. And 
yet, for all this, our taste confesses a flavour 
and delicacy, excellent even to emulation of 
the best of ours, in several fruits those countries 
abound with, without art or culture ; nor is it 
reasonable that art should gain the point over 
our great and powerful mother, Nature. We 
have so oppressed her beauty and the rich- 
ness of her works, by our inventions, that we 
have almost smothered her; but, where she 
shines in her own purity and proper lustre, she 
1 marvellously baffles and disgraces all our vain 
and frivolous attempts. 



Et volucrcs nulla duleius arte canunt.i 
"Best thrives the ivy when no culture spoils, 
The strawb'ry most delights in shaded soils; 
Kirds, in wilii notes, their throats harmonious stretch 
VVitli greater art than art itself can teach." 

Our utmost endeavours cannot arrive at so 
much as to imitate the nest of the least of 
i birds,- its contexture, its elegance, its conve- 
nience ; not so much as the web of a contemptible 
spider. "All things," says Plato, "are pro- 
duced either by nature, or by fortune, or by 
art; the greatest and most beautiful by the 
one, or the other of the former, the least and 
the most imperfect by the last." 2 

These nations then seem to me terbe so far 

barbarous, as having received but 

In what sense very little form and fashion from 

'l.v.o.e'' " r 'r art and human invention, and 

barbarians. being consequently not much 

remote from their original sim- 



plicity. The laws of nature govern them still, 
not as yet much vitiated with any mixture of 
ours; nay, in such purity that I am sometimes 
troubled we were no sooner acquainted with 
these people, and that they were not discovered 
in those better times, when there were men 
much more able to judge of them than we are. 
I am sorry that Lycurgus and Plato had no 
knowledge of them : for, to my apprehension, 
what we now see in those natives docs not only 
surpass all the images with which the poets 
have adorned the golden age, and all their 
inventions in feigning a happy state of man, 
but moreover the fancy, and even the wish and 
desire of philosophy itself. So native and so 
pure a simplicity as we by experience see to be 
in thern, could never enter into their imagina- 
tion, nor could they ever believe that human 
society could have been maintained with so 
little artifice. Should I tell Plato that it is a 
nation wherein there is no man- 
ner of traffic, no knowledge of SaSSpSSK 
letters, no science of numbers, 
no name of magistrate, nor political superiority ; 
no use of service, riches or poverty; no con- 
tracts, no successions, no dividends, no pro- 
perties, no employments, but those of leisure; 
no respect of kindred, but in common ; no 
clothing, no agriculture, no metal, no use of 
corn or wine ; and where so much as the vSry 
words that signify lying, treachery, dissimula- 
tion, avarice, envy, detraction, and pardon, 
were never heard of 1 — how much would he find 
his imaginary republic short of this perfection ? 
Viri a diis reSenles? " Fresh from the hands 
of the gods." 

Hos natura modos primum dcdit.* 
"These were the manners first by nature taught." 

As to the rest, they live in a country beautiful 
and pleasant, and so temperate, 
as my intelligence informs me, their'cHmate! 
that 'tis very rare to hear of a 
sick person there; and they moreover assure 
me that they never saw any of the natives 
either paralytic, blear-eyed, toothless, or crooked 
with age. The situation of their country is 
along the sea-shore, and enclosed on the side 
towards the land with great and high moun- 
tains, having about an hundred leagues in 
breadth between. They have great store of 
fish and flesh meat that have no 
resemblance to ours, which they «J , ^j. r jJfoj| s i n H 
eat without any other cookery their bread! 
than plain boiling, roasting, or 
broiling. The first that carried a horse thither, 
though in several other voyages he had con- 
tracted an acquaintance and familiarity with 
them, put them into so terrible a fright at his 
appearance so mounted, that they killed him 
with their arrows before they could come to 
discover who he was. Their buildings, which 



i Propertius, i. 2, 10. 

a On Laws, x. 

3 Seneca, Eiiist. 90. This quotation only appears in the 



copy of the Essays whence was printed M. Naigeon'i 

edition. Montaiixne omitted it elsewhere, probably on ac- 
count of the quotation which immediately follows. 
* Virg. Ocorg. 11. -20. 



116 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



are very long, and of capacity to hold two or 
three hundred people, are made of the barks of 
tall trees, reared with one end upon the ground, 
and leaning against and supporting one another 
at the top, like some of our barns, of which 
the covering hangs down to the very ground, 
and serves for the side walls. They have wood 
so hard that they cleave it into swords, and 
make grills of it to broil their meat. Their 
beds are of cotton, hung swinging from the 
roof, like our seamen's hammocks: for every 
one, the wives lying apart from their hus- 
bands. They rise with the sun, and so soon as 
they are up eat for all day : for they have no 
more meals but that. They do not drink then 
(as Suidas reports of some other people of the 
east, that never drink at their meals), but drink 
very often in the day, and sometimes a great 
deal. Their liquor is made of a certain root, 
and is as red as our claret; and this they never 
drink but luke-warm. It will keep only two 
or three days, has a sharp taste, is nothing 
heady, but very wholesome to the stomach, 
laxative for strangers, and a very pleasant 
beverage to such as are used to it. Instead of 
bread they make use of a certain white matter, 
like coriander comfits: I have tasted of it, 
the taste is sweet, but somewhat insipid. The 

whole day is spent in dancing. 
Their pastimes. The young men go a hunting 

after wild beasts with bows and 
arrows, and one part of their women are em- 
ployed in preparing their drink the while, which 
is their chief employment. Some of their old 
men in the morning, before they fall to eating, 
preach to the whole family, walking to and 
fro from the one end of the house to the other, 
several times repeating the same sentence, till 
they have finished their round (for their houses 
are at least a hundred yards long) ; enjoining 
valour towards their enemies and love towards 
their wives are the two heads of his discourse, 
never failing, as a burden, to put them in mind 
that 'tis to their wives they are obliged for 
providing them their drink warm and relishing. 
The fashion of their beds, ropes, swords, and 
the wooden bracelets, which they tie about their 
wrists when they go to fight, and of their great 
canes, bored hollow at one end, by the sound 
of which they keep the cadence of their 
dances, is to be seen in several places, and 
amongst others at my house. They shave all 
over, and much more closely than we, without 
any other razor than one of wood or of stone. 

They believe the immortality of 

They believe the s u j nd t)at th se h 
the immortality . ' , ,, „.. , 

of the soul. have merited well of the gods are 
lodged in that part of heaven 
the sun rises, and the accursed in the 
west. They have a kind of priests 
and prophets that rarely present 
themselves to the people, having 
their abode in the mountains. 
At their arrival there is a great 

cies prove false. f eas t and solemn assembly of 



many villages made, that is, all the neigh- 
bouring families, for every house, as I have 
described it, makes a village, and are about a 
French league distant from one another. This 
prophet declaims to them in public, exhorting 
them to virtue and their duty; but all their 
ethics consist in these two articles — resolution 
in war and affection to their wives. He also 
prophesies to them events to come, and the 
issues they are to expect from their enterprizes, 
prompts them to, or diverts them from, war. 
But let him look to't: for if he fail in his 
divination, and anything happen otherwise 
than he has foretold, he is cut into a thousand 
pieces, if he be caught and condemned for a 
false prophet; and for that reason, if any of 
them finds himself mistaken, he is no more to 
be heard of. Divination is a gift of God, and 
therefore to abuse it ought to be a punishable 
imposture. Amongst the Scythians, when 
their diviners failed in the pro- 
mised effect, they were laid, False prophets 

, , , ' . J ' burnt by the 

bound hand and foot, upon carts Scythians, 
laden with firewood, and drawn 
with oxen, on which they were burnt to death. 1 
Such as only meddle with things subject to the 
conduct of human capacity are excusable in 
doing the best they can ; but those other sort 
of people that come to delude us with assu- 
rances of an extraordinary faculty beyond our 
understanding, ought they not to be punished 
for the temerity of their imposture, when they 
do not make good the effect of their promise ! 

They have wars with the nations that live 
farther within the main land, beyond their 
mountains, to which they go naked, and with- 
out other arms than their bows and wooden 
swords, pointed at one end like the head of a 
javelin. The obstinacy of their battles is 
wonderful : they never end without great effu- 
sion of blood ; for as to running away, or fear, 
they know not what it is. Every one for a 
trophy brings home the head of an enemy he 
has killed, which he fixes over the door of his 
house. After havino- a lonp; time 



Their priests 
and prophets, 
their morality, 
and how they 
are treatotl, if 
their prophe- 



and given them all the luxuries why. 
they can think of, he to whom 
the prisoner belongs invites a great assembly of 
his kindred and friends, who being come, he 
ties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner, 
of which at a distance, out of his reach, he 
holds the one end himself, and gives to the 
friend he loves best the other arm, to hold after 
the same manner; which being done, they two, 
in the presence of all the assembly, dispatch 
him with their swords. After that they roast 
him, eat him amongst them, and send some 
chops to their absent friends ; which never- 
theless they do not do, as some think, for 
nourishment, as the Scythians anciently did, 
but as a representation of an extreme revenge, 
as will immediately appear. Having observed 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



117 



the Portuguese, who were in league with their 
enemies, to inflict another sort of death upon 
any of them they took prisoners, which was to 
set them up to the girdle in the earth, to shoot 
at the remaining part till it was stuck full of 
arrows, and then to hang them; they who 
thought those people of the other world (as 
men who had sown the knowledge of a great 
many vices amongst their neighbours, and were 
much greater masters in all kind of malignity 
than they,) did not exercise this sort of revenge 
without reason, and that it must needs be more 
painful than theirs, began to leave their old 
way and to follow this. I am not sorry that 
we should here take notice of the barbarous 
horror of so cruel an act, but that, seeing so 
clearly into their faults, we should be so blind 
to our own. I conceive there is more barbarity 
in eating a man alive than when he is dead ; 
in tearing a body that is yet perfectly sentient 
limb from limb, by racks and torments, in roast- 
ing it by degrees, causing it to be bit and 
worried by dogs and swine (as we have not 
only read, but lately seen, not amongst invete- 
rate and mortal enemies, but amongst neighbours 
and fellow-citizens, and, what is worse, under 
colour of piety and religion), than to roast and 
eat him after he is dead. 

Chrysippus 1 and Zeno, chiefs of the Stoic 
sect, were of opinion that there was no harm 
in making use of our dead carcasses, in what 
kind soever, for our necessity, and in feeding 
upon them too; as our ancestors, who, being 
besieged by Caesar in the city of Alexia, resolved 
to sustain the famine of the siege with the bodies 
of their old men, women, and other persons, 
who were incapable of bearing arms. 

And the physicians made no scruple of employ- 
ing it to all sorts of use, either to apply it out- 
wardly, or to give it inwardly for the health of 
the patient. But there never was any opinion 
so irregular as to excuse treachery, disloyalty, 
tyranny and cruelty, which are our familiar 
vices. We may, then, well call these people 
barbarous, in respect to the rules of reason ; but 
not in respect to ourselves, who, in all sorts of 
barbarity, exceed them. Their 
The savages of wars are throughout noble and 

America make , B . 

war after a very generous, and carry as much ex- 
noble manner, cuse and fair pretence as this 
hdman malady is capable of; 
having with them no other foundation than the 
sole jealousy of valour. Their disputes are not 
for the conquests of new lands, those they 
; already possess being so fruitful by nature as to 
supply them, without labour or concern, with 
all things necessary, in such abundance that 



> Laerlius, in vili. 



1 Juvenal, xv. 93. 



they have no need to enlarge their borders. 
And they are moreover happy in . 
this, that they only covet so much t Y on ' r "' 
as their natural necessities re- 
quire: all beyond that is superfluous to them. 
Men of the same age generally call one another 
brothers, those who are younger, . 
sons and daughters, and the old to one^notbei! 
men are fathers to all. These 
leave to their heirs in common this full posses- 
sion of goods, without any manner of division, 
or other title than what nature bestows upon 
her creatures in bringing them into the world. 
If their neighbours pass the mountains, and 
come to attack them, and obtain a victory, all 
the victors gain by it is glory , „ , , 

i 7 *u j / cu ■ All that they 

only, and the advantage of having got is K i or y by 
proved themselves the better in any victory 
valour and virtue : for they never ^f r ^' e u r rs . 
meddle with the goods ot the con- 
quered, but presently return into their own 
country, where they have no want of any ne- 
cessary; nor of this greatest of all goods, to 
know how to enjoy their condition happily, and 
to be content. And these in turn do the same. 
They demand of their prisoners no other ransom 
than acknowledgment that they are overcome. 
But there is not one found in an age that will 
npt rather choose to die than make such a con- 
cession ; or either by word or look recede from 
the grandeur of an invincible courage. There 
is not a man amongst them who had not rather 
be killed and eaten, than so much as to open his 
mouth to entreat he may not. They use them 
with all liberality and freedom, to the end their 
lives may be so much the dearer to them ; but 
frequently entertain them withal with menaces 
of their approaching death, of the torments they 
are to suffer, of the preparations that are making 
in order to it, of the mangling their limbs, and 
of the feast that is to be made, .where their 
carcase is to be the only dish. All which they 
do to no other end but only to extort some 
gentle or submissive word from them, or to 
frighten them so as to make them run away : so 
that they may obtain this advantage, that they 
had terrified them, and that their constancy was 
shaken. And indeed, if rightly taken, it is in 
this point only that a true victory consists. 

Victoria nulla est, 
Quam qua; confessos aniino quoque subjugat hostes. 3 

" No victory's so true and so complete, 
As when the vanquish'd own their just defeat." 

The Hungarians, a very warlike people, 
never pursued their point farther than to reduce 
the enemy to their discretion ; for, having 
forced this confession from them, they let them 
go without injury or ransom, excepting, at the 
most, to make them engage their word never to 
bear arms against them again. We get several 
advantages over our enemies that are borrowed, 



i Claudian, Dc Scito Consul Honorii, i-18. 



118 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and not truly our own : 'tis the quality of a 
porter, and no effect of valour, to have stronger 
arms and legs ; 'tis a dead and spiritless quality 
to draw up well ; 'tis a stroke of fortune to 
make our enemy stumble, or to dazzle him with 
the light of the sun ; 'tis a trick of science and 
art, which may happen in any cowardly block- 
head, to be a good fencer. The 
meftheTrue estimation and value of a man 
merit of a man, consist in the heart and in the 
and his supe- w ill : there his true honour lives. 

rionry over his 17 , ■ . , -,. t . ,., , 

feilow-crea- Valour is stability, not 01 legs and 

tures. arms, but of the courage and the 

soul ; it does not lie in the good- 
ness of our horse, or of our arms, but in our- 
selves. He that falls, firm in his courage, — Si 
succiderit, de genu pugnat ;' " If his legs fail 
him, fights upon his knees;" he who, despite 
the danger of death near at hand, abates nothing 
of his assurance; who, dying, does yet dart at 
his enemy a fierce and disdainful look, is over- 
come, not by us, but by fortune : he is killed, 
not conquered ; the most valiant 2 are sometimes 
_ , . the most unfortunate. There are 

Defeats that , c . . ■ , . 

are more meri- some defeats more triumphant 
torious than than victories. Those four sister- 
{Jictories 681 victories, the fairest the sun ever 
beheld, of Salamis, Platea, My- 
cale, and Sicily, never opposed all their unitefl 
glories to the single glory of the discomfiture 
of King Leonidas and his heroes at the Pass of 
Thermopylae. Who 'ever ran with a more glo- 
rious desire and greater ambition to the win- 
ning, than the Captain Ischolas to the certain 
loss of a battle 1 Who ever set about with more 
ingenuity and eagerness to secure his safety 
than -he did to assure his ruin 1 He was ordered 
to defend a certain pass of Peloponnesus against 
the Arcadians, which, from the nature of the 
place and the inequality of forces, finding it 
utterly impossible for him to do, and seeing 
clearly that all who presented themselves to the 
enemy must certainly be left upon the place ; 
and, on the other hand, reputing it unworthy 
of his own virtue and magnanimity, and of the 
Lacedaemonian name, to^fail in his duty, he 
chose a mean betwixt these two extremes, after 
this manner : the youngest and most active of 
his men he preserved for the service and defence 
of their country, and therefore sent them back ; 
and with the rest, whose loss would be of less 
consideration, he resolved to make good the 
pass, and, with the death of them, to make the 
enemy buy their entry as dear as possibly he 
could. And so it fell out ; for, being presently 
encompassed on all sides by the Arcadians, after 
having made a great slaughter of the enemy, 
he and his men were all cut in pieces. 3 Is 
there any trophy dedicated to conquerors which 
is not much more due to those who were thus 
overcome 1 The part that true conquering has 



' Seneca, de Praiiid., 
cederiL 
a Seneca, De Const. St 



c. 2. The text has etiam si 



to play lies in the encounter, not in the coming 
off; the honour of valour consists in fighting, 
not in subduing^ 

But to return to my story. These prisoners 

are so far from discovering the 

least weakness for all the terrors Theconstancy 

i . , . .i ,.1 . of those savages 

can be represented to thein, that that are taken 

on the contrary, during the two prisoners, 
or three months that they are 
kept, they always appear with a cheerful coun- 
tenance ; importune their masters to make haste 
to bring them to the test ; defy, rail at them, 
and reproach them with cowardice, and the 
number of battles they have lost against those 
of their country. I have a song 
made by one of these prisoners, The martial 
wherein he bids them come all ^» a °^ e °ri- 
and dine upon him, and welcome, soners. ° 
for they shall withal eat their 
own fathers and grandfathers, whose flesh has 
served to feed and nourish him. " These 
muscles," says he, " this flesh, and these veins, 
are your own. Poor fools that you are, you 
little think that the substance of your ancestors' 
limbs is here yet : taste it well, and you will 
find in it the relish of your own flesh." In 
which song there is to be observed an invention 
that smacks nothing of the barbarian. Those 
that paint these people dying after this manner, 
represent the prisoner spitting in the face of his 
executioners, and making at them a wry mouth. 
And 'tis most certain that, to the very last 
gasp, they never cease to brave and defy them 
both in word and gesture. In plain truth, these 
men are very savage in comparison of us, for, 
of necessity, they must either be absolutely so, 
or else we are savages ; for there is a vast dif- 
ference betwixt their manners and ours. 

The men there have several wives, and so 
much the greater number by how 
much they have the greater repu- The : wives i of 

„ J , ° . .. . r the Cannibals. 

tation for valour, and it is one The nature of 
very remarkable virtue their their jealousy, 
women have, that the same en- 
deavours our wives jealousy use to hinder and 
divert us from the friendship and familiarity of 
other women, these employ to acquire it for 
their husbands; being, above all things, solici- 
tous of their husband's honour, 'tis their chiefest 
care to procure for him the most companions 
in his affections they can, forasmuch as it is a 
testimony of their husbands' valour.' Ours will 
cry out that 'tis monstrous : it is not so ; 'tis a 
truly matrimonial virtue, though of the iiighest 
form. In the Bible, Sarah, Leah, and Rachel, 
and the wives of Jacob, gave the most beautiful 
of their handmaids to their husbands; Livia 
promoted the appetites of Augustus to her own 
prejudice; and Stratonice, the wife of King 
Dejotarus, not only gave up a fair young maid 
that served her, to her husband's embraces, but, 



a Diodnrus Sic, xv. 7; where the action of Ischolas is 
compared to that of Kinjr Leonidas, which Montaigne ex- 
tols above the must celebrated victories. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



119 



moreover, carefully brought up the children he 
had by her, and assisted them in the succession 
to their father's crown. 1 

And, that it may not be supposed that all this 
is done by a simple and servile observance of 
their common practice, or by any authoritative 
impression of their ancient custom, without 
judgment or reason, or, from having a soul so 
stupid that it cannot contrive what else to do, 
I must here give you some touches of their 
sufficiency in point of understanding. Besides 
what I repeated to you before, which was one 
of their songs of war, I have another, a love- 

A )ove-son g "f^ *f \l S '?l ^ = " ^ 

of theirs. adder, stay, that, by thy pattern, 

my sister may draw the fashion 
and work of a rich belt I would present to my 
beloved ; so may thy beauty and the excellent 
order of thy scales be for ever preferred before all 
other serpents." The first couplet is the burthen 
of the song. Now I have conversed enough 
with poetry to judge thus much : that not only 
there is nothing barbarous in this composition, 
but, moreover, that it is perfectly anacreontic. 
Indeed, their language is soft, of a pleasing 
accent, and something bordering upon the Greek 
ma .,„ rao . terminations. Three of these 
the savages people, not foreseeing how dear 
who came to their knowledge of the corrup- 

of r ou C r e ma°n USht tions of this P art °f the world 
ners. will, one day, cost their happi- 

ness and repose, and that the 
effect of this commerce will be their ruin; 
which, I suppose, is in a very fair way (mise- 
rable men, to suffer themselves to be deluded 
with desire of novelty, and to have left the 
serenity of their own heaven to come so far to 
gaze at ours !), went to Rouen, at tbe time that 
the late King Charles the Ninth was there. 
The king himself talked to them a good while, 
and they were made to see our fashions, our 
pomp, and the form of a. great city; after 
which some one asked their opinion, and would 
know of them, what of all the things they had 
seen they found most to be admired 1 To which 
they made answer, three things, of which I 
have forgot the third, and am vexed at it, but 
two I yet remember. They said that, in the 
first place, tiiey thought it very strange that so 
many tall men wearing beards, strong and well 
armed, who were about the king ('tis like, they 
meant the Swiss of the guard), should submit 
to obey a child, and that they did not rather 
choose out one amongst themselves to command : 
secondly, (they have a way of speaking in their 
language, to call men the half of one another,) 
that they had observed that there were, amongst 
lie, men full and crammed with all manner of 
luxuries, whilst, in the mean time, their halves 
were begging at their doors, lean and half- 
starved with hunger and poverty ; and thought 
it strange that these necessitous halves were 
able to suffer so great an inequality and injus- 
tice, and that they did not take the others by 



Plutarch, Virtuous dcciln of women. 



the throats, or set fire to their houses. I talked 
to one of them a long while, but I had an 
interpreter, who followed so ill, and whose 
stupidity kept him from understanding my 
questions so almost entirely that 
- ,uld get nothing out of him of #%?%%>, 
any moment. Asking him what to Montaigne. 
advantage he reaped from the 
superiority he had amongst his own people — 
for he was a captain, and our mariners called 
him king, — he told me, to march at the head of 
them to war; and demanding of him, farther, 
how many men he had to follow him 7 he 
showed me a space of ground, to signify as 
many as could march in such a compass; which 
might be four or five thousand men ; and, 
putting the question to him, whether or no his 
authority expired with the war] he told me 
this remained ; that when he went to visit the 
villages in his dependency, they cleared him 
paths through the thick of their woods, through 
which he might pass at his ease. All this does 
not sound very ill, but then, forsooth, they 
wear no breeches. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THAT A MAN IS SOBERLY TO JUDGE OF DIVINE 
ORDINANCES. 

Things unknown are the principal and true 
field of imposture, forasmuch as, Tne subjects of 
in the first place, their very imposture, 
strangeness lends them credit; 
and, moreover, by not being subjected to our 
ordinary reason, they deprive us of the means 
to question and dispute them. On which 
account, says Plato, 2 it is much more easy to 
satisfy the hearers, when speaking of the nature 
of the gods, than of the nature of men, because 
the ignorance of the auditory affords a fair and 
large career, and all manner of liberty in the 
handling of recondite things ; and thence it 
comes to pass that nothing is so firmly believed 
as what we least know : nor any people so 
confident as those who entertain us with fables, 
such as your alchymists, judicial astrologers, 
fortune-tellers, physicians, and id genus omne. 
To whom I could, willingly, if I" durst, join a 
set of people that take upon them to interpret 
and controul the designs of God himself, making 
a business of finding out the cause of every 
accident, and of prying into the secrets of the 
divine will, there to discover the incomprehen- 
sible motives of his work. And although thy 
variety and the continual discordance of events 
throw them from corner to corner, and toss 
them from east to west, yet do they still persist 
in their vain inquisition, and, with the same, 
pencil, paint black and white. In a nation of 
the Indies, there is this commendable custom, 
that when any tiling befals them amiss in an/ 



120 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



No authority 
can be ascribed 
to ovir religion 
from events. 



encounter or battle, they publicly ask pardon 
of the sun, who is their God, as having com- 
mitted an unjust action, always imputing their 
god or evil fortune to the divine justice, and 
to that submitting their own judgment and 
reason. 'Tis enough tor a Chris- 
tian to believe that all things 
come from God, to receive them 
with acknowledgment of his 
divine and inscrutable wisdom, 
and thankfully to accept and receive them 
with what face soever they may present them- 
selves. But I do not approve of what I see in 
use, that is, to seek to conform and support our 
religion by the prosperity of our enterprises. 
Our belief has other foundation enough without 
going about to authorise it by events ; for the 
people being accustomed to such arguments as 
these, so plausible, and so fitted to their own 
taste, it is to be feared lest, when they fail of 
success, they should also stagger in their faith. 
As in the war, wherein we are now engaged, 
upon the account of religion, those who had 
the better in the affair of Rochelabeille, 1 making 
great brags of that success, as an infallible 
approbation of their cause, when they came 
afterwards to excuse their misfortunes of Jarnac 
and Moncontour, 2 'twas by saying they were 
fatherly scourges and corrections; if they have 
not a people wholly at their mercy, they make 
it manifestly enough to appear what it is to 
take two sorts of grist out of the same sack, 
and with the same mouth to blow hot and cold. 
It were better to possess the vulgar with the 
solid and real foundations of truth. 'Twas a 
brave naval ' battle that was gained a few 
months since, against the Turks, under the 
command of Don Juan of Austria; 3 but it has 
also pleased God, at other times, to let us see 
as great victories at our own expense. In fine, 
'tis a hard matter to reduce divine things to our 
balance without losing a great deal of the 
weight. And he that would take upon him to 
give a reason why Arius and his Pope Leo, the 
principal heads of that heresy, should die at 
different times, of such similar and such strange 
deaths (for being withdrawn from the disputa- 
tion by a disorder of the bowels, they both of 
them suddenly gave up the ghost upon the close- 
stool 4 ), and would aggravate this divine ven- 
geance by the circumstances of the place; 
might as well add the death of Heliogabalus, 
who was also slain in a house of office. 5 But 
what then] Iraneus was involved 
in the same fortune ; God being 
pleased to show us that the good 
have something else to hope for; 
and the wicked something else to 
fear, than the fortunes and mis- 
fortunes of this world : he manages and applies 



men no proof 
either of their 
merit or 
demerit. 



i A great skirmish that had liko to have caused a general 
battle betwixt the troops of the Admiral de Coligny, and 
those of the Duke of Anjou, in May, 1569. 

a These battles were won by the Duke of Anjou, the first 
in March, and the last in October, 1509. 

3 In the Gulph of Lepanto, 7th October, 1571. 



pleasure, and deprives us of the means foolishly 
to make our own profit. And those people both 
abuse themselves and us who will pretend to 
dive into these mysteries by the strength of 
human reason. They never give one hit that 
they do not receive two for it; of which St. 
Augustin gives a very great proof upon his 
adversaries. 'Tis a conflict that is more decided 
by strength of memory than the force of reason. 
We are to content ourselves with the light it 
pleases the sun to communicate to us by his 
rays, and he who will lift up his eyes to take in 
a greater, let him not think it strange if, for 
the reward of his presumption, he there lose 
his sight. Quis hominum potest scire consilium 
Dei? Aut quis poterit cogitare, quid velit 
Dominus? 6 "Who amongst men can know 
the counsel of God 1 ? Or who can think what 
the will of the Lord is!" 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THAT WE ARE TO AVOID PLEASURES EVEN AT 
THE EXPENSE OF LIFE. 

I have, long ago, observed most of the 
opinions of the ancients to concur in this, that 
it is high time to die when there is more ill 
than good in living, and that to preserve life, 
to our own torment and inconvenience, is 
contrary to the very laws of nature, as these 
old lines instruct us: 

"'H £71* aXiiriDS, !) Bavdv evoai/irfvu;. 
KaXov Bvt)gkcv o7$ vftpv rd $rjv tyipti. 
Kpuaoov to fifj ^rjv i?iv, h tfiv aflAiw;.' 



But to push this contempt of death so far as 
to employ it to the removing our thoughts from 
the coveting of honours, riches, dignities, and 
other favours, and goods of fortune, as we call 
them, as if reason had not sufficient to do to 
persuade us to avoid them without adding this 
new charge I had never seen it eithej enjoined 
or practised, till this passage of Seneca fell into 
my hands; who, advising Lucilius, a man of 
great power and authority about the Emperor, 
to alter his voluptuous and magnificent way of 
living, and to retire himself from this worldly 
vanity and ambition, to some solitary quiet, 
and philosophical life, and the other alleging 
some difficulties: "I am of opinion," says 
he, 8 "either that you leave that life or life 
itself; but I would advise thee to the gentler 
way, and to untie, rather than to break, 
the knot thou hast ill knit, provided that, if 
it be not otherwise to be untied, thou reso- 
lutely break it. There is no^man so great a 



4 Athanasius, Epist. ad Seraphn. 
6 jElian. Lamp, in vita. 
« Wisdom, iv. 13. 
' Stoba3us, Serm. 20. 
8 Epist. 22. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



121 



coward that had not rather once fall than be 
always falling." I should have found this 
counsel conformable enough to the stoical rough- 
; but it appears the more strange for being 
borrowed from Epicurus, who writes the same 
tling upon the like occasion to Idomeneus. 
And I think I have observed something like it, 
but with Christian moderation, amongst our 
own people. St. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers, 
that innous enemy of the Arian heresy, being 
in Syr'a, had intelligence thither sent him that 
Abra, Hs only daughter, whom he left at home 
under t»e eye and tuition of her mother, was 
sought it marriage by the greatest nobleman 
of the country, as being a virgin virtuously 
brought uf, fair, rich, and in the flower of her 
age. Whereupon he writ to her (as it appears 
upon record* that she should remove her affec- 
tion from aj the pleasures and advantages 
proposed untc her; for he had in his travels 
found out a nuch greater and more worthy 
fortune for het, a husband of much greater 
power and magnificence, that would present 
her with robes and jewels of inestimable value : 
wherein his design was to dispossess her of the 
appetite and use of worldly delights, to join 
her wholly to God. But the nearest and most 
certain way to this being, as he conceived, the 
death of his daughter, he never ceased, by vows, 
prayers, and orisons, to beg of the Almighty 
that he would please to call her out of this 
world, and to take her to himself; as accord- 
ingly it came to pass; for soon after hlfreturn 
she died, at which he expressed a singular joy. 
This seems to outdo the others, forasmuch as he 
applies himself to this means in the first instance, 
which they only take subsidiarily, and, besides, 
it was towards his only daughter. But I will 
not omit the latter end of this story, though it 
be from my purpose. St. Hilary's wife, having 
understood from him how the death of their 
daughter was brought about by his desire and 
design, and how much happier she was, to be 
removed out of this world than to have stayed 
in it, conceived so lively an apprehension of the 
eternal and heavenly beatitude that she begged 
of her husband with the extremest importunity 
to do as much for her; and God, at their joint 
request, shortly after calling her to him, it was 
a death embraced on both sides with singular 
content. 



i The word fortune, so often used by Montaigne, and 
nnni"tii!irs in passages when' lie might have employed the 
won! proridener, was censured liv the doricurs monies, who 



printed it Jurla, but in 
fata." And similar strat 
id lo. Thus toe Protest: 
in that city a work in w] 
called him in the ti it, l 
Eocluia Romana i 'aput 
ehipof books was nol all 
ability. La Motbe le V 
told In. n thai in a work ■ 
and which contained the 
11 



spoke of Pope I 
1 Caput, but, in 
uld seem that 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THAT FORTUNE 1 IS OFTENTIMES OBSERVED 
TO ACT BY THE RULE OF REASON. 

The inconstancy of the various motions of for- 
tune may reasonably make us expect she should 
present us with all sorts of faces. Can there be 
a more express act of justice than this? The 
Duke of Valentinois, having resolved to poison 
Cardinal Adrian Corneto, with whom his father, 
Pope Alexander the Sixth, and himself, were to 
sup in the Vatican, sent before a bottle of poi- 
soned wine, with strict order to the butler to 
keep it very safe. The Pope being come before 
his son, and calling for drink, the butler, sup- 
posing this wine had only been so strictly 
recommended to his care upon the account of 
its excellence, presented it immediately to the 
Pope, and the Duke himself, coming in pre- 
sently after, and being confident that they had 
not meddled with his bottle, took also his cup; 
so that the father died immediately upon the 
spot, and the son, after having been long tor- 
mented with sickness, was reserved to another 
and a worse fortune. 2 Sometimes she seems to 
play upon us just in the nick of 
an affair. Monsieur d'Estree, at f ° m e' t ? m |f™ s 
that time standard-bearer to Mon- sport with us. 
sieur de Vendosme, and Monsieur 
de Liques, lieutenant to the Duke of Ascot's 
troop, being both suitors to the Sieur de 
Founguesselles's sister, 3 though of different par- 
ties (as it oft falls out amongst frontier neigh- 
bours), the Sieur de Liques carried her; but 
on the same day he was married, and, which 
was worse, before he went to bed to his wife, 
the bridegroom having a mind to break a lance 
in honour of his new bride, went out to skir- 
mish near St. Omers, where the Sieur d'Estree 
proving the stronger, took him prisoner; and, 
the more to illustrate his victory, the lady 
herself was fain 



ConjiiL'is ante coacta novi dimittere collum, 

Quam voniens una atque altera rursus hyerr 
Noctibus in longis avidum saturasset amorem,' 



■ Of her fair arms, the am'rous ring to break, 
Which clung so fast to her new spouse's neck, 
Ere of two winters many a friendly night 
Had sated her love's greedy appetite," 



sitor noted in the margin, Propositio h<rre.tica; nam non 
datur FATtfM. The prohibition was so closely carried in 
force that Addison, in his Travels in Ilalv, tells us he was 
much amuse I at reading, al the bead of an opera-bill, the 



ua trover 


ii si 


li messe 


,el,'"n'c! 


,H 


a inarire 
i. of this 
1 weirds, 


n ■ it WO 


Id si 


em, from 


put fbrU 


this 


sort of 


Rome. 







ology till after his return from 

■ In 1503. Guicciardini, vi. 

i Or rather Fouquerolles. See Mem.of Mart.du Bellay ii. 

I Catullus, Ijrviii, 81. 



122 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



to request him of courtesy to deliver up his 
prisoner to her, as he accordingly did; the 
gentlemen of France never denying any thing 
to the ladies. Does this not seem a master- 
stroke : Constantine, the son of Helen, founded 
the empire of Constantinople; and so many 
ages after, Constantine, the son of Helen, put 
an end to it. 

Sometimes she is pleased to emulate our 
miracles. We are told that King Clovis be- 
sieging Angouleme, the walls fell down of 
themselves by divine favour. And Bouchet 
has it from some author, that King Robert, 
having sat down before a city, and being stolen 
away from the siege to keep the feast of Saint 
Aignan at Orleans; as he was in devotion 
at a certain point of the mass, the walls of the 
beleaguered city, without any effort of the 
besiegers, fell down in ruins. But she did 
quite contrary in our Milan war ; for Captain 
Rense laying siege to the city of Arona, 1 and 
having carried a mine under a great parcel of 
the wall, the mine being sprung, the wall was 
lifted from its base, but dropped down again 
nevertheless whole and entire, and so exactly 
upon its foundation that the besieged suffered 
no inconvenience by that attempt. 

Sometimes she plays the doctor. Jason of 

Phereus being given over by the 

timesTurns" 6 ' physicians, by reason of a despe- 

d'octor. rate imposthume in his breast, 

having a mind to rid himself of 

his pain, by death at least, in a battle threw 

himself desperately into the thickest of the 

enemy, where he was so fortunately wounded 

quite through the body that the imposthume 

broke, and he was ' perfectly cured. 2 Did she 

not also excel the painter Proto- 

Sometimes she nr enes m hi s ar ft wno having 
is superior to g . , , . , . e 

art ; finished the picture of a dog, quite 

tired and out of breath, in all the 
other parts excellently well to his own liking, 
but not being able to express as he would the 
slaver and foam that should come out of his 
mouth, vexed and angry at his work, he took 
his sponge, which by cleansing his brushes had 
imbibed several sorts of colours, and threw it 
in a rage against the picture, with an intent 
utterly to efface it ; when fortune guiding the 
sponge to hit just upon the mouth of the dog, 
it there performed what all his art was not able 
to do. 3 Does she not sometimes 
she cortectBour direct our councils and correct 
counsels^ them 1 Isabella, Queen of Eng- 

land, being to sail from Zealand 
into her own kingdom, 4 with an army in favour 
of her son against her husband, had been lost 
had she come into the port she intended, being 
there laid wait for by the enemy ; but fortune, 



i On the Lago Maggiore. Mem. of Mart. <lu Eellay, ii. 

2 Pliny, Mat. Hist. vii. 50. Valerius Maximus, who 
mentions this accident, i. 9, in Externis, represents the fact 
in a manner still more miraculous: for he says that Jason 
received this important service from an assassin. Seneca 
ascribes this accident to the same cause. De Bene/., ii. lit. 



against her will, threw her into another haven, 
where she landed in safety. And he of old who, 
throwing a stone at a dog, hit and killed hi? 
mother-in-law, had he not reason to pronounct 
this verse : — 

Tavrdparov tjiiuiv KaWiu) f3ov\£V£ral. b 

" fortune has more judgment than we." 

Icetes 6 nad engaged with two soldie'S to 
kill Timoleon at Adrano in Sicily. she gW asses 
These chose their time to do it, the rui.s of hu- 
when he was assisting at a sacri- man P udence - 
flee, and, thrusting into the crowd, as they 
were making signs to one another, that now 
was a fit time to do their business, in steps a 
third, who with a sword takes om of them 
full drive on the head, lays him dead upon 
the place, and runs away. Which the other 
seeing, and concluding himself discovered and 
lost, he runs to the altar and begs for mercy, 
promising to discover the whob truth, which 
as he was doing, and laying open the whole 
conspiracy, behold the third nan, who, being 
apprehended, was as a murderer thrust and 
hauled by the people through the crowd towards 
Timoleon and other the most eminent persons 
of the assembly, before whom being brought he 
cried out for pardon, pleaded that he had justly 
slain his father's murderer; which he also 
proved upon the place, by sufficient witnesses, 
whom his good fortune very opportunely sup- 
plied him withal, that his father was really 
killed in the city of the Leontines by that very 
man on whom he had taken his revenge; he 
was presently awarded ten attic minse, for 
having had the good fortune, in designing to 
revenge the death of his father, to preserve the 
life of the common father of Sicily. Thus for- 
tune, in her conduct, surpasses all the rules of 
human prudence. But, to conclude, is there 
not a direct application of her favour, bounty, 
and piety, manifestly discovered in this action ! 
Ignatius the father and Ignatius 



this generous act of mutual kind- J>y a sp^'? 1 

.. r ii l .i i i z> favour of for- 

ness, to fall by the hands of one tune- 
another, and by that means to 
frustrate and defeat the cruelty of the tyrants ; 
and accordingly, with their swords drawn, ran 
full drive one upon another, where fortune so 
guided the points that they made two equally 
mortal wounds, affording withal so much 
honour to so brave a friendship, as to leave 
them just strength enough to draw out their 
bloody swords, that they might have liberty 
to embrace one another in this dying condition, 
with so close an embrace that the executioners 
cut off both their heads at once, leaving the 



3 Pliny, JVat. Hist. xxxv. 10. 

< In I32G. Mem. of Froissart. 

6 Menander. 

o He was a Sicilian, born at Syracuse, that aimed to op- 
press the liberty of his country, of which Timoleon was the 
protector. PJutarcli, Life of Timoleon, 7. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



bodies still fast linked together in this noble 
knot, and their wounds joined, affectionately 
sucking in the last blood and remainder of the 



uouies sua iasi iihk( 

knot, and their wou 

sucking in the last bl 

h lives of one another. 1 

CHAPT 

OF ONE DEFECT 

My late father, whc 
other advantages thai 

own natural nnrts. v 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

OF ONE DEFECT IN OUR GOVERNMENT. 

My late father, who, for a man that had no 
other advantages than experience only, and his 
own natural parts, was of a very clear judg- 
ment, formerly told me that he 
The project of once }, a d thoughts of endeavour- 

an office of . . ,° ... 

agency. mg to introduce this practice, 

that there might be in every town 
a certain place assigned, to which such as 
stood in need of any thing might repair, and 
have their business entered by an officer ap- 
pointed for that purpose. As, for example, I 
want to sell pearls; I want to buy pearls; 
such a one wants company to go to Paris; 
such a one enquires for a servant of such a 
quality ; such a one for a master ; such a one 
for such an artificer; some for one thing, some 
for another, every one according to what he 
wants. And it seems to me that these mutual 
advertisements would be of no contemptible 
advantage to the public business; for there are, 
every day, conditions that seek after one 
another, and for want of knowing one another's 
occasions, leave men in very great necessity. 
I hear, to the great shame of the 
The miserable age we live in, that in our very 
Giraidus and sight two mrjst excellent men for 
Castaiio. learning died so poor that they 

had scarce bread to put in their 
mouths, Lilius Gregorius Giraldus, 2 in Italy, 
and Sebastianus Castaiio, 3 in Germany. And I 
believe there are a thousand men would have 
invited them into their families, on advanta- 
geous conditions, or have relieved them where 
they were, had they known their wants. The 
world is not so generally corrupted but that I 
know a man that would heartily wish the estate 
his ancestors have left him might be employed, 
so long as it shall please fortune to give him 
leave to enjoy it, to secure remarkable persons 
of any kind, whom misfortune sometimes per- 
secutes to the last degree, from the danger of 
necessity ; and, at least, place them in such a 
condition that they must be very hard to please 
if they were not contented. My father, in his 
domestic government, had this order (which I 
know how to commend but by no 
1» laudable means imitate,) that besides the 
oblerwdby day-book or register of the 
Moniai -ne's household affairs, where the 
small accounts, payments, and 
disbursements, which do not 



' Appian, dc Bell. Civil, iv. 

» Born at Ferrara, 14HI, died there I MO. His works, of 

which the principal area Ilistoryof the (.'ods.aml Dial. s 

on the roetB, were published by Jcnsius, ut Lcyden, 10%. 



require a special hand, were entered, and which 
a bailiff always had in custody ; he ordered him 
whom he kept to write for him, to keep a 
journal, and in it to set down all the remarkable 
occurrences, and, day by day, the memoirs of 
the affairs of his house; very pleasant to look 
over when time begins to wear things out of 
memory, and very useful sometimes to put us 
out of doubt, when such a thing was begun, 
when ended, what courses were debated on, 
what concluded ; our voyages, absences, mar- 
riages, and deaths, the reception of good or ill 
news, the change of principal servants, and the 
like. An ancient custom which I think it 
would not be amiss for every one to revive in 
his own house; and I did very foolishly in 
neglecting it. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



OF THE CUSTOM OF WEARING CLOTHES. 



Whatever I shall say upon this subject, I 
must, of necessity, invade some . 
of the bounds of custom, so careful to ,'[J e ISItom 8 * 
has she been to shut up all the of some nations 
avenues. I was discussing with n ° a j(° d stark 
myself, in this shivering season, 
whether the fashion of going naked, in those 
nations lately discovered, is imposed upon 
them by the hot temperature of the air, as we 
say of the Moors and Indians, or whether it 
was the original fashion of mankind. Men of 
understanding, forasmuch as all things under 
the sun, as Holy Writ declares, are subject, to 
the same laws, have been wont, in such consi- 
derations as these, where we are to distinguish 
the natural laws from those of man's invention, 
to have recourse to the general polity of the 
world, where there can be nothing counterfeited. 
Now, all other creatures being sufficiently 
furnished with all things necessary for the 
support of their being, without needle and 
thread, it is not to be imagined that we only 
should be brought into the world in a defective 
and indigent condition, and in such a state as 
cannot subsist without foreign assistance ; and 
therefore it is that I believe that, as plants, 
trees, and animals, and all things that have 
life, are seen to be, by nature, sufficiently 
clothed and covered to defend them from the 
injuries of weather, 



" And, therefore, shells, or rinds, or films, inclose, 
Or skin, or hair, on ev'ry body g r0 ^s," 

so were we: but as those who, by artificial 
light, put out that of the day, so we, by bor- 
rowed forms and fashions, have destroyed our 
own. And 'tis plain enough to be seen that 



a A native of Dniiphiny, bom l.'il.'i. died 150:1. He is 
principally known by hi- I, aim version of the llilde. in 
which he affects lo use only the Ciceronian style of lan- 
guage. * Lucretius, iv. 930. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



tis custom only which renders that impossible 
that otherwise is nothing so; for, of those 
nations who have no manner of knowledge of 
clothing, some are situated under the same tem- 
perature that we are, and some in much colder 
climates. And, besides, our most tender parts 
are always exposed to the air, as the eyes, 
mouth, nose, and ears; and our country fel- 
lows, like our ancestors, go with their breasts 
open. Had we been born with a necessity 
upon us of wearing petticoats and breeches, 
there is no doubt but nature would have forti- 
fied those parts she intended should be exposed 
to the fury of the seasons with a thicker skin, 
as she has done the fingers' ends and the soles 
of the feet. And why should this seem hard 
to believe? I observe much greater distance 
betwixt my mode of dress and that of one of 
our country peasants, than betwixt his and a 
man that has no other covering but his skin. 
How many men, especially in Turkey, go 
naked merely upon account of devotion? 
Somebody, I forget who, asked a beggar, 
whom he saw in his shirt, in the depth of 
winter, as brisk and frolic as he who goes 
muffled up to the ears in furs, how he was able 
to endure to go so? "Sir," said the fellow, 
"you go with your face barepl am all face." 
The Italians have a story of the Duke of 
Florence's fool, whom his master asking how, 
being so thin clad, he was able to support the 
cold, when he, himself, warm wrapt up as he 
was, was hardly able to do it? "Why," 
replied the fool, "use my receipt; put on all 
the clothes you have at once, as I do, and 
you'll feel no more cold than I." King Mas- 
sinissa, to an extreme old age, could never be 
prevailed upon to go with his head covered, how 
cold, stormy, or rainy soever the weather might 
be. 1 Which also is reported of the Emperor 
Severus. Herodotus tells us 2 that, in the bat- 
tles fought betwixt the Egyptians and the 
Persians, it was observed, both by himself and 
others, that of those who were left dead upon 
the place, the heads of the Egyptians were 
found to be, without comparison, harder than 
those of the Persians, by reason that the last 
had gone with their heads always covered from 
their infancy, first, with biggins, and then with 
turbans, and the others always shaved and bare. 
And King Agesilaus continued to a decrepid 
age, to wear always the same clothes in winter 
that he did in summer. 3 Caesar, says Suetonius, 
marched always at the head of his army, for 
the most part on foot, with his head bare, whe- 
ther it was rain or sunshine, and as much is 
said of Hannibal, 

Turn vertice nudo, 
Excipere insanos imbres, ccelique ruinam. 4 



' Cicero, De Senect. c. 10. 

" Book iii. 

3 Plutarch, in Vita. 

* Silius, ltalicus, i. 250. 
s Stephen Bathory. 

• Pliny, JVat. Hist, xxviii 
' In 1543. Mem. de Mart, du Bcllay, x. — Philip de 

Comines, speaking of such cold weather in his time (1469,) 






A Venetian, who has long lived in Pegu, 
and is lately returned thence, writes, that the 
men and women of that kingdom, though they 
cover the rest of their persons, go always bare- 
foot, and ride so too. And Plato does very 
earnestly advise, for the health of the whole 
body, to give the head and the feet no other 
clothing than what nature has bestowed. He 
whom the Poles have elected for their king, 5 
since ours left them, who' is indeed one of the 
greatest princes of this age, never wears any 
gloves, and for winter, or whatever weather 
may come, never wears any other cap abroad 
than the same he wears at home. Whereas, 1 
cannot endure to go unbuttoned or loose, our 
neighbouring labourers would think themselves 
in chains if they were so braced. Varro is of 
opinion that when it was ordained we should be 
bare in the presence of the Gods, and before the 
magistrate, it was rather so ordered upon the 
score of health, and to inure us to the injuries of 
weather, than upon the account of reverence. 6 
And since we are now talking of cold, and are 
Frenchmen, used to trick ourselves out in many 
colours,- (not I myself, for I seldom wear other 
than black or white, in imitation of my father,) 
let us add another story of Captain Martin du 
Bellay, who affirms, that in the journey through 
Luxemburg, he saw such a great frost that 
the munition-wine was cut with hatchets and 
wedges, delivered out to the soldiers by weight, 
and carried away in baskets : 7 and Ovid, 

Nuda que consistunt formam serventia testae 
Vina, nee hausta meri, sed data frusta, bibunt. 8 



At the mouth of the Lake Moeotis, the frosts 
are so severe that in the very same place where 
Mithridates's lieutenant had fought the enemy 
dry-foot, and given them a defeat, the summer 
following he also obtained over them a naval 
victory. 9 The Romans fought at a very great 
disadvantage in the engagement they had with 
the Carthaginians near Placentia, by reason 
that they went to the charge with their blood 
congealed, and their limbs numbed with cold,' 
whereas Hannibal had caused great fires to be 
made through his camp to warm his soldiers, 
and oil to be distributed amongst them, to the 
end that, anointing themselves, they might 
render their nerves more supple and active, and 
fortify the pores against the violence of the air, 
and freezing wind that then raged. The retreat 
the Greeks made from Babylon into their own 
country is famous for the difficulties and cala- 
mities they had to overcome. Of which this 



in the principality of Liege, says, that the wine was in like 
manner frozen in their pipes, and that it was dug out, and 
cut into the form of wedges, and so carried off by gentle- 
men in hats or baskets, ii. 14. 

e Ovid, Trist., iii. 10, 23. 

8 Strabo, vii. 

id Livy, xxi. 54. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



125 



was one, that being encountered 
ravages made m tne mountains of Armenia, 
by snow, in the with a horrible storm of snow, 
mountains of they ] ost a]1 knowledge of the 
Armenia. ** , i *» ., 1 

country, and of the ways, and 

being- shut up, were a day and a night without 
eating or drinking, most of their cattle dead, 
many of themselves starved dead, several 
struck blind with the driving and glittering 
of the snow, many of them maimed in their 
fingers and toes, and many stiff and motionless 
with the extremity 'of the cold, who yet 
had their understanding entire. 1 
bnri'V™ 3 !] Alexander saw a nation where 
winter!" ' & tliey bury the fruit trees in win- 
ter, to defend them from the 
frost, 2 and we also may see the same. But 
How often the concerning clothes, the King of 
King of Mexico Mexico changed his apparel four 
changed his times a day, and never put them 

clothes in a day. J , • .. r , 1 n 

on more, employing those he left 
off, in his continual liberalities and rewards; 
nor was either pot, dish, or other utensil of his 
kitchen or table ever served up to him twice. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

OF CATO THE YOUNGER. 

I am not guilty of the common error of judging 
another by myself. I easily believe that in an- 
other's humour which is contrary to my own : 
and though I find myself engaged to one cer- 
tain form, I do not oblige others to it, as many 
do, but believe and apprehend a thousand dif- 
ferent ways of living; and, contrary to most 
men, more easily admit of differences than 
uniformity amongst us. I, as frankly as any 
one would have me, discharge a man from my 
humours and principles, and consider him simply 
as he is, without reference to myself, taking him 
according to his own particular model. Though 
I am not continent myself, I nevertheless sin- 
cerely approve of the contmency of the Feuillans 
and the Capuchins, and highly commend their 
way of living. I insinuate myself very well 
by imagination into their place, and love and 
honour them the more for being other than I am 
myself. I very much desire that we may be 
judged every man by himself, and would not 
be drawn into the consequences of common 
examples. My weakness does nothing alter 
the esteem I ought to have of the force and 
vigour of those who deserve it. Sunt qui nihil 
suadent quam quod se imitari posse confidunt? 
"There are those who persuade nothing but 
what they believe they can imitate themselves." 
Crawling upon the slime of the earth, I do not, 
for all that, the less observe in the clouds the 
inimitable height of some heroic souls. 'Tis a 



1 Xenophon, F.snriUtion of Cyrus, iv. 5. 
■Minimus (Junius, vii. 3. 
; - ( 'ieero, Da Oat., c. 7. 
« Horace, Fpist. i. li, 31. 
11* 



great deal for me to have my judgment regular 
and right, even though the effects cannot be so, 
and to maintain this sovereign power at least 
free from corruption: 'tis something to have 
my will right and good when my legs fail me. 
This age wherein we live, in our part of the 
world at least, is grown so stupid that not only 
the exercise, but the very imagination of virtue 
is defective, and seems to be nothing but college 
jargon. 

Virtutem verba putant, ut lucum !igna.< 

" Words finely couch'd these men for virtue take, 
As if each wood a sacred grove could make." 

Quam vereri deberent, eliam si percipere non 
possent. 5 "Which they ought to reverence, 
though they cannot comprehend." 'Tis a mere 
gew-gaw to hang in a cabinet, or at the end of 
the tongue as on the tip of the 
ear, for ornament only. There Vicious mo- 
are no more virtuous actions ex- tne^essenc? of 
tant, and those actions that carry virtue, 
a show of virtue have yet nothing 
of its essence : for 'tis profit, glory, fear and 
custom, and other such like foreign causes, are 
the incentives to produce them. Our justice 
also, our valour and good offices, may be called 
so too in respect to others, and according to the 
face they appear with to the public ; but in the 
doer it can by no means be virtue, because 
there is another end proposed, another moving 
cause. Now, virtue owns nothing to be her's 
but what is done by herself, and for herself; 
alone. In that great battle of 
Plataea, which the Greeks, under Why the s P ar- 
the command of Pausanias, ob- rewaffoTva- 16 
tained against Mardonius and the lour to a person 
Persians, the conquerors, accord- w . no signalized 

. ',. 7 • . himself the 

mg to their custom, coming to niost in a bat . 
divide amongst them the glory of tie. 
the exploit, they assigned to the 
Spartan nation the pre-eminence of valour in 
this engagement. The Spartans, great judges 
of bravery, when they came to determine to 
what particular man of their nation the honour 
was due of having best behaved himself upon 
this occasion, found that Aristodernus had, of 
all others, hazarded his person with the greatest 
courage ; but they did not, however, allow him 
any prize or reward, by reason that his valour 
had been incited by a desire to clear his reputa- 
tion from the reproach of his miscarriage at the 
affair of Thermopylae, and, with a desire to die 
bravely, to wipe off that former blemish. 6 Our 
judgments are yet sick, and obey the humour 
of our depraved manners. 1 observe most of the 
wits of these times exercise their 
ingenuity in endeavouring to Many people 
blemish and darken the glory of oiStJ the no?"" 
the greatest and most generous blest deeds of 
actions of former ages, putting the ancients. 
one vile interpretation or another 



t> Cicero, Tusc. Qu.r., i. -2. Montague applies to virtue 
what Cicero here snvs uf philosophy, and of those who pre- 
Bume to And fault with it. 

8 Nepos, Life of Pausanias. Herod, ix. 



126 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



upon them all, and forging and supposing vain 
causes and motives for them. A mighty fine 
subtlety indeed ! Give me the greatest and 
purest action that ever the day beheld, and I 
will furnish a hundred plausible vicious motives 
to obscure it. God knows, whoever will stretch 
them out to the full, what diversity of images 
our internal wills suffer under; they do not 
play the censurers so maliciously as they do it 
ignorantly and rudely. The same pains and 
license that others take to bespatter these illus- 
trious names, I would willingly 
2S°econtra a i^ a un(ler g° to lend them a shoulder 
and why. ' to raise them higher. These rare 
images, that are culled out by the 
consent of the wisest men of all ages for the 
world's example, I should endeavour to honour 
anew, as far as my invention would permit, in 
all the circumstances of favourable interpreta- 
tion. And we may well believe that the force 
of our invention is infinitely short of their 
merit. 'Tis the duty of good men to draw 
virtue as beautiful as they can, and there would 
be no impropriety in the case should our passion 
a little transport us in favour of so sacred a 
form. What these people do to the contrary 
they either do out of malice, or by the vice of 
confining their belief to their own capacity, as 
I have said before; or, which I am more in- 
clined to think, from not having their sight 
strong, clear, and elevated enough to conceive 
the splendour of virtue in her native purity. 
As Plutarch complains that, in his time, some 
attributed the cause of the younger Cato's' 
death to his fear of Caesar, at 
Various opi- which he is very anory, and with 

rnoris of the , 1*1? 

death of the good reason, by that a man may 
younger Cato. guess how much more he would 

have been offended with those 
who have attributed it to ambition. Senseless 
people! He would have performed a just and 
generous action, even though he were to have 
had ignominy for his reward instead of glory. 
That man was, in truth, a pattern that nature 
chose out to show to what height human virtue 
and constancy could arrive. But I am not 
capable of handling so noble an argument, and 
shall therefore only set five Latin poets together 

by the ears, to see who has done 
Choice pas- best in the praise of Cato ; and, 
poets ?n praise 6 inclusively, for their own too. 
of Cato, com- Now, a man well read in poetry 
K?d a by Mot wi » think the two first, in com- 
taigne. panson or the others, a little 

languishing ; the third, more vi- 
gorous, but overthrown by the extravagance of 
his own force. He will then think that there 
will be yet room for one or two gradations of 
invention to come to the fourth; but, coming 
to mount the pitch of that, he will lift up his 
hands for admiration; the last, the first by 
some space (but a space that he will swear 



not to be filled up by any human wit), he will 
be astonished, he will not know where he is. 
These are wonders. We have more poets than 
judges and interpreters of poetry. 
It is easier to write an indifferent po e c t e r y e above 
poem than to understand a good rules, 
one. There is, indeed, a certain 
low and moderate sort of poetry that a man 
may well enough judge by certain rules of art ; 
but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is 
above all the rules of reason. Whoever discerns 
the beauty of it, with the most assured and most 
steady sight, sees no more than the quick re- 
flection of a flash of lightning. This is a sort 
of poetry that does not exercise, but ravishes 
and overwhelms, our judgment. The fury that 
possesses him who is able to penetrate into it, 
wounds yet a third man by hearing him repeat 
it. It is like a loadstone, that not only attracts 
the needle, but also infuses into it the virtue to 
attract others. And this is more evidently seen 
at our theatres, where the sacred inspiration of 
the muses, having first stirred up the poet to 
anger, sorrow, hatred, and out of himself, to 
whatever it will, does moreover by the poet 
possess the actor, and by the actor, consecu- 
tively, all the spectators, — showing how much 
our passions hang and depend upon one an- 
other. 1 Poetry has ever had that power over 
me, from a child, to transpierce 
and transport me. But this quick 
sense of it, that is natural to me, 
'has been variously handled by 
variety of forms, not so much 
higher and lower (for they were ever the 
highest of every kind), as differing in colour. 
First, a gay and sprightly fluency, afterwards a 
lofty and penetrating subtlety; and, lastly, a 
mature and constant force. Their names will 
better express them: Ovid, Lucan, Virgil. 
But our poets are beginning their career : 

Sit Cato, dum vivit sane vel Caesare major." 



Et invictum devicta morte Catonem,' 
"And Cato fell, invincible in death," 

says the second. And the third, speaking 
of the civil wars betwixt Caesar and Pompey, 

says, 

Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 4 



The fourth, upon the praises of Caasar, writes, 



What sort of 
poetry Mon- 
taigne pre- 
ferred. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



And the master of the choir, after having set 
forth all the names of the greatest Romans, 
ends thus: — 

His dantem jura Catoncm.i 
" And Cato giving laws to all the rest." 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME 
THING. 

When we read in history that Antigonus was 
very much displeased with his 
Tin! vanquish- son f or presenting him the head 
ed bewailed by „ ' T ,. r» u u- 
the victors. of King Pyrrhus, his enemy, 
newly slain, fighting against him, 
and that seeing it he wept; 2 that Rene, Duke 
of Lorraine, also lamented the death of Charles, 
Duke of Burgundy, 3 whom he had himself 
defeated, and appeared in mourning at his 
funeral ; and that in the battle of Auroy, 4 which 
Count de Montfbrt obtained over Charles de 
Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany, 
the conqueror meeting the dead body of his 
enemy was very much afflicted at his death; 
— we must not presently cry out, 

Et cosi aven che 1'animo ciascuna, 
Sua passion sotto cl contrario nianto, 
lticopre, con la vista or' chiara, or' brumal 
"That every one, whether of joy or woe, 
The passion of his mind can govern so 
As when most griev'd to show a visage clear, 
And melancholy when best pleased appear." 

When Pompey's head was presented to Caasar 
the histories tell us that he turned away his 
face, as from a sad and unpleasing object. 6 
There had been so long an intelligence and 
I companionship betwixt them in the manage- 
ment of the public affairs, such a community of 
fortunes, so many mutual offices, and so near 
an alliance, that this countenance he wore 
ought not to suffer under any misinterpretation, 
or to be suspected for either false or counterfeit, 
as this other seems to believe : 

Tutumque putavit 

Jam bonus esse socer; lachrymas non sonte cadentes 
Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore Ireto, 
Non aliter inunifesta putans abscondcre mentis 
Gaudia, quam lachrymas.' 

" And now he saw 
'Twas safe to be a pious father-in-law, 
He shed forc'd tears, and from a joyful breast 
Fetch'd sighs ami groans, conceiving tears would best 
Conceal his inward joy." 

For though it be true that the greatest part of 
our actions are no other than vizor and disguise, 
and that it may sometimes be real and true that 

Hmredis fletus sub persona risus est, 8 



i ./Erecid, viii. 670. 

« Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus. 

3 In 1177, before Nancy. 

4 Or Aurav, near Venues. The battle was fought t 
Charles V., 29th Sept., 13C4. 



yet in judging of these matters we should 

consider how much our souls are 

oftentimes agitated with divers Maiikind sub- 

a j iL *i . J'-''' '" 'hflereiil 

passions. And as they say that passions. 
in our bodies there is a congre- 
gation of divers humours, of which that is the 
sovereign which, according to the complexion 
we are of, is commonly most predominant in 
us: so, though the soul has in it divers motions 
to agitate it, yet must there of necessity be one 
to over-rule all the rest, though not with so 
necessary and absolute a dominion but that 
through the flexibility and inconstancy of the 
soul those of less authority may, upon occasion, 
re-assume their place and make a little sally 
in turn. Thence it is that we see not only 
children, who innocently obey and follow 
nature, often laugh and cry at the same thing: 
but none of us can boast, what journey soever 
he may have in hand that he has the most set 
his heart upon, but when he comes to part with 
his family and friends he will find something 
that troubles him within ; and though he restrain 
his tears, yet he puts his foot in the stirrup 
with a sad and cloudy countenance. And what 
gentle flame soever may have warmed the 
heart of modest and well-born virgins, yet have 
they to be forced from about their mothers' 
necks to be put to bed to their husbands, 
whatever this boon companion is pleased to say : 

Estne novis nuptis odio Venus? anne parentum 
Frustrantur tal^is gaudia lachryiualis, 

Ubertim thalami quas intra liuiina fundunt? 

Non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, juverint. 8 

"Does the fair bride the sport so greatly dread 

That she takes on so when she's put to bed ? 

Her parents' joys t' allay with a feign'd tear, 

She does not cry in earnest, I dare swear." 

Neither is it strange to lament a person dead 
whom a man would by no means wish to be 
alive. When I rattle my servant I do it with 
all my mettle, and load him with no feigned, 
but downright, real curses : but the heat being 
over, if he should stand in need of me, I should 
be very ready to do him good ; for I instantly 
turn the leaf. When I call him calf and cox- 
comb I do not pretend to entail those titles 
upon him for ever; neither do I think I give 
myself the lie in calling him an honest fellow 
presently after. No one quality possesses us 
solely and universally. Were it not like a fool 
to talk to one's self, there would hardly be a 
day or an hour wherein I might not be heard 
to mutter to myself and against myself, "Fool ! 
blockhead !" and yet I do not think that to be 
my character. Who for seeing me one while 
cold, and presently very kind to my wife, be- 
lieves the one or other to be counterfeit, is an 
ass. Nero, taking leave of his mother, whom 
he sent to be drowned, was nevertheless sensible 
of some emotion at the farewell, and was struck 
with horror and pity. 'Tis said that the light 



6 Petrarch, edit. 1545, p. 25. 

Plutarch, Life of Casar, c. 13. 

7 Lucretius, ix. 1037. 

8 AulusGellius, xvii. 14. 

8 Catullus, dc Coma Ber. Ixv. 15. 



128 



MONTAIGNE'S' ESSAYS. 



of the sun is not one continuous thing, but that 
he darts new rays so thick one upon another 
that we cannot perceive the intermission : 

Largus enim liquid! ferns luminis, aethereus Sol 
Irrigat assidue coelum candore recenti, 
Suppetidatque novo confestim lumine lumen.' 
" For the [ethereal sun that shines so bright, 
Being a fountain large of liquid light, 
With fresh rays sprinkles slill tin? rlieerful sky, 
And with new light the light does still supply." 

Just so the soul variously and imperceptibly 
darts out her passions. Artabanus surprising 
once his nephew Xerxes, chid him for the 
sudden alteration of his countenance. He was 
considering the immeasurable greatness of his 
forces passing over the Hellespont for the Gre- 
cian expedition, and was first seized with a 
palpitation of joy to see so many thousands of 
men at his command, and this appeared in the 
gaiety of his looks: but his thoughts at the 
same instant suggesting to him that of so many 
lives there would not be one left in a century, 
at most, he presently knit his brows and grew 
sad, even to tears. 2 We have resolutely pur- 
sued the revenge of an injury received, and 
been sensible of a singular satisfaction at our 
victory: but we weep notwithstanding. Yet 
'tis not for the victory that we 
The soul does we ep ; there is no alteration as to 
Jhings'withone that. But the soul looks upon 
and "the same the thing with another eye, and 
^ ye ' „ n< i r ,i T ith represents it to itself with another 

one and the . .r 

same bias. kind or lace ; for every thing has 

many faces and several aspects, 
like a ball. Relations, old acquaintance, and 
friendships, possess our imaginations, and make 
them tender for the time: but the turn is so 
quick that it escapes us in a moment. 

Nil adeo fieri celeri ratione videtur, 
Gluam si mens fieri proponit, et inchoat ipsa. 
Ociiis ergo animus, quam res se perciet ulla, 
Ante oculos quorum in prornptu natura videtur.' 
" As no one action seems so swiftly done 
As what the mind has plann'd and once begun; 
This observation evidently proves 
The mind than other things more swiftly moves." 

And therefore, while we would make one con- 
tinued thing of all this succession of passion, 
we deceive ourselves. When Timoleon 4 laments 
the murder he had committed upon so mature 
and generous deliberation, he does not lament 
the liberty restored to his country, he does not 
lament the tyrant, but he laments his brother. 
One part of his duty is performed, let us give 
him leave to perform the other. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

OF SOLITUDE. 

Let us pass over that old comparison betwixt 
the active and the solitary life ; and as for the 

i Lucret. v. 282. 

2 Herod, vii. Pliny, Epist. iii. 7. Val. Max. ix. 13. 

a Lucret. iii. 183. 

* Cornelius Nepos, xx. 1. Diod. Sic. xvi. 65. 

6 Lucan's Eulogy on Cato of Utica. 

Nee sibi, sed toti gentium se credere mundo.— Luc. ii. 383. 



fine saying in which ambition and avarice 
cloak themselves, "That we are not born for 
ourselves, but for the public," 5 let us boldly 
appeal to those who are in the thick of public 
affairs, and let them lay their hands upon their 
hearts and then say whether, on the contrary, 
they do not rather aspire to titles and offices, 
and the tumult of the world, to make their 
private advantage at the public expense. But 
we need not ask them the question; for the 
corrupt ways by which men push on towards 
the height at which their ambitions aspire, do 
manifestly enough declare that their ends can- 
not be very good. Let us then tell ambition 
that it is she herself that gives us a taste of 
solitude ; for what does she so much avoid as 
society ! What does she so much seek as elbow- 
room 1 ? A man may do well or ill everywhere ; 
but if what Bias says be true, that the greatest 
part is the worse, 6 or what the preacher says, 
that there is not one good in a thousand, 

Eari quippe boni: numero vix sunt totidem, quot 
Thebarum ports, vel divitis ostia Nili.' 
" How few good men are numbered on this soil ! 
Scarce more than gates of Thebes or mouths of Nile." 

The contagion is very dangerous in the crowd. 
A man must either imitate the vicious or hate 
them. Both are dangerous, either to resemble 
them, because they are many, or to hate many, 
because they are unresembling. 8 And mer- 
chants that go to sea are in the right, when 
they are cautious that those who embark with 
them in the same ship be neither dissolute 
blasphemers nor vicious otherways; looking 
upon such society as unfortunate. And there- 
fore it was that Bias pleasantly said to some 
who, being with him in a dangerous storm, 
implored the assistance of the gods, " Peace ! 
speak softly," said he, " that they may not 
know you are here in my company." 9 And a 
more forcible example : — Albuquerque, viceroy 
in the Indies for Emanuel, King of Portugal, 
in an extreme peril of shipwreck took a young 
boy upon his shoulders, for this only end, that in 
the society of their common danger his inno- 
cency might serve to protect him and to recom- 
mend him to the divine favour, that they might 
get safe to shore. 'Tis not that a wise man 
may not live everywhere content, and be alone 
in the crowd of a palace, but if it be left to his 
own choice he, according to the school, will fly 
the very sight of it. He can endure that, if 
need be ; but if it be referred to him, he will 
choose this. He cannot think himself suffi- 
ciently rid of vice if he must yet contend with 
it in other men. Charondas punished as bad 
men those who were convicted of keeping bad 
company. 10 There is nothing so unsociable and 
sociable as man ; the one by his vice, the other 
by his nature. And Antisthenes, in my opinion, 

6 Laertius, in vita 
i Juvenal, xiii. 26. 

8 Seneca, Epist. 7. 

9 Laertius, in vita. 
io Diod. Sic. xii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



129 



did not give him a satisfactory answer, who 
reproached him with frequenting bad company, 
by saying, " That physicians live well amongst 
the sick." 1 For if they contribute to the 
health of the sick, no doubt but by the con- 
tagion, continual sight of, and familiarity with, 
diseases, they must of necessity impair their 
own. Now the end I suppose is all one, to live 
at more leisure and at greater ease. But men 
do not al ways choose the right way ; for they 
often think they have totally taken leave of all 
business when they have only exchanged one 
employment for another. There is little less 
trouble in governing a private family than a 
whole kingdom. Wherever the mind is per- 
plexed it is in an entire disorder, and domestic 
employments are not less troublesome for being 
less important. Moreover, for having shaken 
off the court and the exchange, we have not 
taken leave of the principal vexations of life: 

Ralio et prudentia curas, 

Non locus ell'usi hit.' maris arbiter aufert.a 



Our ambition, avarice, irresolu- 

Mtfteeusfrom tion ' fear ' and inordinate desires, 
ourvices! S ' do not leave us with change of 
place : 

Et post equitein setlot atra cura. 3 
" And when he rides, black care sits close behind." 

They often follow us even to the cloisters and 
to the philosophical schools; nor deserts, nor 
caves, hair-shirts, nor fasts, can disengage us 
from them. 

Haeret lateri lethalis arundo.4 
" The fatal shaft sticks to the wounded side." 

One telling Socrates that such a one was no- 
thing improved by his travels: "I very well 
believe it," said he, " for he took himself along 
with him." 5 

Quiil terras alio calentes 
Sole mutamus ? Patriae quis exul 
So quoque fugit." 
"To chance our native soil why should we run, 
And seek one warmed by a firrcer sun ? 
For wlio in exile ever yet could find 
He went abroad and left himself behind?" 

If a man do not first discharge both himself 
and his mind of the burden with which he finds 
himself oppressed, motion will but make it 
press the harder and sit the heavier, as the 
lading of a ship is of less incumbrance when 
fast stowed in a settled posture. You do a sick- 
man more harm than good in removing him 
from place to place; you fix and establish the 
disease by motion, as stakes go deeper and more 
fixedly into the earth by being moved up and 
down in the .nlace where they arc designed to 
stand. And therefore it is not enough to get 
remote from the public; 'tis not enough to shift 
one's self, — a man must fly from the popular 



dispositions that have taken possession of his 
soul — he must sequester and tear himself from 
himself. 

Rupi jam vincula, dicas : 

Nam Inctata cauis nodinn arripit ; attamen illi. 
Cum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenae.' 
" Thou'lt say, perhaps, that thou hast broke the chain ; 
Why, so tint dot' has gnaw'd the knot in twain 
That tied him there ; but, as he flies, be feels 
The ponderous chain still rattling at his heels." 

We still carry our fetters along with us; 'tis 
not an absolute liberty ; we yet cast back a 
kind look upon what we have left behind us ; the 
fancy is still full of our old way of living: 

Nisi purgatum est pectus, quae pralia nobis 
Atque pericula tunc ingratis irisinuandum? 
Quanta; consciridunt hoiiiiin-in cupidinis acres 
Solicitum cura.'? quantique perinde timores? 
(luidve sup rliia, spurcitia, ac petulantia, quantus 
Efficiunt clades? quid luxus, desidiesque ?« 
" Unless the mind be purged, what conflicts dire, 
And dangers will not ev'ry thought inspire! 
Th' ungrateful man, how many bitter cares 
Incessant call, and then how many fears! 
What hoi rid massacre's from pride ensue, 
From sloth, lust, petulance, and from luxury, too ! 

The mind itself is the disease, and In what true 

,. .. ,c solitude con- 

cannot escape from itself; s j sts . 

In culpa est animus, qui se non effugit unquam.s 
"Still, in the mind the fault doth lie, 
That never from itself can fly," 

and therefore it should be called home, and be 
confined within itself: that is the true solitude, 
which may be enjoyed in populous cities and in 
the courts of kings, though more commodiously 
apart. 

Now, since we will attempt to live alone, and 
to waive all conversation amongst men, let us 
so order it that our content may depend wholly 
upon ourselves; let us dissolve all obligations 
that ally us to others. Let us obtain this from 
ourselves, that we may live alone in good 
earnest, and live at our ease too. 



he lived, and where he had his 
wife, children, goods, and everything he was 
master of destroyed by the flames, Demetrius 
Poliorcetes seeing him, amidst so great a ruin, 
appear with a serene and undisturbed counte- 
nance, asked him if he had received no loss? 
To which he made answer: No; and that, 
thanks be to God, nothing was lost of his. 10 The 
philosopher Antisthenes pleasantly said, that 
men should only furnish themselves with such 
things as would swim, and might with the 
owner escape the storm; 11 and certainly a wise 
man never loses anything, if he has himself 
When the city of Nola was ruined by the Bar- 
barians, Paulmus, who was bishop of that place, 
having there lost all he had, and being himself 
a prisoner, prayed after this manner: — •• ( ) 
Lord, keep me from being sensible of this loss; 



' Persius, v. 158. 

8 Lucretius, v. 44. 

o Horace, Epiat., i. 11, 15. 
io Seneca, EpUt., ix. 
ii Laertius, in vita. 



130 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY 



for thou knowest they have yet touched nothing 
of that which is mine." 1 The riches that made 
him rich, and the goods that made him good, 
were still entire. This it is to make choice of 
treasures that can secure themselves from plun- 
der and violence, and to hide them in a place 
into which no one can enter, and which no one 
can betray but ourselves. Wives, children, 
goods, must be had, and especially health, by 
him that can get it; but we are not so to set 
our heart upon them that our happiness must 
have its dependence upon any of them: we 
must reserve a withdrawing-room, wholly our 
own, and entirely free wherein to settle our true 
liberty, our principal solitude and retreat. And 
in this we must, for the most part, entertain 
ourselves with ourselves, and so privately that 
no knowledge or communication of any foreign 
concern be admitted there; there to laugh and 
to talk, as if without wife, children, goods, 
train, or attendance; to the end that, when it 
shall so fall out that we must lose any or all of 
these, it may be no new thing to be without 
them. We have a mind that can turn to itself, 
that can be its own company; that has where- 
withal to attack and to defend, to receive and 
to give. Let us not then fear, in this solitude 
to languish in an uncomfortable vacancy of 
thought. 

In solis sis tibi turba locis. 2 



Men put them- 



Virtue is satisfied with herself, without dis- 
cipline, without words, without 
effects. In our ordinary actions 
there is not one of a thousand 
that concerns ourselves. He that 
don't concern thou seest scrambling up that 
Ulem - battered wall, furious and trans- 

ported, against whom so many musket shots 
are levelled; and that other, all over scars, 
pale, and fainting with hunger, yet resolved 
rather to die than to open the gate to him, dost 
thou think that these men are there upon their 
own account] No, peradventure in the be- 
half of one whom they never saw, and that 
never concerns himself for their pains and dan- 
ger, but lies wallowing the while in sloth and 
pleasure. And this other snivelling, weak-ey'd, 
slovenly fellow, that thou seest come out of 
his study after midnight, dost thou think he 
has been tumbling over books to learn how to 
become a better man, wiser and more content] 
No such matter, he will there end his days, but 
he will teach posterity the measure of Plautus's 
verses, and the true orthography of some Latin 
word. Who is there that does not voluntarily 
exchange health, repose, and life itself, for re- 
putation and glory, the most useless, frivolous, 
and false coin that passes current amongst us] 
As though our own death were not sufficient to 



August, de Civit. Dei., i. 1 
iTibilllus, iv. 13, 10. 
' Terence, MclpL, i. 1. 13. 
1 Quint. X. 7. 



terrify and trouble us, we charge ourselves, in 
addition, with those of our wives, children, 
and family: as though our own affairs did not 
afford us anxiety enough, we take upon us to 
annoy ourselves and disturb our brains, with 
those of our neighbours and friends : 

Vah. quemquamno hominem in animum institueie, aut 
Parare. quod sit carius, quam ipse est sibi P 

" Alas ! what mortal will be so unwise 
Anything dearer than himself to prize ?" 

Solitude seems to me to have the best pretence 
in such as have already em- 
ployed most their active and In whom 
flourishing age in the world's S£&£ m ° 6t 
service; as for example, Thales. 
We have lived enough for others, let us at least 
live out the small remnant of life for ourselves; 
let us now call in our thoughts and intentions 
to ourselves, and to our own ease and repose. 
'Tis no light thing to make a sure retreat; it 
will be enough to do, without mixing up with 
it other enterprizes and designs. Since God 
gives us leisure to prepare for, and to order our 
removal, let us make ready, pack up our bag-- 
gage, take leave betimes of the company, and 
disentangle ourselves from those strong ties that 
engage us elsewhere, and separate us from 
ourselves. We must break the knot of our 
obligations, how powerful soever, and hereafter 
love this, or that, but espouse nothing but our- 
selves. That is to say, let the remainder be 
our own, yet not so joined and so rivetted as 
not to be forced away without flaying us, or 
tearing away a part of the whole 
piece. The greatest thing in the ™ r Zwl itia 
world is for a man to know how for a man to 
to be his own : 'tis time to wean ^""^"I'^imV/ 
ourselves from society when we 
can ho more add any thing to it; he who is 
not in a condition to lend must forbid himself 
to borrow. Our forces begin to fail us; let us 
ca)l them in, and lock them up at home. He 
that can convert and resolve into himself the 
offices of so many friendships, and of society, 
let him do it. In this decay of nature, which 
renders him useless, burthensome, and trouble- 
some to others, let him take care not to be 
useless, burthensome, and troublesome to him- 
self. Let him soothe and caress himself, and 
above all things be sure to govern himself with 
reverence to his reason and conscience to that 
degree as to be asham'd to make a false step 
in their presence. Rarum est enim, ut satis 
se quisque vereatur. 4 "For 'tis rarely that 
men have respect and reverence enough for 
themselves." Socrates says, that boys should 
cause themselves to be instructed, men exercise 
themselves in well doing, and old men retire 
from all civil and military employments, living 
at their own discretion, without the obligation 
to any office. 5 There are some complexions more 



6 Montaigne assigns this maxim of the Pythagoreans to 
Socrates, because, in the work whence be took it, (Slohrtus, 
Serm. i.) it is immediately preceded by a saying of that 
philosopher. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



131 



proper for these precepts of retirement, than 
others. Such as are of a soft and 
!l "- taint apprehension, and of a deli- 
cate will, and affection which is 
int. not easily subdued to employment, 
which is my own case, will 
sooner incline to this advice than active and 
busy souls who embrace all, engage in all, and 
are hot upon every thing, who offer, present, 
and give themselves up to every occasion. We 
should avail ourselves of these accidental and 
extraneous things, so far as they are pleasant to 
us, but by no means by our principal foundation 
thereon, for it is no true one ; neither nature 
nor reason can allow it so to be: and why, then, 
should we, contrary to their laws, enslave our 
own content by giving it into the power of 
another] So, to anticipate also the accidents 
of fortune, and to deprive ourselves of the 
advantages we have in our own power, as 
several have done upon the account of devotion, 
and some philosophers upon a principle of 
reason, for a man to be his own servant, to lie 
hard, to put out his own eyes, throw wealth 
into the river, and seek out erief, as some do, 
that by the misery of this life they may pre- 
tend to bliss in another; and others, that by 
laying themselves on the ground they may 
avoid the danger of falling, are acts of an 
excessive virtue. The stoutest and firmest 
natures render even their retirement glorious 
and exemplary. 

Tuta et parvula laurio. 
Cum res dcficitint, satis inter vjlia fortis: 
Veruni, ulii quid melius roiitinsit et unctius, idem 
Hus sapere, et solos aio bene vivere, quorum 
Conspicitur nitidis fundata pcciinia villis.' 
"Thus [, when better entertainment fail, 
On cheaper suppers show myself full wise;' 



A great deal less would serve my turn well 
enough. 'Tis enough forme, while in Fortune's 
favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace, and 
being at my case to represent to myself, as far 
as my imagination can stretch, the ill to come ; 
just as we practise at justs and tiltings, where 
we counterfeit war in the greatest calm of peace. 
I do not think Arcesilaus, the philosopher, the 
less a philosopher for knowing that lie made 
use of gold and silver vessels, 2 as the condition 
of his fortune allowed him to do; and, indeed, 
have a better opinion of him than if he had 
denied himself what he used with 
^^atural liberalitv and moderation. I see 

necessities. the utmost limits of natural ne- 

cessity, and considering a poor 
man begging at my door often more jocund and 
More healthy than I myself am, I put myself 
into his place, and attempt to dress my mind 
after his fashion. And running in like manner 



llor. F.pist. i. 15, 42. 
Laertius, in vna. 

' llor., Ki,ist. i., 1, ]<J. 
t'ali/inc, iv. 



over other examples, though I fancy death, 
poverty, contempt, and sickness treading on 
my heels, I easily resolve no* to be affrighted, 
forasmuch as a less than I arn takes them with 
so much patience; I am not willing to believe 
that a weak understanding can do more than a 
strong one ; or that the effects of reason cannot 
be as great as those of custom. And knowing 
how slight and uncertain these accidental con- 
veniences are, I never forget, in the height of 
these enjoyments, to make it my chief prayer 
to God that he will please to render me con- 
tent with myself, and the condition wherein he 
has placed me. I see young men, gay, merry 
fellows, who nevertheless keep a provision of 
pills in their trunks at home, to take when they 
catch a cold, which they fear so much the less 
because they think they have the remedy at 
hand. We should all take the example, and, if 
we find ourselves subject to some more violent 
disease, should furnish ourselves with such 
medicines as may numb and stu- 
pify the part affected. The w J , "„ n ™;' t ; a 
employment a man should choose solitary in£ d 
for a solitary life ought neitiier 
to be a laborious, nor an unpleasing one, other- 
wise 'tis to no purpose at all to be retired. And 
this depends upon every one's liking and 
humour; mine has no turn for household 
matters, and such as love this occupation ought 
to apply themselves to it with moderation ; 

Conentur sibi res, non se submittere rebus :3 



otherwise 'tis a very servile employment, as 
Sallust tells us; 4 though some parts of it are 
more colourable than others, as the care of 
gardens, which Xenophon gives to Cyrus; 5 a 
mean may be found out betwixt that low and 
sordid application, so full of perpetual solicitude, 
which is seen in men who make it their entire 
business and study, and that stupid and extreme 
negligence, letting all things go to rack, which 
we see in others. 



" Democritus's cattle spoils bis corn, 
Whilst he aloft on Fancy's wings is borne." 

But let us hear what advice the younger Pliny 

gives his friend, Cornelius Rufus, 

ii|)on the subject of solitude: "I With what 



tirement wherein thou art, to 
leave to thy servants that base 
and abject care of thy domestic matters, and to 
addict thyself to the study of letters, to extract 
thence something that may be entirely and 
absolutely thine own." 7 By which he means 
reputation ; like Cicero, who says that he 
wishes to employ his solitude and retirement 



i- Econora., iv. ao. Cicero, On old Jlgc, c. 17. 
« llor. Kpi.il. i.. 12, 12. 

' Bpist. i. :t. It is Caninius, and not Cornelius Rufus, 
whom Pliny addresses, 



132 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the sake of de- 



from public affairs, to acquire by his writings 
an immortal life. 1 



It appears to be reason, when a man talks of 
retiring from the world, that he should look 
quite out of himself. Those do it but by halves. 
They design well enough for themselves, 'tis 
true, when they shall be no more in it; but 
still they pretend to extract the fruits of their 
design from the world, when absent from it, by 
a ridiculous contradiction. 

The imagination of those who seek solitude 
upon the account of devotion, filling up their 
courage with the certainty of the divine pro- 
mises in the other life, is much more rationally 
founded. They propose to themselves God, an 
infinite object in goodness and power. The 
soul has there wherewithal, at 
Sought of the ful1 libert y» t0 satiate her desires, 
solitude which Afflictions and sufferings turn to 
is courted for their advantage, being undergone 
for the acquisition of an eternal 
health and everlasting joys. 
Death is to be wished and longed for, where it 
is the passage to so perfect a condition. And 
the severe rules they impose upon themselves 
are immediately softened down by custom, and 
all their carnal appetites baffled and subdued, 
by refusing to humour and feed them; they 
being only supported by use and exercise. This 
sole end, therefore, of another happy and im- 
mortal life, is that which really merits that we 
should abandon the pleasures and conveniences 
of this. And he who can really and constantly 
enflame his soul with the ardour of this lively 
faith and hope, does erect for himself in his 
solitude a more voluptuous and delicious life 
than any other sort of life. Neither the end, 
The defect of then, nor the means, of this ad- 
Piinys and ci- vice of Pliny pleases me, for we 

cero's advice. often ft] j ouJ . Qf th(J fryin? . pan 

into the fire. This book-employment is as 
painful as any other, and as great an enemy to 
health, which ought to be the first thing in 
every man's thoughts ; neither ought a man to 
be allured with the pleasure of it, which is the 
same that destroys the wary, avaricious, volup- 
tuous, and ambitious men. The sages give us 
caution enough to beware of the treachery of 
our appetites, and to distinguish true and entire 
pleasures from such as are mixed and compli- 
cated with pain. For the greatest part of 
pleasures (say they) tickle and caress only to 
strangle us like those thieves whom the Egyp- 
tians called Philetas. 3 If head-ache came before 
drunkenness, we should have a care of drinking 
too much : but pleasure to deceive us marches 
before, and conceals her train. Books are 



Cicero, Orat. c. 43. 
1 Pens. i. 27. 
1 Seneca, Epist. 54. 



pleasant, but if by their use we impair our 
health, and spoil our good humour, the best 
things we have, let us give them over. I, for my 
part, am one of those who think that no fruit 
derived from them can recompense so great a 
loss. As men who feel themselves weakened 
by a long series of indisposition give them- 
selves up at last to the mercy of medicine, and 
submit to certain rules of living, which they 
are for the future never to transgress; so he 
who retires, weary of, and disgusted with, the 
common way of living, ought to model this 
new one he enters into by the rules of reason, 
and to institute and arrange it by premedita- 
tion, and after the best method he can contrive. 
He ought to have taken leave of all sorts of 
labour, what face soever it bears ; and generally 
to have shaken off all those passions which 
disturb the tranquillity of body and soul, and 
then choose the way that bests suits his own 
humour : 

(Jnusquisque sua noverit ire via.< 
" We each best know to what we are inclined." 

In attending to domestic matters, in study, 
hunting, and all other exercises, we should go 
to the utmost limits of pleasure ; but must take 
heed of proceeding farther, or trouble begins to 
mix in it. We are to resepve so much employ- 
ment only as is necessary to keep us in breath ; 
and to defend us from the inconveniences that 
the other extreme, of a dull and stupid laziness, 
bring along with it. There are 
some sterile, knotty sciences, and Certain scl- 

chiefly hammered out for the ??£ es wJ? m ;„.i 
r i . .1 1 rv . .i which the mind 

crowd ; let such be left to them , nust not be 
who are engaged in the service embarrassed, 
of the world. I for my part care 
for no other books but either such as are plea- 
sant and easy, to tickle my fancy, or those that 
comfort and instruct me how to regulate my 
life and death. 



Wiser men may propose to themselves a repose 
wholly spiritual, as having great force and 
vigour of mind : but for me, who am but ordi- 
narily furnished that way, I find it necessary 
to support myself with bodily conveniences; 
and age having of late deprived me of those 
pleasures that were most acceptable to me, I 
instruct and whet my appetite to those that 
remain, and are more suitable to this new season 
of my life. We ought to hold fast, tooth and 
nail, of the use of the pleasures of life, that our 
years, one after another, snatch away from us. 



" And our time employ 

Measures which alone give life its 
'11 be a tale and ashes like the res 



* Propertius, ii. S 
5 Horace, Epist. i 
c Persius, v. 151. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



133 



Now, as to the end that Pliny and Cicero 

propose to us of glory ; 'tis infinitely wide of 

my account ; ambition is, of all 

Glory and tran- tj lers (, ne mos i contrary humour 

ipiillity incom- , ,.' , „, , J 

patibie. to solitude. Glory and repose are 

so inconsistent that they cannot 
possibly inhabit in one and the same place ; 
and, as far as I understand, those who seek the 
two have only their arms and legs disengaged 
from the crowd : their mind and wishes remain 
engaged behind more than ever. 

Tun', vetule, auriculis alienis colligis escas ?' 
" Old as you are, will you the food supply 
For other ears ?" 

They are only retired to take a better leap, 
and by a stronger motion to give a brisker 
charge into the crowd. Will you see how 
they shoot short] Let us put into the balance 
the advice of two philosophers, of two very 
different sects, 2 writing the one to Idomeneus, 
the other to Lucilius, their friends, to retire 
into solitude from worldly honours and the 
administration' of public affairs. "You have," 
say they, " hitherto lived swimming and float- 
ing; come now to die in the harbour. You 
have given the first part of your life to the 
light, give what remains to the shade. It is 
impossible to give over business if you do not 
also quit the fruit, and therefore disengage 
yourselves from all the concerns of name and 
glory. 'Tis to be feared the lustre of your 
former actions will give you but too much 
light, and follow you into your most private 
retreat. Quit with other pleasures that which 
proceeds from the approbation of the world. 
And as to your knowledge and parts, never 
concern yourselves, they will not lose their 
effect if yourselves be ever the better for 
thetri. 3 Remember him who, being asked 
Why he took so much pains in an art that 
could come to the knowledge of but few per- 
sons'! 4 'A few are enough for me,' replied 
he; 'I have enough with one, I have enough 
with never a one.' He said true ; yourself and 
a companion are theatre enough to one another, 
or you to yourself. 5 Let us be to you the 
whole people, and the whole people to you but 
one. 8 'Tis a low ambition to think to derive 
glory from a man's sloth and privacy. You 
should do like the beasts of chase, who efface 



Pes 



. "■_>. 



"Epicurus and Sener.i. See Scncra (Epist. 21), who 
quotes a passage of Epicurus's filter to Idomeneus, very 
differenl from that preserved by Laertius. 

•j "Cur ego, inquis, ista didici ? Non est quod timeas ne 
.■p-ram pn-didrris: tibi didicisti."— Seneca, Epist.7. 

<• "Satis rii.iL'iium alter alteri llicatrum sumus." This is 
v, hat Epicurus wrote to one of his friends. 
« Seneca ascribes this saying to Deniocritus, Ep. 7. 
1 Seneca, Epist. G8. 
f Id. ibid. 

' ' Prodesj ine dubio custodem sibi imposuisscet habere 
lem interesse tuis cogitationibus indices. 

ol i Dial i BOlitudo persuadet. ( jam pnanv, ,.- 

lit sit tibi ctiaiii I. n ri'i i mil,.,, 1 1 . . I . , I .lunula i 
f Interim icaliipuwum auctorilatecuslodi. Am Cain illesil 

12 



the track at the entrance into their den. 7 You 
are to concern yourselves no more how the 
world talks of you, but how you are to talk to 
yourselves. Retire yourself into yourself) but 
first prepare yourself there to receive yourself. 8 
It were a folly to trust yourself in your own 
hands, if you cannot govern yourself. 9 A man 
may miscarry alone as well as in company ; 
till you have rendered yourself one before whom 
you dare not trip, and till you have a bash- 
fulness and respect for yourself; obversentur 
species honestx animo. w (Let just and honest 
things be still represented to the mind.) Pre- 
sent continually to your imagination Cato, 
Phocion, and Aristides, in whose presence fools 
themselves will hide their faults, and make 
them controllers of all your intentions. Should 
these deviate from virtue, your respect to those 
will again set you right; they will keep you 
in the way of being contented with yourself, 
to borrow nothing of any other but yourself; 
to restrain and fix your soul in certain and 
limited thoughts, wherein she may please her- 
self, and, having comprehended the true and 
real good which men the more enjoy the more 
they understand, to rest satisfied, without desire 
of prolongation of life or memory." These are 
the precepts of the true and natural philosophy, 
not of a boasting and prating philosophy, such 
as that of the two former." 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

A CONSIDERATION UPON CICERO. 

One word more by way of comparison betwixt 
these two. There are to be 
gathered out of the writings of ^cj^ero"^ 
Cicero and the younger Pliny puny. 
(who, in my opinion, but little 
resembles his uncle in his humour), infinite testi- 
monies of a nature boundlessly ambitious; and, 
amongst others, this for one, that they both, 
in the sight of all the world, solicit the his- 
torians of their time not to forget them in their 
memoirs; 12 and fortune, as it were in spite, has 
made the vanity of these requests live upon 
record down to this age of ours, while she has 
long since buried the histories of themselves in 



ant Scipio, am Lalius, am cuius interventa perditiquoque 
homines vitia supprinieroiit, dum te etficis coram quo puc- 
cara non audit."— Seneca, Epist. -23. 

>o Cicero, Tusc. Qu<es. i. 2, 21. 

it Pliny the Younger and Cicero. 

"Cicero writing to Eucceius (Epist. v. 12), and Pliny to 
Tacitus (vii.3!<l, with this most remarkable ditV-ivnce. how- 
ever, that the first earnestly desires his friend not to attach 
himself scrupulously to the rules of, but boldly In leap the 
barrii rs of, truth in his favour. "Te plane etiam alque 
i 'tin ii i niL'o, ut et omes ea vehement ins etiam qmu 
sent.is et in ea Icees histm ,„■ nesliiws :" whereas Pliny dc- 
elai ■■■- ,".|,i, ssly that he dues inn de-ire Tacitus to l'ivc the 

lei ■ to the truth: — " Uuamquam non e.vigo lit 

eu-cdas pi acta- modiim. Nam nee historia del, r e«redi 
verilaieui. ei Imiu-st " fact is Veritas suliicit." tine would 
have thought thai Montaigne should, in justice to Pliny, 
have distinguished hitn from Cicero in this particular. 



134 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



oblivion. But this exceeds all meanness of 
spirit in persons of such quality as they were to 
think to, derive any glory from babbling and 
prating ; even to the making use of their 
private letters to their friends, and so withal 
that, though some of them were never sent, 
the opportunity being lost, they nevertheless 
published them with this worthy excuse, that 
they were unwilling to lose their labour and 
have their lucubrations thrown away. 1 Was 
it not well becoming two consuls of Rome, 
sovereign magistrates of the republic that 
commanded the world, to spend their time in 
patching up elegant missives, in order to gain 
the reputation of being well versed in their 
own mother-tongue'? What could a pitiful 
schoolmaster have done worse, who by it got 
his living? If the acts of Xeno- 
Why Xeno- ph on an d Csesar had not far 
\\'n'iVi' t'i'i'.-ir own transcended their eloquence, I 
histories. don't believe they would ever 

have taken the pains to write 
them. They made it their business to recom- 
mend not their saying, but their doing. And 
could the perfection of eloquence have added 
any lustre proportionable to the merit of a 
great person, certainly Scipio and Lselius had 
never resigned the honour of their comedies, 
with all the luxuriances and delicacies of the 
Latin tongue, to an African slave; for that 
the work was theirs its beauty and excellency 
sufficiently prove : besides Terence himself con- 
fesses as much, 2 and I should take it ill in any 
one that would dispossess me of that belief. 
'Tis an injurious mockery and impertinence to 
extol a man for qualities mis- 
becoming his condition, though 
otherwise commendable in them- 
selves, and for such as ought not 
to be his chief talent ; as if a man 
should commend a king for being 
a good painter, a good architect, 
a good marksman, or a good runner at the 
ring. Commendations that add no honour 
unless in combination with, and in addition 
to, those that are befitting him, namely, justice 
and the knowledge how to govern his people 
both in peace and war. 'Tis in this way only 
that agriculture was an honour to Cyrus, and 
eloquence and the knowledge of letters to 
Charlemagne. I have, indeed, in my time, 
known some who, by a knack of writing, have 
got both title and fortune, yet disown their 
apprenticeship, purposely corrupt their style, 
and affect ignorance of so vulgar a quality 
(which also our nation observes to be rarely 
seen in very learned hands), carefully seeking 
a reputation by better qualities. 



i Montaigne is mistaken in supposing Hint the Letters 
of Cicero were written lor the public. Cicero himself had 
only preserved seventy of them (ad Attic, xvi.); the rest 
were collected by Tiron. It is only necessary to read the 
letters of Atticus to be convinced that they were addressed 
to him alone. Whai. Montaigne says applies only to 
Pliny the Younger. 

2 He does not confess it exactly, but he does not deny 
it very forcibly. 



dualities, 
which are not 
suitable to a 
man's rank in 
the world, 
cannot do him 
honour. 



The companions of Demosthenes in the em- 
bassy to Philip, extolling that 
prince as handsome, eloquent, and Great men are 
a stout drinker, Demosthenes ^^ J e r com . 
said, " That those were com- mon things, 
mendations more proper for a 
woman, an advocate, or a sponge, than for a 
king-."3 



'Tis not his profession to know either how to 
hunt or to dance well : 

Orabunt causas alii, ccelique meatus 
Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent, 
Hie regere iinperio populos sciat.s 



To rule mankind, and make the world obey." 

Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so 
excellent in these less necessary 
qualities is to produce witness should "not 
against a man's self, that he has excel in things 
spent his time, and applied his °°* 
study ill, which ought to have 
been employed in the acquisition of more ne- 
cessary and more useful things. Thus, Philip, 
King of Macedon, having heard the great 
Alexander, his son, sing at a feast, to the won- 
der and envy of the best musicians there: — 
" Art thou not ashamed," said he to him, " to 
sing so well?" 6 And to the same Philip, a 
musician with whom he was disputing about 
something concerning his art, said, " Heaven for- 
bid, sir, that so great a misfortune should ever 
befal you as to understand these things better 
than I." 7 A king should be able to answer, as 
Iphicrates did the orator, who pressed upon him 
in his- invective after this manner: "And who 
art thou, that thou bravest it at this rate 1 Art 
thou a man-at-arms? Art thou an archer"? 
Art thou a pikenian ?" " I am none of all 
this, but I know how to command all these." 8 
And Antisthenes took it for an argument of 
little valour in Ismenias that he was commended 
for playing excellently well upon 
a flute. 9 I know very well M^ment^f 
that when I hear any one insist Essays." 
upon the language of these 
Essays, I had rather a great deal he would say 
nothing. 'Tis not so much to elevate the style 
as to depress the sense, and so much the more 
offensively as they do it obliquely. I am much 
deceived if many other writers deliver more 
worth noting as to the matter; and, how well 
or ill soever, if any other writer has strewed 



3 Plutarch, hi vita. 

4 Hor. Carmen Secul. 51. 

6 JEneid, vi. 849. 

• Plutarch, Life of Pericles. 

7 Id., How to distinguish a flatterer. 
» Id., On Fortune. 

* Id., Life of Pericles. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



135 



them either with much more material, or thicker 
upon his paper, than myself. To bring the more 1 
in, 1 only put in the heads ; were I to annex 
the sequels, I should vastly multiply this | 
volume. And how many stories have I scat- 1 
tered up and down here that I only touch upon, 
which, should any one more curiously search ! 
into, they would find matter enough to produce j 
infinite Essays. Neither these stories, nor my 
allegations, do always serve simply for example, I 
authority, or ornament ; I do not only regard 
them for the use I make of them ; they carry , 
sometimes, besides what I apply them to, the 
seed of a richer and a bolder matter, and some- 1 
times, collaterally, a more delicate sound, both | 
to me myself; who will say no more about it in 
this place, and to others who shall happen to 
be of my fancy. 

But returning to the speaking virtue ; I find 
no great choice betwixt not knowing to speak 
anything but ill, and not knowing any thing 
but speaking well. Non est ornament um virile 
concinnitas. 1 "Neatness of style is no manly 
ornament." The sages tell us that, as to what 
concerns knowledge, there is nothing but phi- 
losophy ; and to what concerns effects, nothing 
but virtue, that is generally proper to all de- 
grees, and to all orders. There 
i'!',!',"I"°.f "„ is something like this in these two 
other philosophers, for they also 
promise eternity to the letters they 
write to their friends ; but 'tis 
after another manner, and by accommodating 
themselves for a good end, to the vanity of 
another: for they write to them, that if the 
concern of making themselves known to future 
ages, and the thirst of glory, do yet detain 
them in the management of public affairs, and 
make them fear the solitude and retirement to 
which they would persuade them ; let them 
never trouble themselves more about it, foras- 
much as they shall have credit enough with 
posterity to assure them that, were there no- 
thing else but the very letters thus writ to them, 
those letters will render their names as known 
and famous as their own public actions them- 
selves could do. 2 And besides this difference, 
these are not idle and empty letters, that con- 
tain nothing but a fine gingle of well-chosen 
words, and fine couched phrases, but replete 
and abounding with grave and learned dis- 
courses, by which a man may render himself 
not more eloquent, but more wise ; and that 
instruct us not to speak, but to do well. Away 
with that eloquence that so enchants us with its 
harmony that we should more study it than 
tilings; unless you will affirm that of Cicero to 
be of so supreme a perfection as to form a 
complete body of itself. And of him I shall 



ii|i|iusltiail 

Pliny and 

Cicero. 



farther add one story we read of him to this 
purpose, wherein his nature will much more 
manifestly be laid open to us. lie was to make 
an oration in public, and found himself a little 
straitened in time, to fit his words to his mouth, 
as he had a mind to do; when Eros, one of his 
slaves, brought him word that the audience 
was deferred till the next day, at which he was 
so ravished with joy that he enfranchised him 
for the good news. 3 

Upon this subject of letters, I will add, that 
it is a kind of writing wherein 
my friends think I can do some- Montaigne's 
thing; and, I am willing to JgSSSf^t 
confess, I should rather have letter-writer. 
chosen to publish my whimsies 
that way than any other, had I had to whom 
to write; but I wanted such a settled corres- 
pondent as I once had, to attract me to it, to 
raise my fancy, and keep me to it. For to 
traffic with the wind, as some others have 
done, and to forge vain names to direct my 
letters to, in a serious subject, I could never do 
it but in a dream, being a sworn enemy to all 
manner of falsification. I should have been 
more diligent, and more confident, had I had 
a judicious and indulgent friend to whom to 
address, than thus to expose myself to various 
judgments of a whole people; and I am de- 
ceived if I had not succeeded better. I have 
naturally a comic and familiar style ; but it is 
peculiar to myself, and not proper for public 
business, but, like the language I speak, too 
compact, irregular, abrupt, and singular. And 
as to letters of ceremony, that have no other 
substance than a fine contexture of courteous 
words, I am wholly to seek: I have no 
faculty nor relish for those tedious offers of 
service and affection ; I don't much believe in 
them, and should not forgive myself, should I 
say more than I meant, which is very remote 
from the present practice: for there never was 
so abject and servile a prostitution of tenders of 
life, soul, of devotion, adoration, vassal, slave, 
and I know not what, as now ; all which ex- 
pressions are so common, and so indifferently 
used to and fro by every one, and to every one, 
that, when they would profess a greater and 
more respectful inclination upon more just 
occasions, they have not wherewithal to ex- 
press it. 

I mortally hate all air of flattery, which is 
the cause that 1 naturally fall into a dry, rough, 
and crude way of speaking, which, to such as 
do not know ine, may seem a little to smack of 
disdain. I honour those most to whom I show 
the least honour; and where my soul moves 
with the greatest cheerfulness, I easily forget 
the ceremonies of look and gesture ; I offer 



1 Senec. Epist. 
i lYhen Bpicui 
Igid powei and 



:t will iiijiIm- ynii t relrliruled than all limits that vim 

/ admire, and lor which you ure admired." Seneca, (EJ/Ut. 



xxi.) who, in the same epistle, says to his friend, Lucilius, 
"The very thing which Epicurus could promise to his 
friend, I promise to you, Lucilius ; I shall he in the favour 
of posterity : it is in my power to bring out names that 
shall be lasting." 

3 Plutarch, rfpot/icpms. 



136 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



myself faintly and bluntly to them whose I 
effectually am, tendering myself the least to 
him to whom I am the most devoted. Methinks 
they should read it in my heart, and that my 
expression would but injure the love I have 
conceived within. To welcome, take leave, 
give thanks, accost, offer service, and such 
verbal formalities as the laws of our modern 
civility enjoin, I know no man so stupidly 
unprovided of language as myself. And I 
have never been employed in writing letters of 
favour and recommendation but he in whose 
behalf it was did not think my mediation cold 
and imperfect. The Italians are great printers 
of letters. I do believe I have at least a hun- 
dred several volumes of them, of all which, 
those of Annibal Caro 1 seem to me to be the 
best. 

If all the paper I have scribbled to the 
ladies at the time when my hand was really 
prompted by my passion were now in being, 
there might, peradventure, be found a page 
worthy to be communicated to our young in- 
amoratos that are besotted that way. I always 
write my letters post-haste, and so precipitately 
that, though I write an intolerable bad hand, 2 
I rather choose to do it myself than to employ 
another : for I can find none able to follow me, 
and I never transcribe. I have accustomed the 
great folks that know me to endure my blots 
and dashes, and paper without fold or margin. 
Those that cost me the most pains are the 
worst; when I once begin to draw them on, 
'tis a sign my mind's not there. I fall to 
without premeditation or design, the first para- 
graph begets the second, and so to the end of 
the chapter. The letters of this age consist 
more in margin and prefaces than matter; 
whereas, just as I had rather write two letters 
than fold up one, and always assign that em- 
ployment to another person, so, when the 
business of my letter is dispatched, I would, 
with all my heart, transfer it to another hand, 
to add those long harangues, offers, and prayers 
that we place at the bottom, and should be 
glad that some new custom would discharge us 
of that trouble altogether; as also superscribing 
them with a long ribble-row of qualities and 
titles, for fear of making mistakes in which 
I have several times omitted writing, and 
especially to men of the long robe and of finance. 
There are so many new offices, that 'tis hard to 
place so many titles of honour in their proper 
and due order, though, being so dearly bought, 
they are neither to be mistaken nor omitted 
without offence. I find the same fault likewise 
with loading the fronts and title-pages of the 
books we commit to the press with sUch a clut- 
ter of titles. 



CHAPTER XL. 

THAT THE RELISH OF GOOD AND EVIL IN A 
GREAT MEASURE DEPENDS UPON THE OPINION 
WE HAVE OF THEM. 

Men (says an ancient Greek sentence 3 ) are 
tormented with the opinions they have of 
things, and not by the things themselves. It 
would be a great victory obtained for the relief 
of our miserable human condition, could this 
proposition be established for certain and true 
throughout. For if evils have no admission 
into us but by the judgment we ourselves make 
of them, it should seem that it is then in our 
own power to despise them or to turn thern to 
good. If things surrender themselves to our 
mercy, why do we not convert and accommo- 
date them to our advantage?. If what we call 
evil and torment is neither evil nor torment 
in itself, but only that our fancy gives it that 
quality, and makes it so, it lies in us to change 
and alter it ; and it being in our own choice, if 
there be no constraint upon us, we must cer- 
tainly be very strange fools to take arms for 
that side which is most offensive to us, and to 
give sickness, want, and contempt, a nauseous 
taste, if it be in our power to give them a more 
grateful relish, and if, fortune simply providing 
the matter, 'tis our business to give it its form. 
Now what we call evil is not 
so of itself, or at least that, be Whi " evil is 

, . . ' .. , , and liovv it con- 

it what it may, it depends upon cerns us . 

us to give it another taste or 

complexion (for all comes to one), let us examine 

how this can be maintained. If the original 

being of those things we fear had power to 

lodge itself in us by its own authority, it would 

then lodge itself alike and in like manner in 

all : for men are all of the same kind, and, 

saving in greater and less proportions, are all 

provided with the same utensils and instruments 

to conceive and to judge; but the diversity of 

opinions we have of those things does clearly 

evince that they only enter us by composition. 

One particular person, peradventure, admits 

them in their true being ; but a thousand others 

give them a new and contrary being in them. 

We hold death, poverty, and ,„, __ 

• /. . , • • i - • The different 

grief, to be our principal enemies ; i(leas of ueat h. 
now this death, which some re- 
pute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, 
who knows but that others call it the only 
secure harbour from the storms and tempests 
of life; the sovereign good of nature; the sole 
support of liberty ; and the common and ready 
remedy for all evils? And, as the one expects 
it with fear and trembling, the others support 



"The celebrated translator of the JEiicitl, born 1507, at 
Citta-Nuova, in the Marches of Ancona ; died at Rome, 
]5<itt. The first part of his Letters appeared in 1572, and 
the second in 1574. They are reckoned among the models 
of Italian prose writing. 

3 Montaigne must not be believed altogether, when he 
talks of his bad hand-writing. I have seen the copy of his 



Essays, corrected by his own hand, from winch Naigeon's 
edition was printed, and I can affirm that Ins hand-writing 
is very legible, straight, and, which is remarkable, exhibits 
but slight traces of the extreme vivacity of his chat actor.— 
A. Duval. 

3 Epictetus, Manual, c. 10. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



137 



it with greater ease than life. This fellow 
complains of its facility ; — 



But let us leave this vaunting courage. Theo- 
dorus answered Lysimachus, who threatened to 
kill him, "Thou wilt do a brave feat," said 
he, " to arrive at the force of a cantharides." 2 
The greatest portion of philosophers are ob- 
served to have either purposely anticipated, or 
hastened and assisted, their own death. How 
many ordinary people do we see led to execu- 
tion, and that not to a simple death, but mixed 
with shame, and sometimes with grievous tor- 
ments, who yet appear with such assurance, 
some through obstinacy, some from natural 
simplicity, that one can discover no change 
from their ordinary condition; settling their 
domestic affairs, commending themselves to 
their friends, singing, preaching, and talking 
with the people : nay, sometimes passing jokes 
to make the bystanders laugh, and drinking to 
their companions, just as well as Socrates. One 
that they were leading to the 
gallows, told them they must not 
carry him through such a street, 
lest a merchant that lived there 
should arrest him by the way for 
Another told the hangman he 
must not touch his neck, for fear of making 
him laugh, he was so ticklish; another an- 
swered his confessor, who promised him that 
he should that day sup with our Lord, " Do 
you go then," said he, " in my room ; for I for 
my part keep fast to-day." Another having 
called for drink, and the hangman having 
drunk first, said he would not drink after him, 
for fear of catching the pox. Everybody has 
heard the tale of the Picard, to whom, being 
upon the ladder, they presented a girl of the 
town, telling him (as our law does sometimes 
permit) that if he would marry her they would 
save his life; he having a while considered 
her, and perceiving that she halted, " Tie up, 
tie up," said he, "she limps." And they tell 
another story of the same kind, of a fellow in 
Denmark, who, being condemned to lose his 
head, and the like condition being proposed to 
him upon the scaffold, refused it, by reason the 

Sri they offered him had hollow cheeks and too 
arp a nose. A servant at Thoulouse being 
accused of heresy, for the sole ground of his 
belief referred himself to that of his master, a 
young student, prisoner with him, and chose 
rather to die than suffer himself to be persuaded 
that his master could err. We read of the 
inhabitants of Arras, .when Louis the Eleventh 
took that city, that a great many let themselves 



Merry jokes of 
some persons 
led to exe- 
cution. 



an old debt. 



' Lucret. iv. 580. a Cicero, TVs. Qutrs. v. 40. 

3 In Hi" Indies i«ys (Vcm\ v. \„ re it is the custom tor 
a man (•> Ii.-ivm several wives. when the husband dies the 
women dispute who was his greatest favourite; and she 
who carries Ihe ipicstion is overjoyed, and burnt on the 

12* 



be hanged, rather than they would say, "God 
save the king." And amongst that mean- 
souled race of men, the buffoons, there have 
been some who would not leave their fooling 
at the very moment of death. He that the 
hangman turned off the ladder cried, " Launch 
the galley," a slang saying of his; and another, 
who at the point of death was laid upon a 
pallet before the fire, the physician asking him 
where his pain lay, " Betwixt the bench and 
the fire," said he ; and the priest, to give him 
extreme unction, groping for his feet, which 
his pain had made him pull up to him, " You 
will find them," said he, "at the end of my 
legs." To one that being present exhorted 
him to recommend himself to God, "Why? 
who's going there?" said he. And the other 
replying, "It will presently be yourself, if it 
be his good pleasure." — " Would I were sure 
to be there by to-morrow night," said he. 
" Do but recommend yourself to him," said 
the other, "and you will soon be there." 
"I were best then," said he, "to carry my 
recommendations myself." 

In the kingdom of Narsingua to this day the 
wives of their priests are buried 
alive with the bodies of their ^" y n e " bum 
husbands; all other wives are themselves 
burnt at their husband's funerals, *'"'? "'", h the ,. 

, . . ,, , - , dead bodies of 

which they not only firmly, their husbands, 
but cheerfully, undergo. 3 At the 
death of their king his wives and concubines, 
his favourites, all his officers and domestic 
servants, who make up a great number of 
people, present themselves so cheerfully to the 
fire where his body is burnt that they seem to 
take it for a singular honour to accompany 
their master in death. During our late war 
of Milan, where there happened 
so many takings and retakings of Death fondly 
towns, the people, impatient of coveted - 
so many various changes of for- 
tune, took such a resolution to die that I have 
heard my father say he there saw a list taken 
of five and twenty masters of families that 
made themselves away in one week's time. A 
misfortune somewhat resembling that of the 
Zanthians, who being besieged' by Brutus pre- 
cipitated themselves, men, women, and children, 
into such a furious appetite of dying that 
nothing can be done to evade death which 
these did not put in practice to avoid life; 
insomuch that Brutus with all his endeavours 
could save but a very small number. 4 

Even opinion is of force enough to make 
itself to be espoused at the ex- 
pense of life. The first article of opinions es- 
that valiant oath that Greece poused at the 
took and observed, in the Median e ^ ense on "' e - 
war, was that every one should 
sooner exchange life for death than their own 



ime pile with her husband. (7V-.. (jhtsv. jt ) Tl 
isiiuii was observed by a people oi Thraeo. nrcor 



same r 

custom was observed by a people ot Thrace, according to 

Herodotus, v., and is still kept up in Indostnn. 

* Filly only, who were saved a-ainst iIkii will.— Plu- 
tarch, Life of Marcus Brutus, c. 8. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



laws for those of Persia. 1 What a world of 
people do we see, in the wars betwixt the 
Turks and the Greeks, rather embrace a cruel 
death than to uncircumcise themselves to admit 
of baptism ! An example of which no sort of 
religion is incapable. The Kings 
Cruel treat- f Castile having banished the 

meet ot Jews T , ,. .1 ■ i • • 

by the King of Jews out of their dominions, 
Castile. " John, King of Portugal, in con- 
sideration of eight crowns a-head, 
sold them a retirement into his for a certain 
limited time, he undertaking to furnish them 
with shipping to transport them into Africa. 
The limited day being come, which, once 
lapsed, they were given to understand that such 
as were afterwards found in the kingdom should 
remain slaves, vessels were very slenderly 
provided, and those who embarked in them 
were rudely and villanously used by the sea- 
men, who, besides other indignities, kept them 
cruising upon the sea, one while forwards, and 
another backwards, till they had consumed all 
their provisions, and were constrained to buy of 
them at so dear a rate, and for so long a time, 
that they set them not on shore till they were 
all stripped to their very shirts. The news of 
this inhuman usage being brought to those who 
remained behind, the greater part of them re- 
solved upon slavery, and soon made a show of 
changing their religion. Emanuel, the suc- 
cessor of John, being come to the crown, first 
set them at liberty ; and afterwards, altering 
his mind, ordered them to depart his country, 
assigning three ports for their departure; — 
hoping (says the Bishop Osorius, no contempti- 
ble Latin historian of these latter times,) that 
the favour of the liberty he had given them 
having failed of converting them to Christianity, 
yet the aversion to commit themselves to the 
outrages of the mariners, and to abandon a 
country they were now habituated to, and were 
grown very rich in, to go and expose them- 
selves in strange and unknown regions, would 
certainly do it. But, finding himself deceived 
in his expectation, and that they were all re- 
solved upon the voyage, he cut off two of the 
ports he had promised them, to the end that the 
length and incommodity of the passage might 
reduce some; or that he might have opportu- 
nity, by crowding them all into one place, the 
more conveniently to execute what he had 
designed ; which was to force all the children 
under fourteen years of age from the arms of 
their fathers and mothers, to transport them 
from their sight and conversation into a place 



i Diori. Sic. v. 29. 

2 Mariana, the celebrated Jesuit, says, in his history of 
Spain, torn. ii. xxvi. 13, that, by an edict of this prince, 
those children were baptized by force: a cruel edict, says 
the good Jesuit, altogether contrary to the Christian laws 
and institutes. What ! he adds, shall violence be used to 
force men to embrace Christianity, and, in the most import- 
ant anVir of the world, to rob those whom God has been 
pleased to leave to their own discretion, of that heavenly 
present, Liberty! To proceed so far is a horrible crime, as 
well as to force children with this view from the arms of 



where they might be instructed 

and brought up in our religion. 2 Jews that out 

He says that this produced a most of , z<, . aI f ? r . 1 t , h 5 ir 

. . ,•' . , \, . ... religion killed 

horrid spectacle : the natural at- themselves and 
fections betwixt the parents and children, 
their children, and, above all, 
their zeal to their ancient belief, contending 
against this violent decree, fathers and 
mothers were commonly seen making them- 
selves away, and, by a still sadder and sterner 
example, precipitating, out of Jove and corn- 
passion, their young children into wells, to 
avoid the severity of this law. As to the 
remainder of them, the time that had been 
prefixed being expired, for want of means to 
transport them, they again returned into slavery. 
Some turned Christians, upon whose faith, or 
rather that of their posterity, even to this day, 
which is a hundred years after, few Portuguese 
rely, or believe them to be real converts ; 
though custom, and length of time, are much 
more powerful counsellors in such changes than 
any constraint whatever. In the town of 
Castlenau-Darry, fifty heretics, 
Albigenses, at one time suffered re'ticfThote 
themselves to be burnt alive in rather to be 
one fire, rather than they would ^ n ' t '\ n g i a r n re " 
renounce their opinions. Qunties opinions. 
von rnadd duclores noslri (says 
Cicero,) sed universi etiam exercitus, ad non 
dubiam mortem concurrervntP "How oft 
have not only our leaders, but whole armies, 
run to certain death!" I have seen an inti- 
mate friend of mine, with a real affection that 
was rooted in his heart by divers plausible 
arguments, which I could never dispossess him 
of, ardently seek death, and, upon the first 
honourable occasion that offered itself, precipi- 
tate himself into it : and that, too, without any 
manner of visible reason, with an obstinate and 
ardent desire of dying. We have several exam- 
ples in our own times of those, even among 
little children, who, for fear of a whipping, or 
some such little thing, have dispatched them- 
selves. And what shall we not fear (says one 
of the ancients), if we dread that which cow- 
ardice itself has chosen for its refuge 1" 

To produce here a catalogue of those of 
all sexes, and conditions, and sects, even in the 
most happy ages, who have either with great 
constancy looked death in the face, or volun- 
tarily sought it; and sought it not only to avoid 
the evils of this life, but some purely to avoid 
the satiety of living, and others, for the hope of 
a better condition elsewhere ; I should never 



their parents. The Portuguese nation, however, committed 
sin iii these two points, having dragged the children to bap- 
tism by force, and without the consent of their parents, 
and having engaged those more advanced in years to make 
profession of Christianity, by loading them with reproaches 
and injuries, and especially by fraudulently depriving them 
of the means of retiring elsewhere, which they had ex- 
pressly obliged themselves to grant them. 

* Tusc. Qu<es. i. 37. 

* Seneca, Epist. 70. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



139 



have done. Nay, the number is so infinite 
that in truth I should have a better bargain 
ou't to reckon up those who have feared it. 
This one, therefore, shall serve for all. Pyrrho, 
the philosopher, being one day in a boat, in a 
very great tempest, showed to those he saw the 
most affrighted about him, and encouraged them 
by the example of, a hog that was there, no- 
thing at all concerned at the storm. 1 Shall we 
then dare to say that this advantage of reason, 

of which we so much boast, and 
To what use U p n the account of which we 
::"n;;;:S,d think ourselves masters and em- 
be applied. perors over all other creatures, 

was given us for a torment'! To 
what end serves the knowledge of things, if it 
renders us more unmanly ; if, with it, we lose the 
tranquillity and repose we should enjoy without 
it, an:l if it puts us into a worse condition than 
Pyrrho's hog! Shall we employ the under- 
standing that was conferred upon us for our 
greatest good to our own ruin; setting our- 
selves a.gainst the design of nature, and the 
universal order of things, which intend that 
every one should make use of the faculties, 
members, and means he has, to his own best 
advantage"! But it may perad venture be ob- 
jected against me : — Your rule is true enough 
as to what concerns death; but what will you 
say of indigence] What will you say of pain, 
which Aristippus, Hieronymus, and almost all 
the wise men, have reputed the worst of evils'! 
And those who have denied it by word of 
mouth have confessed it in effects. Possido- 
nius being extremely tormented with a sharp 
and painful disease, Pompeitis came to visit 
him, excusing himself that he had taken so 
unseasonable a time to come to hear him dis- 
course of philosophy : "The gods forbid,'' said 
Possidonius, "that pain should ever have the 
power to hinder me from talking of it;" and 
thereupon fell immediately upon a discourse of 
the contempt of pain. But, in the mean time, 
pain was playing its part, and plagued him 
incessantly; on which he cried out, "Do thy 
worst, pain, thou shalt never make me say 
thou art an evil." 2 This story, that they make 
such a clutter about, what is there in it of 
the contempt of pain 1 It only fights it with 
words, and in the mean time, if its shootings 
did not move him, why did he let it interrupt 
his discourse'! Why did he fancy he did so 
a thing in refusing to call it an evil"! 
All docs not here consist in the imagination; 
our fancies may work upon other tilings. But 
this is a certain knowledge that is playing its 
part, and of which our senses themselves are 
judges. 

Qui nisi sunt veri, ratio quoque falsa sit omnis.s 
" Which, if not true, even reason itself must be false." 



Shall we persuade our skins that the lashes of a 
whip tickle us? Or our palates, that a potion 
of aloes is vin de Grave? Pyrrho's hog is here 
in the same predicament with us; he is not 
afraid of death, 'tis true, but if you beat him, 
he will cry out to some purpose. Shall we 
force the general law of nature, which in every 
living creature under heaven is seen to tremble, 
under pain? The very trees seem to groan 
under the blows they receive. Death is only 
felt by reason, forasmuch as it is but the move- 
ment of an instant : 

Ant fait, ant veniet ; nihil est praisentis in ilia. 
Morsque minus poemc, quani mora mortis, habet.* 

"Still past or future, Inn: no present tense 
Submits the flectim,' older' In oar s.-nv ; 
Death cuts so quirk the thread of 111': in twain. 
The thought is far more dreadful than tiie pain. 

A thousand beasts, a thousand men, are dead 
ere they are threatened. That also which we 
principally pretend to fear in death is pain, the 
ordinary forerunner of it; yet, if we may 
believe a holy father, Malarn mortem non 
facit, nisi quod sequitur mortem. 5 " Nothing 
makes death evil but what follows it." And I 
should say, yet more probably, that neither 
that which goes before, nor that which follows 
after, are at all the appurtenances of death. 
We excuse ourselves falsely, and I find, by ex- 
perience, that it is rather our impatience at the 
imagination of death that makes us impatient 
of pain; and that we find it doubly grievous, 
as it threatens us with death. But reason, 
accusing our cowardice for fearing a thing so 
sudden, so unavoidable, and so insensible, we 
take the other as the more excusable pretext. 
All ills that carry do other danger along with 
them, but simply the evils themselves, we des- 
pise as things of no danger. The tooth-ache, 
or the gout, painful as they are, being yet 
not reputed mortal, who reckons them in the 
catalogue of diseases! 

Now let us suppose that in death we princi- 
pally regard the pain ; so, also, there is nothing 
to be feared in poverty but the miseries it 
brings along with it, thirst, hunger, cold, heat, 
watching, and the other inconveniences it makes 

us suffer; here, still, we have „ . . 

,, . .11. -i • t I am the worsl 
nothing to do but With pain. 1 accident of our 

will grant, and very willingly, being, how it 
that it is tiie worst misfortune of ™ a t ^ m,ti - 
our being ; (for I am the man 
upon earth that the most hates and avoids it, 
considering that hitherto, I thank God, I have 
had so little to do with it,) but still, it lies in 
us, if not to annihilate, at least to lessen it by 
patience ; and, though the body should mutiny, 
to maintain the soul and reason, nevertheless, 
in good temper. And were it not so, who 
would ever have given any reputation to virtue, 



' 1.. nil ins, in vita. 

Tusc. Quws.iv.25. 
■■> Luc. iv. 487. 

il this distich is taken from a satirical 

composition which Montague's 1'iaend, lioctius, addressed 



to him, and of which I quoted the beginning in chap. 27. 
Qf Friendship. The second is from Ovid's Bpistle, Ariadn* 

to T/ieseus, ver. 84. 

» St. August., de Civit. Dei, i. 11 



140 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



valour, strength, magnanimity, and resolution 1 
Where were their parts to be played, if there 
were no pain to be defied ? Avida est periculi 
virtus. 1 " Virtue is greedy of danger." Were 
there no lying upon the ground, no enduring, 
armed at all points, the meridian heat, no 
feeding upon the flesh of horses and asses, no 
seeing ourselves hacked and hewed to pieces, 
no having a bullet pulled out from amongst the 
shattered bones, no stitching up, cauterizing, 
and searching of wounds, by what means were 
the advantage we covet to have over the vulgar 
to be acquired? Tis very far from flying evil 
and pain, what the sages say, that of actions 
equally good, a man should most covet to per- 
form that wherein there is greatest labour and 
pain. Non enim hilaritate, nee lascivia, nee 
risu, aut joco comite levitatis, sed scepe etiam 
tristes firmilute et constantid sunt beati? " For 
men are not always happy by mirth and 
wantonness, nor by laughter and jesting, tbe 
companions of levity, but very often the graver 
and more melancholy sort of men reap felicity 
from their steadiness and constancy." And for 
this reason it ever was impossible to persuade 
our forefathers but that the victories obtained 
by dint of force, and the hazard of war, were 
still more honourable than those gained in 
security, by stratagem or wiles. 

Ltetius est, nuoties magno sibi constat honestum. 3 



Besides, this ought to be our comfort, that 
naturally, Si gravis, brevis : si longus, levis.* 
"If the pain be violent, 'tis short; and if long, 
not violent." Thou wilt not feel it long, if thou 
feelest it much, it will either put an end to 
itself, or to thee, which comes to the same 
thing; if thou canst not support it, it will ex- 
port thee. Mernineris maximos morte finiri ; 
parvos mulla habere intervalla requielis : me- 
diocrium nos esse dominos: Ut si tolerabiles 
sint, feramus ; sin minus, e vita, quwm ea non 
placeat, tanquam e thealro, exeamus. 5 " Re- 
member that great pains are terminated by 
death, that small ones have many intermissions 
of repose, and that we are masters of the 
moderate sort: so that, if tolerable, we may 
bear them, if not, we can go out of life as from 
a theatre, where the entertainment does not 
please us." That which makes us suffer pain 
with so much impatience is the not being 
accustomed to repose our chiefest contentment 
in the soul, that we do not enough rely upon 
her who is the sole and sovereign mistress of 
our condition. The body, saving in greater or 
less proportion, has but one and the same bent 
and bias; whereas, the soul is variable into all 
sorts of forms, and subjects to herself, and to 
her own empire, all things whatsoever; both 
the senses of the body, and all other accidents. 



' Senec. De Prorid., 

2 Cicero, de Finilms, 

3 Luc. ix., 4<H. 

1 Cicero, ut supra, ii 



And therefore it is that we ought to study her, 
to enquire into her, and to rouse up all her 
powerful faculties. There is neither reason, 
form, nor prescription, that can anything prevail 
against her inclination and choice. Of so 
many thousands of biasses that she has at her 
disposal, let us give her one proper to our 
repose and conversation, and then we shall not 
only be sheltered and secured from all manner 
of injury and offence, but moreover gratified 
and obliged, if she will it, with evils and 
offences. She makes her profit indifferently of 
all things. Error and dreams serve her to good 
use, as lawful matter, to lodge us in safety and 
contentment. 'Tis plain enough to be seen that 
'tis the sharpness of our mind that gives^the 
edge to our pains and pleasures. Beasts, that 
have no such things, leave to their bodies their 
own free and natural sentiments, and are con- 
sequently, in every kind, very near the same, 
as appears by the resembling application of 
their motions. If we should not disturb, in our 
members, the jurisdiction that appertains to 
them in this, 'tis to be believed it would be the 
better for us, and that nature has given them a 
just and moderate temper, both to pleasure and 
pain ; neither can it fail of being just, being 
equal and common. But seeing we have en- 
franchised ourselves from her rules, to give 
ourselves up to the rambling liberty of our own 
fancies, let us, at least, help to incline them, to 
the most agreeable side. Plato 6 fears our too 
vehemently engaging ourselves with grief and 
pleasure, forasmuch as these too much knit and 
ally the soul to the body : whereas I rather, on 
the contrary, by reason it too much separates 
and disunites them. As an enemy is made more 
fierce by our flight, so pain grows proud to see 
us truckle under her. She will surrender upon 
much better terms to them who make head 
against her: a man must oppose, and stoutly 
set himself against her. In retiring and giving 
ground, we invite, and pull upon ourselves, the 
ruin that threatens us. As the body is more 
firm in an encounter, the more stiffly and ob- 
stinately it applies itself to it; so it is with the 
soul. But let us come to examples, which are 
the proper commodity for fellows of such feeble 
reins as myself; where shall we find that it is 
with pain, as with stones, that receive a 
brighter or duller lustre, according to the foil 
they are set upon, that it has no more room in 
us than we are pleased to allow it; Tantum. 
doluerunt, quantum doloribus se inseruerunt. 1 
" The more they give way to pain, the more it 
pained them." We are more sensible of one 
little touch of a surgeon's lancet than of twenty 
sword-cuts in the heat of fight. 
The pains of child-bearing, said Thepainsof 
by the physician, and even by ^i!;!;','^,';^,, 
God himself, 8 to be very great, ease, 
and which our women keep so 



8 In the Piw.d. 

' St. Aiinust., ile Civil. Dei, i. 

f Genesis iii., Mi. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



141 



great a clutter about, there are whole nations 
that make nothing of them. To say nothing 
of the Lacedremonian women, what alteration 



can you see 



the Swiss wives of our foot 



soldiers, saving, as they trot after their hus- 
bands, you see them to-day with the child 
hanging at their backs that they carried yes- 
terday = in their bellies] And the counterfeit 
gypsies we have amongst us, go themselves to 
wash their infants as soon as they come into the 
world, in the first river they meet. Besides the 
many wenches that daily steal their children 
out of their womb, as before they stole them 
in ; that fair and noble wile of Sabinus, a pa- 
trician of Rome, for another's interest alone, 
without help, without crying out, or so much 
as a groan, endured the bearing of twins.' A 
poor simple boy of Lacedeemon, having stolen 
a fox (lor they more feared the shame of 
bungling in a theft, than we do the punishment 
of our knavery), and having got him under 
his coat, chose rather to endure the beast's 
tearing out his bowels than he would discover 
his theft. 2 And another, offering incense at a 
sacrifice, suffered himself to be burnt to the 
bone by a coal that fell into his sleeve, rather 
than disturb the ceremony. 3 And there have 
been a great number who, only for a trial of 
virtue, following their institutions, have at seven 
years old endured to be whipped to death, 
without changing their countenance. And 
Cicero lias seen them fight in parties, with fists, 
feet, and teeth, till they have fainted and sunk 
down, rather than confess themselves overcome. 
Nunquam naturam ?rws vinceret ; est enim ea 
semper invicta : sed nos umbris, deliciis, olio, 
languare, desidid, animum ivfecimus ; opini- 
o nib us maloque mure delinitum mollivimus. 4 
"Custom would never conquer Nature, for she 
is ever invincible, but we have infected the 
mind with shadows, delights, wantonness, neg- 
ligence and sloth ; and with vain opinions, and 
corrupt manners, rendered it effeminate and 
mean." Every one knows the story of ScaB- 
vola, who, having slipped into the enemies' 
camp to kill their general, and missing his blow, 
to repair his fault by a more strange invention, 
and to deliver his country, boldly confessed to 
Porsenna (who was the king he had an intent 
to kill), not only his design, but moreover 
added that there were then in his camp a great 
number of Romans, his accomplices in the 
enterprise, as good men as he, and, to show 
what he himself was, having caused a pan of 
burning coals to be brought, he saw and en- 
dured his arm to broil and roast, till the king 
himself, conceiving horror at the sight, com- 
•manded the pan to be taken away. 5 What 



would you say of him that would not vouchsafe 
to respite his reading of a book, whilst he was 
under incision'! 6 And of the other that per- 
sisted to mock and laugh, in contempt of the 
pains inflicted upon him ; so that the irritated 
cruelty of the executioners that had him in 
handling, and all the inventions of tortures 
redoubled upon him, one after another, spent in 
vain, only added to his triumph V A gladiator 
of Ceesar's endured, laughing all the while, his 
wounds to be probed and laid open. Quis 
mediocris gladiator ingemuil ? Quis vuliura 
mutavit unquam ? Quis non mndo stelit, verurn 
etiam decubuit, turpiler? Quis, cum decu- 
buisset, ferrum recipere jussm, collum con- 
traxit? s "What common gladiator ever so 
much as gave a groan ] Which of them ever 
so much as changed his countenance'! Which 
of them, standing or falling, did either with 
shame 1 Which of them, when he was down, 
and commanded to receive the stroke of the 
sword, ever shrunk in his neck 7" Let us bring 
in the women, too. Who has not heard, at 
Paris, of her who caused her face to be flea'd, 
merely for the sake of getting the fresher com- 
plexion of a new skin '! There are some who 
have drawn good and sound teeth to make their 
voices more soft and sweet, or to range the rest 
in better order. How many examples of the 
contempt of pain have we in that sex 1 ! What 
can they not do! What do they fear to do, 
for never so little hopes of an addition to their 
beauty f 



" Who by the roots pluck their grey hairs, and try 
With a new skin an old face to supply." 

I have seen some of them swallow sand, ashes, 
and do their utmost to destroy their stomachs, 
to get pale complexions. To make a fine 
Spanish, slender waist, what racks will they 
not endure in tightening and bracing, till they 
have notches in their sides, cut to the quick, 
aye, sometimes to death"! It is an ordinary 
thing with several nations at this day to wound 
themselves in good earnest, to gain credit to 
what they profess; of which our king relates 
notable examples of what he has seen in Poland 
and had done towards himself. 10 But besides 
this, which I know to have been imitated by 
some in France, when I came from that famous 
Assembly of the Estates at Blois, I had a little 
before seen a girl in Picardy who, to manifest 
the sincerity of her promises, and also her con- 
stancy, gave herself, with a bodkin she wore 
in her hair, four or five good stabs in the arm, 
till the blood gushed out to some purpose. The 



Plutarch, On Love, c. 3-1. 
'■ lil., Lift, of Lycurgus. 



Seneca, Kpist. 58. 

i n a. i, i nliu.i. See Liicrtius, in vita. 
'icero, 'J'usc. Quits, ii. 17. 
L'lbullus, 1. a. 45. 



10 m. dc Thou says expressly that, when this prince came 

away privately from Poland, the ureal chamberlain of the 
kingdom, who followed and with much ado overtook him on 
the frontier of Austria, having in vain persuaded him lore- 
turn back to Poland, quilted him at last, alter having pro- 
mised inviolable fidelity to bun, by piercing his arm with a 
dugger and then sucking the blood, lo tb ■ great astonish- 
ment of the king, to whom he meant ilieieb) to testify Ins 
devotion.— Do Thou's Jin:.. lib. Ivni. at the year 1575. 



142 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Turks make on themselves great scars in honour 
of their mistresses, and, to the end they may 
the longer remain, they presently clap fire to 
the wound, where they hold it an incredible 
time, to stop the wound and form the cicatrice. 
People that have been eye-witnesses of it have 
both writ and sworn it to me. But for ten 
aspers 1 there are there every day fellows to be 
found that will give themselves a good deep 
slash in the arms or thighs. I am willing, 
however, to have the testimonies nearest to us, 
where we have most to do with them, for Chris- 
tendom furnishes us enough. And, after the 
example of our blessed Guide, there have been 
many who from devotion would bear the cross. 
We learn by testimony, very worthy of belief, 
that Ring St. Louis wore a hair shirt, till in 
his old age his confessor gave him a dispensation 
to leave it off; and that every Friday he caused 
his shoulders to be drubbed by his priest with 
five small chains of iron, which were always 
carried about amongst his night accoutrements 
for that purpose. William, our late Duke of 
Guienne, the father of that Eleanor who trans- 
mitted this duchy into the houses of France 
and England, continually, for ten or twelve 
years before he died, wore a suit of armour 
under a religious habit, by way of penance. 
Fulk, Count of Anjou, went as far as Jerusa- 
lem, to cause himself to be whipped there by 
two of his servants, with a rope about his neck, 
before the sepulchre of our Lord. But do we 
not, moreover, every Good Friday, in several 
places, see great numbers of men and women 
beat and whip themselves till they lacerate and 
cut the flesh to the very bones? I have often 
seen this, and without any enchantment in 
the matter ; and it was said there were some 
amongst them (for they go disguised), who for 
money undertook by this means to save harm- 
less the religion of others; showing herein a 
contempt of pain so much the greater, as the 
incentives of devotion are more effectual than 
those of avarice. Q, Maximus buried his son 
when he was a consul, and M. Cato his when 
prsetor elect; and L. Paulus both his, within 
a few days one after the other, with such 
countenances as expressed no manner of grief. 
I said once merrily of a certain person that 
he had disappointed the divine justice : for the 
violent death of three grown-up children of 
his being one day sent him for a severe scourge, 
as it is to be supposed, he was so far from being 
afflicted that he rather took it for a particular 
grace and favour of heaven. I do not follow 
these monstrous humours, though I lost two or 
three at nurse, if not without grief, at least 
without repining ; and yet there is hardly any 
misfortune that pierces nearer to the quick. I 
see a great many other occasions of sorrow 
that, should they happen to me, I should 

i An asper is worth about a halfpenny. 
"Cicero, Tusc. Quws, iii. 28. 
s JJiod. Sic. xii. 15. 



hardly feel; and have despised some, when 
they have befallen me, to which the world has 
given so terrible a figure that I should blush 
to boast to people of my firmness therein. Ex 
quo intelligitur, non in naturd, sed in npinione, 
esse agritudinem? "By which it is under- 
stood that the grievance is not in nature, but 
opinion." Opinion is a powerful body, bold and 
without measure. Who ever so greedily hunted 
after security and repose as Alexander and 
Cesar did after disquiet and difficulties] Terez, 
the father of Sitalces, was wont to say that 
when he had no war in haad he fancied there 
was no difference betwixt him and his groom. 3 
Cato, when consul, to secure some cities of 
Spain from revolt, merely interdicting the in- 
habitants from wearing arms, a great many 
killed themselves. Ferox gens nullum vitarn 
rati sine armis esse* "A fierce people, who 
thought there was no life without war." How 
many do we know who have forsaken the calm 
and sweetness of a quiet life, at home amongst 
their acquaintance, to seek out the horror of 
uninhabitable deserts; and, having precipitated 
themselves into so abject a condition as to 
become the scorn and contempt of the world, 
have bugged themselves with the conceit, even 
to affectation. Cardinal Borromeo, 6 who died 
lately at Milan, in the midst of all the jollity 
that the air of Italy, his youth, birth, and 
great riches invited him to, kept himself in so 
austere a way of living that the same robe he 
wore in summer served him for winter too : he 
had only straw for his bed, and his hours of 
vacation from the affairs of his charge he con- 
tinually spent in study upon his knees, having 
a little bread and water set by his book, which 
was all the provision for his repast, and all the 
time he spent in eating. I know some who 
consentingly have acquired both profit and ad- 
vancement from their own cuckoldom, of which 
the bare name affrights so many people. 

If the sight be not the most necessary of all 
our senses, 'tis at least the most pleasant. But, 
at once, the most pleasant and the most useful 
of all our members seem to be those of genera- 
tion ; and yet a great many people have con- 
ceived a mortal hatred against them only for 
this, that they were too delightful ; and have 
deprived themselves of them only for their 
value. As much thought he of Ins eyes that 
put them out. The generality and most solid 
sort of men look upon abundance of children as 
a great blessing; J, and some others, think it 
as great a benefit to be without them. And 
when you ask Thales why he does not marry, 
he tells you because he lias no mind to leave 
any posterity behind him. 6 

That our opinion gives the value to things is J 
very manifest in the great number of those 
which we do not so much regard tor themselves, 



4 Livy, .vxxiv. 17. 

5 Archbishop of Milan, born l.W, died l.^l, canonized as 
Si. Charles. His works were collected ill 5 vols, folio, 1747. 

« Laerlius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



143 



but on our own account; never considering 
either their virtues or their use, but only how 
dear they cost us, as though that were a part 
of their substance, and reputing for value in 
them, not what they bring- to us, but what we 
add to them. By which I understand that we 
are great managers of our expense. As it 
weighs, it serves for so much as it weighs; our 
opinion will never suffer it to want of its value. 
The price gives value to the diamond, difficulty 
to virtue, suffering to devotion, and griping to 
physic. One man, 1 to be poor, threw his money 
into the same sea which so many others, in all 
parts of the world, rummage and rifle for riches. 
Epicurus says that to be rich is no advantage, 
but only an alteration of affairs. 2 In plain 
truth it is not want, but rather abundance, that 
creates avarice. Let me give my own expe- 
rience in this matter. 

I have, since my childhood, lived in three 
sorts of conditions: the first, which continued 

for nearly twenty years, I passed 
Montaigne's over without any other means but 
account of. w j ia t W ere accidental, and de- 
tntee condi- -,. ., „ j 

lions in which pending upon the allowance and 
lie had lived. assistance of others, without stint, 

but without certain revenue. I 
then spent my money so much the more cheer- 
fully, and with so much the less care how it 
went, as it wholly depended upon my confi- 
dence in fortune ; and I never lived more at my 
ease. I never found the purse of any of my 
friends shut against me, having enjoined myself 
this necessity above all other necessities what- 
ever, by no means to fail of payment at the 
appointed time: which they have a thousand 
times respited, seeing hovv anxious I was to 
satisfy them ; so that I made my good faith 
both a matter of thrift, and, withal, a kind of 
allurement. I naturally feel a kind of pleasure 
in paying, as if I eased my shoulders of a trou- 
blesome weight and an image of slavery; besides 
that, I have a great satisfaction in pleasing 
another and doing a just action. I except that 
kind of payment where reckoning and round- 
about settlements are required; and in such 
cases where I can meet with nobody to ease 
me of that hateful torment, I avoid them, how 
scandalously and injuriously soever, all I pos- 
sibly can, for fear of any altercation, for which 
both my humour and way of speaking are so 
totally unfit. There is nothing 1 hate so much 
as driving a bargain ; 'tis a mere traffic of coz- 
anage and impudence; where, after an hour's 
cheapening and dodging, both parties abandon 
their word and oath for five halfpence advance 
or abatement. And yet I always borrowed at 
great disadvantage, for, wanting the confidence 
to speak to the person myself, I committed my 
: est to the persuasion of a letter, which 
usually is do very successful advocate, and gives 
very great opportunity to him who has a mind 



1 Jriattppui. See Laertius, 

F.pht. 17. 
< Lx iMimi l'ublii Siri. 



to deny. I, in those days, more jocundly and 
freely referred the conduct of my affairs to the 
stars than I have since done to my own provi- 
dence and judgment. Most good managers 
look upon it as a horrible thing to live always 
thus in uncertainty; not considering, in the 
first place, that the greatest part of the world 
live so, and how many worthy men have wholly 
slighted and abandoned the certainty of their 
own estates, and still daily do it, to trust, to the 
inconstant favour of princes and fortune. Caesar 
ran in debt above a million of gold more than 
he was worth, to become Ca;sar ; and how many 
merchants have begun their traffic by the sale 
of their farms, which they sent to the Indies! 

Tot per impotentia freta'3 
" Over so many stormy seas." 

In so great a dearth of devotion as we see in 
these days, we have a thousand and a thousand 
convents, that go on comfortably enough, ex- 
pecting every day their dinner from the libe- 
rality of heaven. Secondly, they do not take 
notice that this certitude, upon which they so 
much rely, is not much less uncertain and 
hazardous than hazard itself! I see misery as 
near, beyond two thousand crowns a-year, as if 
it stood close by me ; for, besides that it is in 
the power of chance to make a hundred breaches 
to poverty through the greatest strength of our 
riches, there being very often no mean betwixt 
the highest and the lowest fortune, 

Fortuna vitrea est : Turn, quum splendet, frangilur;< 



and to turn all our barricades and bulwarks 
topsy-turvy, I find that, by divers causes, indi- 
gence is as frequently seen to inhabit with those 
who have property as with those that have 
none ; and, peradventure, it is then far less 
grievous, when alone, than when accompanied 
with riches; which flow more from good ma- 
nagement than income. Faber est svx quisque 
forlvna:. 5 "Every one is the maker of his 
own fortune;" and an uneasy, necessitous, busy 
man, seems to me more miserable than he that 
is simply poor. In diviliis irwpes, quod genus 
egeslulis gravissimum est. " Poor in the midst 
of riches, which is the most insupportable kind 
of poverty." 6 The greatest and most wealthy 
princes are by poverty and want driven to thtf 
most extreme necessity : for can there be any 
more extreme than to become tyrants and unjust 
usurpers of their subjects' goods and estates ! 

My second condition of life was to have 
money of my own : wherein I so ordered the 
matter that I had soon laid up a notable sum 
out of so mean a fortune; considering with 
myself that that only was to be reputed raving 1 
which a man reserved from his ordinal \ i 
than a man could not absolutely rely upon 
revenue to be received, how clear soever his 



» Snllnst. Oc Rcpulll. Onlin. i 1. 

'■Seneca, r.pisi. 71. At the hri'inniii". Mom.-tr-nr hns 
ranspuM'cl Seneca* vmm'iIs to apply the u 1" his wlty 1 1. 



144 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



estate might be. For what, said I, if I should 
be surprised by such or such an accident ; and, 
after such like vain and vicious imaginations, 
would very learnedly, by this hoarding of 
money, provide against all inconveniences ; and 
could moreover answer such as objected to me 
that the number of them was too infinite, that 
if I could not lay up for all, I could do it at 
least for some and for many. Yet was not this 
done without a great deal of solicitude and 
anxiety of mind. I kept it very close, and, 
though I dare talk so boldly of myself, never 
spoke of my money but falsely, as others do 
who, being rich, pretend to be poor, and being 
poor, pretend to be rich, dispensing their con- 
sciences from ever telling sincerely what they 
have. A ridiculous and shameful prudence. 
Was I going a journey? methought I was 
never enough provided ; and the more I loaded 
myself with money, the more also was I loaded 
with fear, one while of the danger of the roads, 
another of the fidelity of hirn who had the 
charge of my baggage, of whom, as of some 
others that I know, I never felt secure, if I had 
him not always in my eye. Did I leave my 
box behind me — what suspicions and anxiety of 
mind did I enter into 1 ! and, which was worse, 
without daring to acquaint any body with it. 
My mind was eternally taken up with such 
things, so that, all considered, there is more 
trouble in keeping money than in getting it. 
And if I did not altogether so much as I say, or 
was not effectually so scandalously solicitous of 
my money as I have made myself out, yet it 
cost me something at least to govern myself 
from being so. I reaped little or no advantage 
by what I had, and my expenses seemed no- 
thing less to me for having the more to spend ; 
for, as Bion said, " hairy men are as angry as 
the bald to be pulled ;" J and after you are once 
accustomed to it, and have once set your heart 
upon your heap, it is no more at your service ; 
you cannot find in your heart to break it: 'tis 
a building that you fancy must of necessity all 
tumble down in ruins, if you stir but the least 
pebble. Necessity must first take you by the 
throat, before you can prevail upon yourself to 
touch it; and I would have pawned any thing 
I had, or sold a horse, with much less constraint 
upon myself than have made the least breach 
in that beloved purse I had laid by. But the 
danger was that a man cannot easily prescribe 
certain limits to this desire (they are hard to 
find in things that a man conceives to be good) 
and to stint economy so that it may not de 
generate into avarice. Men are still intent 
upon adding to the heap, and increasing the 
stock from sum to sum, till at last they vilely 
deprive themselves of the enjoyment of their 
own proper goods, deriving their whole gratifi- 



i Seneca, De TYanquillite, c. 8. 
» On Laws, i. 

8 Or rather the father, according to Plutarch, in his 
tltcgmn of Kings, Sea. 



cation from hoarding their treasures, without 
making any use of them at all. According to 
this rule, they are the richest people in the 
world who have charge of the gates and walls 
of a wealthy city. All monied men 1 take to 
be covetous. Plato places corporal or human 
riches in this order: health, beauty, strength, 
wealth; and wealth, says he, is not blind, but 
very clear-sighted when illuminated by pru- 
dence. 2 Dionysius the son 3 did a very sensible 
thing upon this subject. He was informed that 
one of the Syracusans had hid a treasure in the 
earth, and thereupon sent to the man to bring 
it to him, which he accordingly did, privately 
reserving a small part of it only to himself, with 
which he went to another city, where, being 
cured of his appetite of hoarding, he began to 
live at a more liberal rate; which Dionysius 
hearing, caused the rest of his treasure to be 
restored to him, saying that, since he had learnt 
how to use it, he very willingly returned it 
back to him. 

I continued some years in this hoarding 
humour, when I know not what 
good genius fortunately put me How Mon- 
out of it, as he did the Syra- {SSftffE. 
cusan, and made me throw abroad penses. 
all my reserve. The pleasure of 
a certain voyage I took at very great expense 4 
having made me spurn this absurd fancy under 
foot, by which means I am now fallen into a 
third way of living (I speak what I think of 
it), doubtless much more pleasant and better 
regulated, which is that my expenses run level 
with my revenue ; sometimes, indeed, the one, 
sometimes the other, may perhaps exceed, but 
'tis very little that they differ at all. I live 
from hand to mouth, and content myself in 
having sufficient for my present and ordinary 
expense; for as to extraordinary occasions, all 
the laying up in the world would never suffice ; 
and 'tis the greatest folly imaginable to expect 
that fortune should ever sufficiently arm us 
against herself. 'Tis with our own arms that 
we are to fight her, accidental ones will betray 
us in the pinch of the business. If I lay up, 
'tis for some near and designed expense, and 
not to purchase lands, of which I have no need, 
but to purchase pleasure. Non esse cupidum 
pecnaia est; non esse emacem, vectigal est. 5 
"Not to be covetous is money; not to be a 
purchaser is a revenue." I neither am in any 
great apprehension of wanting, nor in any 
desire of getting more : Diviliarum fructus 
est in copiu ,- copiam dedarat satietas. 6 " The 
fruits of riches lie in abundance ; satiety de- 
clares abundance." And I am very well pleased 
with myself, that this reformation in me has 
fallen out in an age naturally inclined to avarice, 
and that I see myself freed of a folly so common 



i Probably that into Italy in 1580 and 1581. 
■ Cicero, Faradox. vi. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



145 



to old men, and the most ridiculous of all 
human follies. 
Feraulez, a man who had run through both 
fortunes, and found that the in- 
A fine instance cr easeofsubstance was no increase 
of the contempt c ... ... 

of riches. of appetite, either to eating or 

drinking, sleeping, or the enjoy- 
ment of his wife ; and who, on the other hand, 
felt the care of his economy lie heavy upon his 
shoulders, as it does on mine ; was resolved to 
please a poor young man, his faithful friend, 
who panted after riches, by making him a gift 
of all his, which were excessively great, and 
moreover of all he was in the daily way of 
getting by the liberality of Cyrus, his good 
master, and by war; conditionally that he 
should take care handsomely to maintain and to 
entertain him as his guest and friend, and they 
afterwards lived very happily together, both of 
them equally content with the change of their 
condition. 1 

An example that I could imitate with all my 

heart, and I very much approve 
^ance C fo"the tne fortune of an ancient prelate, 
same purpose, whom I see to have so absolutely 

stripped himself of his purse, his 
revenue, and expenditure, committing them 
one while to one trusty servant, and another 
while to another, that lie has spun out a long 
succession of years, as ignorant by this means 
of his domestic affairs as a mere stranger. The 
confidence in another man's virtue is no light 
evidence of a man's own, and God is pleased to 
favour such a confidence. As to him of whom 
I am speaking, I see nowhere a better governed 
family, nor a house more nobly and uniformly 
maintained than his; happy in this, to have 
regulated his affairs to so just a proportion that 
his estate is sufficient to do it without his care 
or trouble, and without any hindrance, either 
in the spending or laying it up, to other more 
suitable and quiet employments, and more to 
his liking. 

Plenty then and indigence depend upon the 

opinion every one has of them ; 

™» l ™Sod and riches ' no more than ? lor y 

or indigent. or health, have no more either 
beauty or pleasure than he is 
to invest them with by whom they are 
Every one is well or ill at ease, 
according as he finds himself: not he whom 
the world believes, but he who believes himself 
to lie so, is content; and therein alone belief 
gives itself being and reality. Fortune does 
us neither good nor hurt ; she only presents us 
the matter and the seed, which our soul, more 
powerfully than she, turns and applies as she 
best pleases, being the sole cause and sovereign 
mistress of her own happy or unhappy con- 
dition. All external accessions receive taste 
and colour from the internal constitution, as 
clothes warm us not with their heat, but our 



own, which they are adapted to cover and keep 
and who would cover a cold body would 
do the same service for the cold, for so snow 
and ice are preserved. And after the same 
manner that study is a torment to a sluggard, 
abstinence from wine to a drunkard, frugality 
to the spendthrift, and exercise to a lazy, 
tender-bred fellow, so it is of all the rest. The 
things are not so painful and difficult of them- 
selves, but our weakness or cowardice makes 
them so. 2 To judge of great and high matters 
requires a suitable soul, otherwise we attribute 
the vice to them which is really our own. A 
straight oar seems crooked in the water : it does 
not only import that we see a thing, but how 
and after what manner we see it. 

But after all this, why amongst so many 
discourses, that by so many argu- 
ments persuade men to despise J^ "^1'°^^ 
death and endure pain, can we it is'foundeu. 
not find out one that makes for 
us? And of so many sorts of imaginations as 
have prevailed upon others, why does not every 
one apply some one to himself; the most suitable 
to his own humour? If he cannot digest a 
strong working drug to eradicate the evil, let 
him at least take a lenitive to ease it. Opinio 
est quadam efferninata ac levis, nee in dolore 
rnagis quam eadem in voluptale : qua quum 
liquescimus, jluirnusque mollitia, apis aculeum 
sine clamore ferre non possumus. . . . Totum 
in eo est ul libi impercs /" 3 " There is a cer- 
tain frivolous and effeminate opinion, and that 
not more in pain than it is even in pleasure 
itself, by which, whilst we wallow in ease and 
wantonness, we cannot endure so much as the 
sting of a bee without crying out. The whole 
secret is this, to command thyself." For the 
rest, a man does not escape philosophy by per- 
mitting the acrimony of pains and human frailty 
to prevail beyond measure ; for they constrain 
it to these invincible replies: "If it be ill to 
live in necessity, at least there is no necessity 
to live in necessity." 4 "No man continues in 
discomfort long, but by his own fault." He 
who has neither the courage to die, nor the 
heart to live, who will neither resist nor fly, 
what should one do with him? 



CHAPTER XLI. 

NOT TO COMMUNICATE A MAN'S HONOUR 
OK GLORY. 

Of all the foolish dreams of the world, that 

which is most universally received 

is the solicitude of reputation and JfjfaJf^ 1 ^, 

glory, which we are fond of to honour. 

that degree as to abandon riches, 

peace, life, and health, which are effectual and 



Cyrop., viii 
• B meco, Eplit. 81. 
13 



i Cicero, Tusc. 
i Sencc. Epllt. 



146 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



substantial good, to pursue this vain phantom 
and empty word, that has neither body nor 
hold to be taken of it. 

La fama. ch' invaghisce a un dolce suono 
Glisuporbi mortali, et par si bella, 
E un ecu, mi sognn, aiizi del sogno un nmbra 
Ch' ad ogui vento si dilegua et sgombra.i 

"Glory, whose sweet and captivating sound 
Enchants proud mortals all the world around, 
Is but an echo, dream, or phantom fair, , 
Mov'd and dispersed by ev'ry breath of air." 

And of all the irrational humours of men, it 
should seem that the philosophers themselves 
have the most ado, and do the least disengage 
themselves from this the most restive and ob- 
stinate of all follies. 2 Quia etiam bene prqfi- 
cientes animos tentare non cessat. 3 "Because 
it ceases not to tempt the wisest minds." There 
is not any one vice of which reason does so 
clearly accuse the vanity as that; but it is so 
deeply rooted in us that I doubt whether any 
one ever clearly freed himself from it or no. 
After you have said all, and believed all that 
has been said to its prejudice, it creates so in- 
testine an inclination in opposition to your best 
arguments that you have little power and 
firmness to resist it; for, as Cicero says," even 
those who controvert it would yet that the 
books they write should appear before the world 
with their names in the title-page, and seek to 
derive glory from seeming to despise it. All 
other things are communicable and fall into 
commerce; we lend our goods and stake our 
lives for the necessity and service of our friends; 
but to communicate one's honour, and to robe 
another with one's own glory, is very rarely seen. 
And yet we have some examples of that kind. 
Catulus Luctatius, in the Cymbrian war, hav- 
ing done all that in him lay to make his flying 
soldiers face about upon the enemy, ran himself 
at last away with the rest, and counterfeited 
the coward, to the end his men might rather 
seem to follow their captain than to fly from 
the enemy; 5 which was to abandon his own 
reputation to palliate the shame of others. 
When Charles the Fifth came into Provence, 
in the year 1537, 'tis said that Antonio de Leva, 
seeing the ernperor positively resolved upon this 
expedition, and believing it would redound very 
much to his honour, did nevertheless very stiffly 
oppose it in the council, to the end that the 
entire glory of that resolution should be attri- 
buted to his master ; and that it might be said 
his wisdom and foresight had been such as that, 
contrary to the opinion of all, he had brought 
about so great an enterprize : which was to do 
him honour at his own expense. 6 



The Thracian ambassadors, coming to com- 
fort Archielonida, the mother of 
Brasidas, upon the death of her ^^°' a ^ 
son, and commending him to that refused, 
height as to say he had not left 
his like behind him, she rejected this private 
and particular commendation to attribute it to 
the public: "Tell me not that," said she; "I 
know the city of Sparta has several citizens 
greater and more valiant than he." 7 In the 
battle of Crecy, the Prince of 
Wales, being then very young, Edward lir. 
had the van-guard committed to J^gJ^^ 
him; the main stress of the battle of the victory to 
happened to be in that place, and his son. 
the lords that were with him, 
finding themselves well-nigh overmatched, 
sent to King Edward to advance to their relief; 
who thereupon inquiring what condition his 
son was in, and being answered that he was 
living and on horseback, "I should then do 
him wrong," said the king, "now to go and 
deprive him of the honour of winning this battle 
he has so long and so bravely disputed ; what 
hazard soever he runs, it shall be entirely his 
own." And. accordingly would neither go nor 
send, knowing that, if he went, it would be said 
all had been lost without his succour, and that 
the honour of the victory would be wholly attri- 
buted to him : 8 Semper enim quod postremum 
adjeclum est, id rem Mam videtur traxisse. 9 
" For the last stroke to a business seems always 
to draw along with it the merit of the per- 
formance of the whole action." Many at 
Rome thought, and 'twas commonly said, that 
the greatest of Scipio's acts were, in part, due 
to Lelius, whose constant practice it was still 
to advance and promote Scipio's grandeur and 
renown, without any care of his own. 10 And 
Theopompus, king of Sparta, to him who told 
him the republic could not miscarry, since he 
knew so well how to command, " 'Tis rather," 
answered he, "because the people know so 
well how to obey." 

As women succeeding to peerages had, not- 
withstanding their sex, the right to assist, and 
give their votes in the causes that appertained 
to the jurisdiction of peers, so the ecclesiastical 
peers, notwithstanding their profession, were 
obliged to assist our kings in their wars, not 
only with their friends and servants, but in 
their own persons. A Bishop of 
Beauvais did so, who being with {jj^ uc |; t { h * 
Philip Augustus at the battle of batthTof 
Bouvines, 11 took a gallant share Bouvines. 
in that action, but did not think 
it fit for him to participate in the fruit and glbry 



i Tasso, Gerusal. xiv. 63. 

2 This idea seems borrowed from Tacitus, Hist. iv. 6: — 
Etiam sapiraiihus rvpitlo glut-up mtriss/uia rja/lur. "The 
desire of glory is the last passion of which even wise men 
can divest themselves." 

3 St. August, de Cirit. Dei. v. 14. 

4 " Xpsi illi pliiln.-uphi, etiam illis libellis nuns de con- 
temnenda gloria scribunt, nornen suuni inscrilmiit ; men 
ipso in quo pnedirai iuneni milnlitnirinquc despicitint. pr;c- 
dicari de se ac noininari voluut."— Oral, pro ArchiO. Pacta, 
cap. 11. 



6 Plutarch, Life of Marins. c. 8. 

o Mem. of William du Bella ij ; and Brantome, Lives of 
niustriotts Men. at the article Antonio de Leyva. 

' Plutarch, Apothegms. 

s Proissart, vol. i. 

o Eivy, xxvii. 45. 

10 Plutarch, Instructions for those who manage State 
Affairs. 

ii Fought 1214, between Lille and Tournay. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



147 



of that violent and bloody trade. He with his 
own hand reduced several of the enemy that 
day to his mercy, whom he delivered to the 
first gentleman he met, either to kill, or to 
receive them to quarter, referring' this part to 
another hand. As also did William, Earl of 
Salisbury, to Messire John de Nesle. With a 
like subtlety of conscience to the other, he 
would kill, but not wound, him, and for lhat 
reason, fought only with a mace. And a cer- 
tain person in my time, being reproached by 
the king that he had laid hands on a priest, 
stiffly and positively denied it. The case was, 
he had cudgelled and kicked him. 



CHAPTER XLII. 



OF THE INEQUALITY AMONGST US. - 

Plutarch says somewhere 1 that he does not 
find so great a difference betwixt beast and 
beast, as he does betwixt man and man ; which 
is said in reference to the internal qualities, and 
the perfection of the soul. And, in truth, I 
find, according to my poor judgment, so vast a 
distance betwixt Epaminondas and some that I 
know, who are yet men of common sense, that 
I would willingly enhance upon Plutarch, and 
say that there is more difference betwixt such 
and such a man than there is betwixt such a 
man and such a beast : 

Hem, vir viro quid prtrstat \- 



and that there are as many and as innumerable 
degrees of mind, as there are cubits betwixt 
this and heaven. But touching the estimate of 
men, 'tis strange that, ourselves excepted, no 
other creature is esteemed beyond its proper 
qualities. We commend a horse for his strength 
and sureness of foot, 

Vplucrem 
Pic laudamus equum, facili cui pluriina palma 
Fervet, et exultat rauco victoria circo ;3 

" 'Tis thus we praise the horse that mocks our eyes, 
While to the goal with lightning's speed he flies ; 
Whom many a well-earn'd palm and trophy grace, 
And the circle hails, unrivalled in the race ;" 

and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound 
for his speed, not for his fine collar; a hawk 
for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. 
Why, in like manner, do we not 
A man to he value a man for what is properly 
valued (or what his own ? He has a great train, 
'* a beautiful palace, so much cre- 
many thousand pounds 
a-year: all th' j se are about him, 
not in him. You will not buy a 



and not what 

lie has ahout Ult 

him. 



i In his treatise, T/ial Beasts have the 
ouards the end. 
» Terence, Eunuch, ii. 3, I. 



pig in a poke. If you cheapen a horse you will 
see him stripped of his housing clothes, you will 
see him naked and open to your eye; or if he 
be clothed, as they anciently v/ere wont to pre- 
sent them to princes to sell, 'tis only on the less 
important parts, that you may not so much con- 
sider the beauty of his colour, or the breadth of 
his crupper, as principally to examine his limbs, 
eyes, and feet, which are the members of greatest 



Itegiljiis hie mos est : ubi erpios i 

Inspiciunt; ne, si facies. lit Bffipe, decora 

Molli fnlta prile est, einptorem indurat liiantem, 

Quod pulchra chines, breve quod caput, ardua cervix.* 

" When kintrs steeds clothed, as 'tis their manner, buy, 
Thev straight examine very curiouslv, 
Lest a short head, a thin and well-raised crest, 
A broad spread huMoek and an ample chest, 
Should all be propt with an old beaten hoof. 
To gull the buyer when they come to proof." 

Why, in giving your estimate of a man, do you 
value him wrapt and muffled up in clothes? 
He then discovers nothing to you but such 
parts as are not in the least his own ; and con- 
ceals those by which alone one may rightly 
judge of his worth. 'Tis the price of the blade 
that you enquire into, and not of the scabbard. 
You would not, peradventure, bid a farthing 
for him if you saw him stripped. You are to 
judge him by himself, and not by what he 
wears. And as one of the ancients very plea- 
santly said, "Do you know why you repute 
him tall 1 You reckon withal the height of his 
clogs," whereas the pedestal is no part of the 
statue. Measure him without his stilts, let him 
lay aside his revenues and his titles, let him 
present himself in his shirt; then examine if his 
body be sound and sprightly, active, and dis- 
posed to perform its functions. What soul has 
he? Is she beautiful, capable, and happily 
provided with all her faculties ? Is she rich of 
what is her own, or of what she has borrowed ? 
Has fortune no hand in the affair? Can she, 
without winking, stand drawn swords? Is she 
indifferent whether her life expire by the mouth 
or through the throat? Is she settled, even, 
and content? This is what is to be examined, 
and by that you are to judge of the vast differ- 
ences betwixt man and man. Is he 

Sapiens, sibique imperiosus; 
Quern nequepauperics, nequemors, neque vincula terrent; 
Kesponsare cupidinibus, contemncre honores 
Fortis; et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus, 
Externi ne quid valeat per Iffve morari ; 
In quern manca mil semper fortuna? 6 

"The wise, who well maintains 
An empire o'er himself; whom neither chains, 
, Nor want, nor death, with slavish fear inspire, 
Who boldly answers to his warm desire. 
Who can ambition's vainest gifts despise, 
Firm iu himself who on himself relies; 
Polish'd and sound who runs his proper course, 
And breaks misfortune with superior force." 

Such a man is raised five hundred fathoms above 



s Juvenal, viii. 57. 
< Horace, Sat. i. 2. 80. 
* Id. ii. ii. 7, 83. 



148 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



kingdoms and duchies; he is an absolute mo- 
narch in and to himself. 

Sapiens pol ipse fingit fortunam sibi.i 

"The wise man his own fortune makes." 

What remains for him to desire? 



Nonne videmus, 

ram latrare, nisi at, quoi, 

dolor absit, inente fniatur 



Nilaliudsib 
Corpore seju 

Jucundo sensu, cura semotn, metuque?2 
" We see that nature only seeks for ease, 
A body free from pains, free from disease, 
A mind from cares and jealousies at peace." 

Compare with such a one the common rabble 
of mankind, stupid, mean-spirited, servile, in- 
stable, and continually floating' with the tem- 
pest of various, passions, that tosses and tumbles 
them to and fro, all depending upon others, 
and you will find a greater distance than be- 
twixt heaven and earth ; and yet the blindness 
of common usage is such that we make little 
or no account of it. Whereas, if we consider a 
peasant and a king, a nobleman and a clown, a 
magistrate and a private man, a rich man and 
a poor, there appears a vast disparity, though 
they differ no more (as a man may say) than in 
their breeches. 

In Thrace the king was distinguished from his 
people after a very pleasant and 
Wherein the rare manner. He had a religion by 
kings of Thrace himself, a god of his own, whom 
themselves 10 ms subjects might not presume 
from their sub- to adore, which was Mercury, 
J ects - whilst, on the other hand, he dis- 

dained to have any thing to do 
with theirs, Mars, Bacchus, and Diana. 3 And 
yet they are no other than pictures, that make 
no essential dissimilitude; for as you see actors 
in a play representing a duke or an emperor 
upon the stage, and immediately after, in the 
tiring-room, return to their true and original 
condition : so the emperor, whose pomp so 
dazzles you in public, 

Scilicet et grandes viridi cum luce smaragdi 
Auro includuntur, teriturque Thalassina vestis. 
Assidue, et Veneris sudorem exercita potato 

" Great emeralds richly are in gold enchast, 
To dart green lustre : and the sea-green vest 
Continually is worn and rubb'd to frets, 
While it imbibes the juice that Venus sweats." 

Do but peep behind the curtain, and you'll see 
nothing but an ordinary man, and 
Kings subject peradventure more contemptible 
pas'inns and t' 1511 tne meanest of his subjects, 
accidents as Me beatus introrsum est ; istius 
men - braclenla felicilas est. 6 "True 

happiness lies within, the other is 
but a counterfeit felicity." Cowardice, irreso- 
lution, ambition, spite, and envy, work in him 
as in another. 



i Plautus, Trinummus. ii. 2, 84. » Lucret. ii. 16. 

8 Herodotus, indeed, says (Mb. v.) that the Thracian kings 
worshipped Mercury above all other gods ; that they swore 
by him alone, and pretended to be descended from him ; but 
he does not say that they despised Mars, liacchus, and 
Diana, the only deities of their subjects. 

« Lucretius, iv. 1123. 



Non enim gaf.a?, neque consularis 

Summovet lictor miseros tumultus 

Mentis, et curas laqueata circum 

Tecta volantes.8 

' For neither wealth, honours, nor offices. 
Can the wild tumults of the mind appease, 
Nor chase those cares that, with unwearied wings, 
Hover about the palaces of kings." 



Cares and fears attack him 
of his armies. 



in the centre 



Re veraque metus hominum, cuneque sequaces 
Nee metuunt sonitus armorum, nee fera tela; 
Audacterque inter reges, rerumque potentes 
Versantur, neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro.' 



"For fears and cares warring with human hearts, 
Fear not the clash of arms, nor points of darts ; 
But with great kings and potentates make bold, 
Maugre their purple and their glitt'ring gold." 

Do fever, head-ache, and the gout, spare them 
any more than one of us? When old age 
hangs heavy upon a prince's shoulders, can the 
archers of the guard ease him of the burthen ? 
When he is transfixed with the apprehension of 
death, can the gentlemen of his bed-chamber 
re-assure him? When jealousy, or any other 
caprice, swims in his brain, can our compliments 
and ceremonies restore him to his good humour? 
The canopy embroidered with pearl and gold 
he lies under has no virtue against a violent fit 
of the stone or cholic. 

Nee calidte cilius decedunt corpore febres, 
Texlilibus si in picturis, ostroque rubenti 
Jactaris, quam si plebeia in veste cubanduin est. 8 

" Nor sooner will a bed superb assuage 
The dreadful symptoms of a fever's rage, 
Than if the homely couch were meanly spread 
With poorest blankets of the coarsest thread. 

The flatterers of Alexander the Great possessed 
him that he was the son of Ju- 
piter: bein£ 

and looking* cu uie uiuuu eucaui- scorn , , ,, 

ing from his wound — "What flatterers, 
say you now !" exclaimed he. 
" Is not this blood of a crimson colour, and 
purely human? This is not of the complexion 
with that which Homer makes to issue from 
the wounded gods!" 9 The poet Hermodorus 
had writ a poem in honour of Antigonus, 
wherein he called him the son of the Sun. 
" He that has the emptying of my close-stool," 
said Antigonus, " will find 'tis no such thing." 10 
He is but a man at best, and if he be deformed, 
or ill qualified from his birth, the empire of the 
universe can neither mend his shape nor his 
nature ; 



ing one day wounded, Alexander and 

° , .1 ,ii. Antigonus 

io- at the blood stream- *,.,„•„ their 



Puelue 
apiant ; quicquid calcaverit hie, i 



i fiat," 



o Seneca, F.pist. 115. 
o Horace, Od. ii. 16, 9. 
7 Lucret. ii. 47. 
e Id. ib. 34. 

a Plutarch, Apothegms. 
io Id. ih. 
ii Persius, ii. 38. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



149 



in what sense what of all that, if he be a fool? 
£££?.»* Even pleasure and good fortune 
good. are not relished without vigour 

and understanding. 



"Things to 1 in- souls of their possessors square, 
Goods, if well us'd, if ill, they evils are." 

Whatever the benefits of fortune are, they 
require a palate fit to relish them. 'Tis enjoy- 
ment, and not possession, that renders us happy. 



Non domus ft fundus, nnii .iris arorvus, et auri, 

./Eeroto ilomiui deduxit corpore fehres, 

Non animo curas. Valeat possessor oportet, 

Uui comportutis rebus bene cogitat uti : 

Uui en pi I., aut inctuit. juvat ilium sir, domus, aut res, 

Vt lippum pecta; tabula:, fomenta podagram. 2 

" Nor house, nor lands, nor heaps of laboured ore 
Can give their fev'rish lord one moment's rest, 
Or drive one sorrow from his anxious breast. 
The fond possessor must be blest with health 
Who rightly means to use Ins hoarded wealth. 

For lucre lusting, or with fear dopress'd, 
As pictures glowing with a vivid light, 
With painful pleasure charm a blemish'd sight, 
As chafing soothes the gout." 

Is he a sot, his taste palled and flat? — he no 
more enjoys what he has than one that has a 
cold relishes the flavour of Canary ; or than a 
horse is sensible of his rich caparison. Plato 
is in the right when he tells us that health, 
beauty, vigour, and riches, and all the other 
things called goods, are equally evil to the 
unjust, as good to the just ; and the evil on the 
contrary the same. 3 And therefore, where either 
the body or the mind are in disorder, to what 
use serve these external conveniences'! seeing 
that the least prick with a pin, or the least 
passion of the soul, is sufficient to deprive us of 
the pleasure of being sole monarch of the world. 
At the first twitch of the gout, it signifies 
much, truly, to be called "sire," and "your 
majesty ;" 

Totus et argento conflatus, totus et auro,< 



does he not forget his palaces and grandeurs'? 
If he be angry, can his being a prince keep 
him from looking red, and looking pale, and 
grinding his teeth like a madman! If he be 
a man of parts, and well born, royalty adds 
very little to his happiness: 

Si ventri bene si lateri est, pcdihustpie tuis, nil 
Divitia- pott-runt regales addere mnjus.s 
"If thou art well and sound from head to foot, 
A king's revenue can add nothing to't." 



He discerns 'tis nothing but counterfeit and 
gallery. Nay, perhaps he would be of king 
Seleucus's opinion, "That he that knew the 



> Terence, I/ram. 1.3.21. 

piat, i. J. 47. 
a taws, ii. 
• TibullUB, i.2. 70. 
» Horace, Epist, i.2. 5. 
13* 



weight of a sceptre would not dei<m to stoop 
to take it up, though he saw it lying on the 
ground;" 6 which he said in reterence to the 
great and painful duty incumbent upon a good 
king. Assuredly it can be no easy task to rule 
others, when we find it so hard a matter to 
govern ourselves. And as to the thing, com- 
mand, that seerns so sweet and charming, 
considering the imbecility of human judgment, 
and the difficulty of choice in tilings that are 
new and doubtful to us, I am very much of 
opinion that it is far more pleasant to follow 
than to lead ; and that it is a great settlement 
and satisfaction of mind to have one path to 
walk in, that's traced out for us, and to have 
none to answer for but one's self; 



" So that 'tis better calmly to obey 
Than in the storms of state a sceptre sway." 

To which we may add that saying of Cyrus, 
That no man ought to rule but he who, in his 
own worth, was better than all 
those he has to govern. But sncifaeoui'i'i. 
King Hiero, in Xenophon, 8 says tion to taste 
farther that in the enjoyment $™™e" 
even of pleasure itself they are 
in a worse condition than private men; for- 
asmuch as the facility they have of commanding 
those things at will takes off' from the delight, 
which we, who find the matter more difficult, 
experience in fruition. 



Can we think that the singing-boys of the 
choir take any great delight in their own 
music? The satiety does rather render it trou- 
blesome and tedious to them. Feasts, balls, 
masquerades, tiltings, delight such as rarely 
see, and who have long desired to see, them : 
but having been frequently at such entertain- 
ments, the relish of them grows flat and insipid ; 
nor do women so much delight those who make 
a common practice of the sport. He who will 
not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never 
find the true pleasure of drinking. Farces and 
tumbling tricks are pleasant to the spectators, 
but mere drudgery to those by whom they are 
performed. And that this is so we see that 
princes divert themselves sometimes in dis- 
guising their qualities, awhile to depose them- 
selves, and to stoop to the poor and ordinary 
mode of life of the meanest of their people. 

Plerumque grata principibus vices, 

JMnndu-que parvo sub lare pauperuin 
Cienie, sine aulaus et ostro, 
Sollicitam explicuerc frontcm. 10 



' Plularch, Whether a wise man should meddle with stale 
affairs. 

i Lucret., v. 11. 26. 

8 In the treatise entitled, Hiero, or the condition of kings. 
» Ovid, jjmor., ii. 19. •-'•">. 
»° Horace, Od. iii. 29. 13. 



1 



150 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



"Changes have often pleased the great ; 
Anil in a cell a homely treat 

Of healthy food and cleanly drcss'd, 
Though no ricli haiuiinsrs grace the rooms, 
Or purple wrought in Tyriau looms, 
Have smooth'd a wrinkled brow and calmed a ruffled 
breast." 

Nothing is so distasteful and disappointing 
as abundance. What appetite would not be 
checked to see three hundred women at its 
command, as the Grand Seignior has in his 
seraglio 1 And what enjoyment of the sport 
did that ancestor of the Turks reserve to him- 
self, who never went a hawking without seven 
thousand falconers'! And besides this, I fancy 
that this lustre of grandeur brings 
Why great men w j t h j t no little disturbance and 

(■ruin to be . , 

more careful uneasiness upon the enjoyment 
of concealing f the most charming pleasures : 
than others. tne Y are too conspicuous, and 
lie too open to every one's view. 
Neither -do I know to what end they should 
any more than us be required to conceal their 
faults, since what is only reputed indiscretion 
in us the people brand with the names of 
tyranny and contempt of the laws in them ; 
and besides their proclivity to vice, it would 
seem they held it as a heightening pleasure to 
insult over the laws and to trample upon public 
observances. Plato, indeed, in his Gorgias, 
defines a tyrant to be one who in a city has 
license to do whatever his own will leads him 
to. And by reason of his impunity, the pub- 
lication of their vices does oft-times more mis- 
chief by its example than the vice itself. 1 Every 
one fears to be pryed into and overseen ; but 
princes are so, e'en to their very gestures, 
looks, and thoughts, the people conceiving they 
have right and title to censure and be judges 
of them: besides, that faults appear greater, 
according to the eminency and lustre of the 
place where they are seated ; as a mole or a 
wart appears greater on the forehead than a 
wide gash elsewhere. And this is the reason 
why the poets feign the amours of Jupiter to 
be performed in the disguises of so many bor- 
rowed shapes ; and amongst the many amorous 
practices they lay to his charge there is only 
one, as I conceive, where he appears in his 
own majesty and grandeur. 

But let us return to Hiero, who further com- 
plains of the inconveniences he 
Kings confined found in his royalty, in that he 
nf till '■ir own could not go abroad and travel 
country. the world at liberty, being as it 

were a prisoner to the bounds 
and limits of his own dominion, and that in all 
his actions he was evermore surrounded with a 
troublesome crowd. And in truth to see our 
kings sit all alone at table, environed with so 



1 Plusque excmplo quam peccato nocent. — Cicero, de 
togib. iii.14. 

2 As Caesar does not say anything of the sort respecting 
the Gauls, M. (Juste imagines that our author, by inadver- 
tence, applied to the Gauls what Caisar wrote of the Ger- 
mans, Bi'l/o Gall., vi. 23, where lie says:— "In pace nullus 

et inagistratus; sed principes regionum atque 



many people prating about them, and so many 
strangers staring upon them, as there always 
are, I have often been moved rather to pity 
than to envy their condition. King Alphonsus 
was wont to say that in this asses were in a 
better condition than kings, their masters per- 
mitting them to feed at their own ease and 
pleasure ; a favour that kings cannot obtain of 
their servants; and it would never come into 
my head that it could be of any great advan- 
tage in the life of a man of sense to have 
twenty people about him when he is at stool ; 
or that the services of a man of ten thousand 
livres a year, or that has taken Casal or de- 
fended Sienna, should be either more commo- 
dious or more acceptable to him than those of 
a good groom of the chamber that understands 
his business. The advantages of Thp p 0ndjt . on 
sovereignty are little better than of country 1 
iman-inary. Every degree of for- gentlemen in 
tune has in it some image of S™^ 
principality. Casar calls all the 
lords of France, having jurisdiction within 
their own demesnes, kinglets. 2 And, in truth, 
the title of sire excepted, they go pretty far 
towards kingship ; for do but look into the 
provinces remote from court, as Brittany for 
example, take notice of the train, the vassals, 
the officers, the employments, service, cere- 
mony, and state of a lord that Jives retired 
amidst his own estates and his own tenants, 
and observe withal the flight of his imagination, 
there is nothing more royal: he hears talk of 
his master once-a-year as of the king of Persia, 
and only recognizes him from some remote 
cousinship his secretary keeps note of in some 
musty record. And, to speak the truth, our 
laws are easy enough, so easy that a gentleman 
of France scarce feels the weight of sovereignty 
pinch his shoulders above twice in his life. 
Real and effectual subjection only concerns 
such amongst us as voluntarily thrust their 
necks under the yoke, and who design to get 
wealth and honour by such services. Any 
man that loves his own fire-side, and can govern 
his house without falling by the ears with his 
neighbours, or engaging in suits of law, is as 
free as the Duke of Venice. Paucos servitus, 
plures servitutem tenent? "Servitude seizes 
on few, but many seize on her." 

But that which Hiero is most concerned at 
is that he finds himself stripped of all friendship 
and deprived of all mutual society, wherein the 
true and most perfect fruition of human life 
consists. For what testimony of affection and 
good will can I extract from him that owes me, 
whether he will or no, all that he is able to do? 
Can I form any assurance of his real respect to 
me from his humble way of speaking and sub- 



pagorum inter suos jus dicunt, controversiasque minunt." 
Montaigne, however, may have had in his mind that pas- 
sage of a letter of Cesar's which Cicero has preserved 
(Jipi.it. Firm., vii. 5.), where the great general says:— "M. 
Orfium, quern mihi coinniendas, vel rcgem Gallice factara, 
vol hunc septs delega." 
3 Seneca, Epist. 22. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



151 



missive behaviour, which, when they are cere- 
monies, it is not in his choice to deny 1 The 
honour we receive from those that fear us is not 
honour; those respects are paid to my royalty, 
and not to me. 

Maximum hoc regni linnum est, 
Unod facta domini coL'irur populus sui 
(in. mi fcrrc, turn laudare. 1 



Not only to submit, but praise it too." 

Do I not see that the wicked and the good 
king', he that is hated and he that is beloved, 
has the one as much reverence paid him as the 
other I My predecessor was, and my successor 
shall be, served with the same ceremony and 
state. If my subjects do me no offence, 'tis no 
evidence of any good affection ; why should I 
look upon it as such, seeing it is not in their 
power if they would 1 No one follows me, or 
obeys my commands, upon the account of any 
friendship betwixt him and me; there can be 
no contracting of friendship where there is so 
little relation and correspondence. My own 
height has put me out of the familiarity of, and 
intelligence with, men; there is too great dis- 
parity and disproportion betwixt us. They 
follow me upon the account of appearance and 
custom ; or rather my fortune and me, to in- 
crease their own. All they say to me, or do 
for me, is forced and dissembled, their liberty 
being on all parts restrained by the great power 
and authority I have over them. I see nothing 
about me but what is dissembled and disguised. 

The Emperor Julian being one day applauded 
by his courtiers for his exact justice, "I should 
be proud of these praises," said he, "did they 
come from persons that durst condemn or dis- 
approve the contrary, in case I should do it." 2 
All the real advantages of princes are common 
to them with men of moderate condition ('tis 
for the gods to mount winged horses and feed 
upon ambrosia): they have no oilier sleep nor 
other appetite than we; the steel they arm 
themselves withal is of no better temper than 
that we also use; their crowns do neither 
defend them from the rain nor sun. 

Dioclesian, who wore a crown so fortunate 
and revered, resigned it to retire himself to the 
felicity of a private life. And some time after, 
the necessity of public affairs requiring that he 
should re-assume his charge, he made answer 
to thus.; who came to solicit him to it: "You 
would not, oiler to persuade me to this, had you 
seen the fine condition of the trees I have planted 
in my orchard, and the fair melons I have 
sowed in my garden." 3 

In the opinion of Anacharsis, the happiest 
state of government would be where, all other 
things being equal, precedency should be regu- 



lated to the virtues, and repulses to the vices' 
of men. 

When King Pyrrhus prepared for his ex- 
pedition into Italy, his wise counsellor Cyneas, 
to make him sensible of the vanity of his am- 
bition : "Well, sir," said he, 
"to what end do you make all tion of'pynrhue! 
this mighty preparation'!" "To 
make myself master of Italy," replied the king. 
"And wiiat after that is done - !" said Cyneas. 
" I will pass over into Gaul and Spain," said 
the other. " And what then V " I will then 
go to subdue Africa; and lastly, when I have 
brought the whole world to my subjection, I 
will sit down and live content at my ease." 
"For God's sake, sir!" replied Cyneas, "tell 
me what hinders you, if you please, from being 
now in the condition you speak of"! Why do 
you not now at this instant settle yourself in 
the state you say you aim at, and spare the 
labour and hazard you interpose V* 



"The cml ol' heir.!.' rich h" ilid nol know, 
Nor to what h.-ight felicity should grow." 

I will conclude with an old versicle that I 
think very pat to the purpose. 

Mores cuiquc sui fingunt fortunam. 6 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

OF SUMPTUARY LAWS. 

The way by which our laws attempt to regu- 
late idle and vain expenses in meat and clothes, 
seems to be quite contrary to the „ , 
end designed. The true way [?°^o be 
would be to beo'et in men a con- despised hy a 



1 



i Soncca, Thyesl.es, ii. 1, 30. 

I mm Marcellinus, xxii. 10. 

■> Aurelius Victor, in the article Dioclesian. 



tempt of silks and gold, as vain, K'J""" ,lle 
frivolous, and useless; whereas, 
we augment to them the honours, and enhance 
the value of such things, which is a very absurd 
mode of creating a disgust. For to enact that 
none but princes shall eat turbot, shall wear 
velvet, or gold lace, and to interdict these things 
to the people, what is it but to bring them into 
a greater esteem, and to set every man more 
agog to eat and wear them 1 Let kings leave 
off these ensigns of grandeur, they have others 
enough besides ; these excesses are more ex- 
cusable in any other than a prince. We may 
learn, by the example of several nations, many 
better ways of exterior distinction of quality, 
(which, truly, I conceive to be very requisite in 
a state) without fostering up for this purpose 
this corruption and inconvenience. 'Tis strange 



Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, c. ', 

Lucret., v. 1431. 

Nepos, Life of Mtieiu, ii. 11. 






152 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



how suddenly, and with how much ease, cus- 
tom, in these indifferent things, establishes 

itself, and becomes authority. 
ciot!ies S first We had scarce worn cloth a year, 
began to be at court, for the mourning of 
Frl P nce d *" Henr y the Second, but that silks 

were already grown into such 
contempt with every one that a man so clad 
was presently concluded a cit. Silks were left 
in share betwixt the physicians and surgeons, 
and though all other people almost went dressed 
alike, there was, notwithstanding, in one thing 
or other, sufficient distinction of the calling 
and condition of men. How suddenly do 
greasy chamois doublets become the fashion in 
our armies, whilst all neatness and richness of 
habit fall into reproach and contempt'? Let 
kings but take the lead, and begin to leave off 
this expense, and in a month the business will 
be done throughout the kingdom without 
edict or ordinance; we shall all follow. It 
should be rather proclaimed, on the contrary, 
that no one should wear scarlet, or goldsmith's 
work, but whores and tumblers. 
Zeleucus, with such an invention, reclaimed 

the corrupted manners of the 
Ze?Jcu W s S ° f Locrians. His laws were, That 

no free woman should be allowed 
more than one maid to follow her, unless she 
was drunk : nor was to stir out of the city by 
night, wear jewels of gold about her, or go in 
an embroidered robe, unless she was a professed 
public woman. That, pandars excepted, no 
man was to wear a gold ring, nor be habited 
in fine cloth, such as that wove in the city of 
Miletum. 1 By which ignominious exceptions 
he ingeniously diverted his citizens from super- 
fluities and pernicious pleasures ; it was a most 
useful mode of attracting men by honour and 
ambition, to their duty and obedience. 

Our kings can do what they please in such 

external reformations ; their own 
The court prac- inclinations stand in this case for 
for 6 the French a law : Quidquid principes faci- 
nation. unt,prxciperevidentur? "What 

princes themselves do, they seem 
to enjoin others to do." Whatever is done at 
court passes for a rule through the rest of 
France. Let the courtiers but fall out with 
these abominable breeches, that discover so 
much of those parts which should be concealed ; 
these unwieldy doublets, that make us look 
like I know not what; and are so unfit to 
admit of the use of arms; these long effeminate 
tresses of hair; this foolish custom of kissing 
what we present to our equals, and our hands 
in saluting them ; a ceremony in former times 
only due to princes : and that a gentleman shall 
appear in a place where he owes respect, 
without his sword, unbuttoned and untrussed 
as though he came from the house-of-office 
and that, contrary to the custom of our fore- 
fathers, and the particular privilege of the 

i Diod. Sicul., xii. 20. 



noblesse of this kingdom, we shall stand a long 
time bare-headed before our princes, in what 
place soever, and the same to a hundred others, 
so many tiercelets and quartelets of kings have 
we got now-a-days; and so with other like 
degenerate innovations ; they will see them all 
presently vanished and cried down. These are, 
'tis true, but superficial errors, but still, of 
ill consequence ; 'tis enough to inform us that 
the fabric itself is crazy and tottering, when 
we see the rough-cast of our walls to cleave 
and split. 

Plato, in his laws, 3 esteems nothing of more 
pestiferous consequence to his 
city than to give young men the fe^i toyou'th. 
liberty of introducing any change 
in their habits, gestures, dances, songs and 
exercises, from one form to another; shifting 
from this to that, hunting after novelties, and 
applauding the inventors; by which means 
manners are corrupted, and old institutions 
come to be nauseated and despised. In all 
things, saving only in those that are evil, a 
change is to be feared; even the change of 
seasons, winds, viands, and humours. And no 
laws are in their true credit, but such to which 
God has given so long a continuance that no 
one knows their beginning, or that there ever 
was any other. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

OF SLEEP. 

Reason directs that we should always go the 
same way, but not always the same pace. And 
consequently, though a wise man ought not to 
give the reins to human passions, so as to let 
them deviate him from the right path ; he may, 
notwithstanding, without prejudice to his duty, 
leave it to them to hasten or to slacken his 
speed, and not fix himself like a motionless and 
insensible Colossus. Could virtue itself put on 
flesh and blood, I believe the pulse would beat 
faster going on to an assault than in going to 
dinner: that is to say, there is a necessity she 
should beat, and be moved. I have taken 
notice, as of an extraordinary thing, of some 
great men who, in the highest enterprizes and 
greatest dangers, have kept themselves in so 
settled a calm as not at all to hinder their usual 
serenity, or break their sleep. 
Alexander the Great, on the day The pmfound 
assigned for that furious battle great person- 
betwixt him and Darius, slept so a ? cs '." tllt,ir 
profoundly, and so late in the Xir S .' nP ° rtant 
morning, that Parmenio was 
fain to enter his chamber, and, coming to his 
bed-side, to call him several times by name, 



a Quint. Declam. iii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



153 



the time to go to fight being come. 1 The 
Emperor Otho, having put on a resolution to 
kill himself, the same night, after having settled 
his domestic affairs, divided his money amongst 
his servants, and set a good edge upon a sword 
he had made choice of for the purpose, and now 
staying only to be satisfied whether all his 
friends were retired in safety, he fell into so 
sound a sleep that the gentlemen of his chamber 
heard him snore. 2 The death of this emperor 
has in it many circumstances resembling that of 
the great Cato, and particularly this ; for Cato 
being ready to dispatch himself, whilst he only 
stayed his hand in expectation of the return of 
a messenger he had sent, to bring him news 
whether the senators he had sent away were 
put out from the port of Utica, he fell into so 
sound a sleep that they heard him snore in the 
next room ; and he whom he had sent to the 
port, having awaked him to let him know that 
the tempestuous weather had hindered the 
senators from putting to sea; he dispatched 
another messenger, and, composing himself 
again in the bed, settled again to sleep, and did 
so till, by the return of the last messenger, he 

had certain intelligence they were 
Cato's tranquil- gone. 3 We may here further 
■ popular 6 Me compare him with Alexander, 
commotion. too, in that great and dangerous 

storm that threatened him by the 
sedition of the tribune, Metellus, who, wishing 
to renew the decree for the calling in of Pompey 
with his army into the City, at the time of 
Catiline's conspiracy, was only, and that 
stoutly, opposed by Cato, so that very sharp 
language, and bitter menaces, passed between 
them in the senate about that affair; but it was 
the next day, in the great square, that the 
matter was to be decided; where Metellus, 
besides the favour of the people, and of Caesar 
(at that time of Pompey's faction), was to 
appear, accompanied with a rabble of foreign 
slavers and fencers; and Cato, only fortified 
with his own courage and firmness ; so that his 
relations, domestics, and many good people 
were in great apprehension for him, and to that 
degree that some there were who passed over 
the whole night without sleep, eating, or 
drinking, for the manifest danger they saw him 
running into; at which his wife and sisters did 
nothing but weep and torment themselves in 
his house; whereas he, on the contrary, com- 
forted every one, and, having supped after his 
usual manner, went to bed, and slept so pro- 
foundly till morning that one of his fellow 
tribunes roused him to go to the encounter. 4 
The knowledge we have of the greatness of 
this man's courage by the rest of his life, may 



1 I'lni.iirli, J.jfc of Alexander. 'Tvvas the same with the 
«"•■" <'"'i'l'\ mi Hi.- eve uf i he Battle of Rncroi : — " I.e 
'■■ 'in. mi ;'i I 'hiMire in :t i «| n. -•• il fnlhit rrveiller d'un pro- 

I"'" 1 ' 1 s nl eel autre Alexandre."— Bossuet, Ora. Punch. 

dc Condi. 

■ Plutarch, in Vita, c. 8. J id. jj. c. 10. 

* I.I. it, . 

» Suetonius, in vita, c. 16. 



warrant, us surely to judge that his indifference 
proceeded from a soul so much elevated above 
such accidents that he disdained to let it take 
any more hold of his imagination than any 
other ordinary affair. 

In the naval engagement which Augustus 
won against Sextus Pompeius in 
Sicily, just as they were to begin Profound sleep 
the fight he was so fast asleep " llH before"!! 
that his friends were compelled battle, 
to wake him to give the signal 
of battle. 5 And this it was that gave Mark 
Antony afterwards occasion to reproach him 
that he had not the courage so much as with 
open eyes to behold the order of his own squad- 
rons, and that he had not dared to present 
himself before the soldiers till first Agrippa had 
brought him news of the victory obtained. 
But, as to the business of young Marius, who 
did much worse (for the day of his last battle 
against Sylla, after he had ordered his army, 
and given the word and signal of battle, he 
laid him down under the shade of a tree to 
repose himself, and fell so fast asleep, that the 
rout and flight of his men could hardly awake 
him, having seen nothing of the fight), he is 
said to have been at that time so extremely 
spent and worn out with labour and want of 
sleep that nature could hold out no longer. 6 
Upon this matter the physicians may determine 
whether sleep be so necessary that our lives 
depend upon it : for we read that they killed 
King Perseus of Macedon, a prisoner at Rome, 
by keeping him from sleep ; but Pliny instances 
some who have lived long without sleep. 7 He- 
rodotus speaks of nations where the men sleep 
and wake by half years ; 8 and they who write 
the life of the sage Epimenides affirm that he 
slept seven and fifty years together. 9 



CHAPTER XLV. 

OF THE BATTLE OF DREUX. 

Our battle of Dreux 10 was full of extraordinary 
accidents: but such men as have no great 
kindness for M. de Guise, nor much favour his 
reputation, are willing to have him thought to 
blame, and say that his making a halt, and delay- 
ing time with the forces he commanded, whilst 
Monsieur the Constable, who was general of 
the army, was raked through and through with 
the enemies' artillery, is not to be excused; 
and that he had much better have run the 
hazard of charging the enemy in flank than 
staying for the advantage of falling In upon 



o Plutarch, Life of Sijlla, c> 13. 

7 Pliny mentions but one instant-i- that 1 find, which is 
nl M.i'i rims, w ho lie says for the la<l thr.-.- ward of Ins life 
bad mi moment's sleep. J\Tat. Hist. vii. 52. 

» Herodotus speaks of this only bj hearsay, and positively 
declares he did not believe it. Book iv. 

o Laerlius, in vita. Pliny, vii. "iJ 

» Fought 1502, in the reign of Churles IX. 



154 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the rear, to suffer so great a loss. 

^rind^alaimof But ' besides what tlle event de " 
the n generai?i"d monstrated, he who will consider 
every soldier. it without passion or prejudice 

will easily be induced to confess 
that the aim and design not of a captain only, 
but of every private soldier, ought to look at 
the victory in general ; and that no particular 
occurrences, how nearly soever they may con- 
cern his own interest, should divert him from 
that pursuit. Philopoemen, in an encounter 
with Machanidas, having sent before a good 
strong party of his archers to begin the skirmish, 
the enemy having routed these pursued them 
post haste in the heat of victory, and in that 
pursuit passing by the place where Philopoemen 
was, though his soldiers were impatient to fall 
on, yet he did not think fit to stir from his 
post, nor to present himself to the enemy to 
relieve his men, but, having suffered them to be 
chased about the field, and cut in pieces before 
his face, charged in upon their body of foot, 
when he saw them left naked by their horse ; 
and, notwithstanding that they were Lacedae- 
monians, yet taking them in the nick, when, 
thinking themselves secure of the victory, they 
began to disorder their ranks, he did his busi- 
ness with great facility, and then put himself 
in pursuit of Machanidas. 1 Which case is very 
like that of Monsieur de Guise. 

In that fierce battle betwixt Agesilaus and 

the Boeotians, which Xenophon, 
teus withlle 8 ' W ' 10 was P reserlt at i^ reports to 
Breotians. be the roughest he had ever seen, 

Agesilaus waived the advantage 
that fortune presented to him, to let the Boeo- 
tians' battalion pass by, and then to charge 
them in the rear, how certain soever he made 
himself of the victory, judging it would rather 
be an effect of conduct than valour to proceed 
that way. And therefore, to show his prowess, 
rather chose, with a wonderful ardour of 
courage, to charge them in the front; but he 
was well beaten, and wounded for his pains, 
and constrained at last to disengage himself 
and to take the course he had at first neglected, 
opening his battalion to give way to this torrent 
of Boeotians, and being past by, taking notice 
that they marched in disorder, like men that 
thought themselves out of danger, he then pur- 
sued and charged them in flank, yet could not 
prevail so far as to bring it to so general a rout, 
but that they leisurely retreated, still facing 
about upon him, till they were retired into 
safety. 2 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

OF NAMES. 

What variety of herbs soever are put together 



i Plutarch, in vita. 
aid., life of Jlgesiltms. 

3 William, says the Dictionary of Trcvoux, was once 
applied by way of contempt to persons who were thought 
slightingly of. 



in the dish, yet the whole is called by the one 
name of a salad. In like manner, under the 
consideration of names, I will here make a 
hodge-podge of different articles. 

Every nation has certain names that, I know 
not why, are taken in no good part: as with 
us John, William, 3 and Benedict. Item, in 
the genealogy of princes, also, 
there seem to be certain names ^"n'ked^'othprs 
fatally affected, as the Ptolemies fatally affected 
of Egypt, the Henrys of Eng- |'M !le S enea ; 
i j ii /~m i c -n logics of some 

land, the Charleses of France, princes, 
the Baldwins of Flanders, and 
the Williams of our ancient .Aquitaine, from 
whence 'tis said the name of Guienne has its 
derivation ; which would seem far-fetched, were 
there not as crude derivations in Plato himself. 4 

Item, 'tis a frivolous thing in itself, but 
nevertheless worthy to be re- 
corded for the strangeness of it, ^ffienf** 4 
which is writ by an eye-witness, tallies at a feast, 
that Henry Duke of Normandy, {^^f''" 
son of Henry the Second, King names, 
of England, making a great feast 
in France, the concourse of nobility and gentry 
was so great that being, for sport's sake, divided 
into troops, according to their names, in the 
first troop, which consisted of Williams, there 
were found an hundred and ten knights sitting 
at the table of that name, without reckoning 
the simple gentlemen and their servants. 

It is as pleasant to distribute the tables by 
the names of the guests as it was 
in the Emperor Geta to distribute ^ ishe ^ of meat 
the several courses of his meat cording" to^the 
by the first letters of the meats order of the 
themselves, where those that be- alphabet, 
gan with b were served up to- 
gether, . as brawn, beef, bream, custards, and 
beccaficos, and so of others. 6 

Item, there is a saying that it is a good 
thing to have a good name, that is to say, 
credit and a good repute. But besides this, it 
is convenient to have a well-sounding name, 
such as is at the same time easy of pronuncia- 
tion, and easy to be remembered, 
by reason that kings and other * l jf ^ ) °^ t ° 
great persons do by that means easy ln i,' e pro . 
the more easily know and the ncmnced. 
more hardly forget us; and, in- 
deed, of our own servants, we more frequently 
call and employ those whose names are most 
ready upon the tongue. I myself have seen 
that Henry the Second could not for his heart 
hit of a gentleman's name of our country of 
Gascony; and moreover was fain to call one 
of the queen's maids of honour by the general 
name of her family, her own being so difficult 
to pronounce or remember. And Socrates 
thinks it worthy a father's care to give fine 
names to his children. 



* The name of Ouirnnc derives not from Gnillaume, but 
from Jlqmlania, Aquitaine, whence, first, Aquienne, then 
Guienne. 

s Spartian, Life of Geta, c. 5. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



155 



Item, 'tis said that the foundation of Notre 

Dame la Grande, at Poictiers, 

Tha origin of took its original hence: that 

: ""' m a debauched young fellow, for- 

ot Notre Dame ii- • ,i * i u ■ _ 

,. at merly living in that place, having 
Poictiers. picked up a wench, and, at her 

first coming in, asking her name, 
and being answered that it was Mary, he felt 
himself so suddenly darted through with the 
awe of religion, and the reverence to that sacred 
name of the blessed Virgin, that he not only 
immediately sent the girl away, but became a 
reformed man, and so continued the remainder 
of his life. And that, in consideration of this 
miracle, there was erected upon the place 
where/ this young man's house stood, first a 
chapel dedicated to our Lady, and afterwards 
the church that we now see standing there. 
This auricular reproof wrought upon the con- 
science, and that right into the soul. This that 
insinuated itself merely by the senses. 
Pythagoras being in company with some wild 
young fellows, and perceiving that, heated with 
the feast, they complotted to go violate an 
honest house, commanded the singing-wench to 
alter her wanton airs ; and by a solemn, grave, 
and spondaic music, gently enchanted and laid 
asleep their ardour. 1 

Item, will not posterity say that our modern 
reformation has been wonderfully exact, in 
having not only scuffled with and overcome 
errors and vice, and filled the world with devo- 
tion, humility, obedience, peace, and all sorts of 
virtue; but to have proceeded so far as to 
quarrel with the ancient baptismal names of 
Charles, Louis," and Francis, to fill the world 
with Methusalems, Ezekiels, and Malachis, of 
a far more spiritual sound? A gentleman, a 
neighbour of mine, a great admirer of antiquity, 
and who was always preferring the excellency 
of preceding times in comparison with this pre- 

e of ours, did not (amongst the rest) 

forget to magnify the lofty and magnificent 

sound of the gentlemen's names 

ind of those (lays, Don Grumedan, 
Mmes fi of n tbe ? uadre g an > Agesilan, &c, which 

no- but to hear named he conceived 
to be other kind of men than 
Pierre, Guillot, and Michel. 
hem, I am mightily pleased with Jnques 
Aroiot for leaving, throughout a whole French 
oration, the Latin names entire, without vary- 
ing and dissecting them, to give them a French 
termination. It seemed a little harsh and rough 
at first; but already custom, by the authority 
of Ins Plutarch, has overcome that novelty. 
I have often wished that such as write chroni- 
clea in Latin would leave our names as they 
find them, tor in making of Vaudemont Valle- 
montanus, and metamorphosing names to dress 

iut in Greek or Latin, we know not 
v here we are, and with the persons of the men 
lose the benefit of the story. 



ricus, adcersus JUathom, vi. 



To conclude, 'tis a scurvy custom, and of 
very ill consequence, which we 
have in our kingdom of France, ^Xgen- 
to call every man by the name of tic-mf-n to K o by 
his manor or seigneury : 'lis the jj»name of_ 
thing in the world that does the W hy blameab'le. 
most confound families and de- 
scents. A younger brother of a good family, 
having a manor left him by his father, by the 
name of which he has been known and honoured, 
cannot handsomely leave it; ten years after his 
decease it falls into the hand of a stranger, who 
does the same. Do but judge whereabouts we 
shall be concerning the knowledge of these 
men. We need look no farther for examples 
than our own royal family, where every parti- 
tion creates a new surname, whilst in the mean 
time the original of the family is totally lost. 
There is so great a liberty taken in the^e muta- 
tions that I have not in my time 
seen any one advanced by fortune The obscurest 
to any extraordinary grandeur, i^biAVbtT 
who has not presently had ge- falsified, 
nealogical titles added to him, 
new, and unknown to his father, and who has 
not been engrafted upon some illustrious stem; 
and, by good luck, the obscurest families are 
the most proper for falsification. How many 
gentlemen have we in France, who, by their 
own talk, are of royal extraction] More, I 
think, than of those that will confess they are 
not. 

Was not this a pleasant passage of a friend 
of mine? There were a great many gen- 
tlemen assembled together about the dispute 
of one seigneur with another; which other 
had, in truth, some pre-eminence of titles and 
alliances above the ordinary run of nobility. 
Upon the debate of this priority, every one 
standing up for himself, to make himself equal 
to him, alleged, one one extraction, another 
another-; one the near resemblance of name; 
another of arms ; another an old worm-eaten 
patent; and the least of them made himself 
out great-grandchild to some foreign king. 
When they came to sit down to dinner, my 
friend, instead of taking his place amongst 
them, retiring with the most profound congees, 
entreated the company to excuse him for having 
hitherto lived with them at the saucy rate of a 
companion ; but, being now better informed of 
their quality, he would begin to pay them the 
respect due to their birth and grandeur, saying 
it would ill become him to sit down among so 
many princes. After jesting with them for 
some time, he made them a thousand re- 
proaches: "Let us, in God's name, satisfy 
ourselves with what our fathers were contented 
with, and with what we are. We are great 
enough, if we rightly understand how to main- 
tain it. Let us not disown the fortune and 
condition of our ancestors, but lay aside these 
ridiculous imaginations, that can never be want- 
ing to any one that has the impudence to allege 
them." 






156 



ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Arms offer no more security than surnames. 
I bear Azur seme de Irefles d'or, 
The uncer- d une p a ft e de ly 0n de meme, 

tamty of coats . f , y . r 

of arms. armee de gueules, mise en jace- 

What privilege has this to con- 
tinue particularly in my house and name? A 
son-in-law will transport it into another family; 
or some paltry purchaser will make them his 
first arms. There is nothing wherein there is 
more change and confusion. 

But this consideration leads me perforce into 
another subject. Let us look a little narrowly 
into, and, in God's name, examine upon what 
foundation we erect this glory and reputation, 
for which the world is turned topsy-turvy. 
Wherein do we place this renown that we hunt 
after with such infinite anxiety and trouble - ! 
It is, in the end, Peter or William that bears 
it, takes it into his possession, and whom it 
only concerns. O, what a valiant faculty is 
hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, 
makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, 
eternity, and of supplying her master's indi- 
gence, at her pleasure, with all things he can 
imagine or desire! Nature has here given us 
a pretty toy to play withal. And this Peter or 
William, what is it but a sound, when all is 
done ? Or three or four dashes with a pen, so 
easy to be varied that I would fain know to 
whom is to be attributed the glory of so many 
victories, to Guesquin, to Glesquin, or to Guea- 
quin'? 1 And yet there would be something 
more in the case than in Lucian, that Sigma 
should serve Tau with a process ; z for 



"He seeks no mean rewards;" 

the quest is here in good earnest. The point 
is, which of these letters is to be rewarded for 
so many sieges, battles, wounds, imprisonments, 
and services done to the crown of France by 
this famous constable. 

Nicholas Denisot 4 never concerned himself 
further than the letters of his name, of which 
he has altered the whole contexture to build up 
by anagram the Count d'Alsinois, whom he 
has endowed with the glory of his poetry and 
painting. And the historian Suetonius looked 
only to the meaning of his ; and so cashiering 
his father's surname, Lenis, left Tranquillus 



i In Proissart's History, where we find ail the most me- 
morable actions of this great man, both before anil after his 
advancement to the dignity of constable, and to his death, 
he is not named Guesquin, nor Glesquin, nor Gueaquin, 
but Guesclin. It is true that the same Froissart (torn. it. 
book 3.) long after, having mentioned his death, tells us 
that having called him by the name of Glesquin, in pre- 
sence of William d'Ancenis, a gentleman of liiilanny, that 
gentleman said to him, "That Glay Aquin was the right 
surname of this famous constable." u liiih he proved to him 
by a very pleasant story, which has, however, all the air 
of romance. Menage, however, mentions no fewer than 
fourteen different ways of spelling the name. 

2 Referring to I.uciau's Ju<i<rmciit e/" iltc Vowels. 

zJEneid.xn.VH. 

4 Painter and poet, born at Mans, 1515. 

6 Bayard's name. 

6 Antonio Iscalin (the real name) was named Poulin, 



successor to the reputation of his writings. 
Who would believe that the Captain Bayard 
should have no honour but what he derives 
from the great deeds of Peter Terrail ; s and that 
Antonio Escalin should suffer himself to his face 
to be robbed of the honour of so many naviga- 
tions and commands at sea and land by Captain 
Poulin and the Baron de la Garde! 6 

Secondly, these are dashes of the pen, com- 
mon to a thousand people. How many are 
there in every race of the same name and sur- 
name! And how many in several races, ages, 
and countries'? History tells us of three Sr> 
crateses, five Platos, eight Aristotles, seven 
Xenophons, twenty Demetriuses, twenty The- 
odores; and how many more she was not ac- 
quainted with, we may imagine. Who hinders 
my groom from calling himself Pompey the 
Great] But, after all, what virtue, what 
springs are there that convey to my deceased 
groom, or the other Pompey, who had his head 
cut off in Egypt, this glorious renown, and 
these so much honoured flourishes of the pen 
so as to be of any advantage to them ? 

Id cinerem et manes credis curare sepultos.? 
"Can we believe the dead regard stich things?" 

What sense have the two companions in the 
greatest esteem of men, — Epaminondas, of this 
glorious verse, that has been so many ages 
current in his praise ; 

Consiiiis nostris laus est attrita Laconum ; s 
" One Sparta by my counsels is o'erthrown ;" 

and Africanus, of this other, 

A sole exoriente, supra Mteoti' Paludes, 
Nemo est qui factis me ajquiparare queat.9 



The survivors, indeed, tickle themselves with 
these praises, and, by them incited to jealousy 
or desire, inconsiderately and according to 
their own fancy, attribute to the dead this their 
own feeling ; vainly flattering themselves that 
they shall one day in turn be capable of the 
same. God knows, however, 

Ad hffic se 
Romanus, Grajusque, et Barbaras induperator 
Erexit : caitsas discrimiuis atque laboris 
Inile babuit ; tanto major faniai sitis est, quam 



from Poulin, in the Albigcois, where he was born. He 
took the name of De la Garde from a corporal of that name, 
who. passing one day through Poulin, with a company of 
foot-soldiers, took a fancy to him, and carried him off with 
him to make him his hoy. lie distinguished himself by his 
wit, valour, and conduct, in the several employments which 
he had, as general of the galleys, ambassador to the Porte, 
and to England, &c, in the reigns of Francis I. and his 
successors, uown to Charles IX.— See Brantome, Illustrious 
Men 

'■ JEncid, iv. 34. 

e This verse, translated from the Greek, by Cicero (Tiis. 
Quas- v. 17), is the first of the four elegiac verses that were 
engraved on the base of the statue of Epaminondas (Pau- 
sanias, ix. 15). In Cicero, however, you find Mttonsa, not 
MMta. 

» Cicero, Tusc. Qitas. v. 17. 

io Juvenal, x. 137. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



157 



'Fir'd with the love of the.--?- vvli.-it countless swarms 
Barbarians, Romans, Creeks, have rush'd to arms, 
All danger slighted, and all toil defied, 
And madly conquer'd, or as madly died I 
So much the raging thirst of fame exceeds 
The generous warmth which prompts to worthy deeds 



CHAPTER LXVII. 

OF THE UNCERTAINTY OF OUR JUDGMENT. 

Whether a con- It was wel1 said b y the P oet . 

fluered enemy ,_,,,.., . a , . , 

should be pur- E7r«av « ™A U S v6 P°S cv6a /cat epQa. x 

cueil to extre- . 

mity. Reasons "There is everywhere liberty of talking 

for anda"ainst enough, and enough to be said on both 

;. sides." 



For example : 



"The Carthaginian, though renown'd in fight, 
Improv'd nut all his victories as he might." 

Such as would take this side, and condemn the 
oversight of our leaders, in not pushing home 
the victory at Moncontour ; or accuse the King 
of Spain 3 of not knowing how to make his best 
use of the advantage he had against us at St. 
Quentin, may conclude these oversights to pro- 
ceed from a soul drunk with success, or from 
a courage which, being full and over-gorged 
with this beginning of good fortune, had lost 
the appetite of adding to it, having already 
enough to do to digest what it had taken in: 
he has his arms full, and can embrace no more. 
Unworthy of the benefit fortune had put into 
his hands: for what utility does he reap from 
it, if, notwithstanding, he gives his enemy time 
to rally 1 What hope is there that he will dare 
at another time to attack an enemy re-united 
and re-composed, and armed anew with despite 
and revenge, who did not dare to pursue him 
when routed and unmanned by fear] 

Dum fortuna calet, dum conficit omnia terror.* 

" Whilst Fortune's in a heat, and terror throws 
A dismal gloom, confounding all their foes." 

But, withal, what better opportunity can he 
expect than that he has lost] 'Tis not here, as 
in fencing, where the most hits win: for so 
long as the enemy is on foot, the game is new 
to begin ; that is not to be called a victory that 
does not put an end to the war. In the en- 
counter where Caesar had the worse, near the 
city of Oricum, he reproached Pompey's sol- 
diers that he had been lost, had their general 
known how to overcome; 6 and afterwards 
showed him a very different trick, when he 
beat him in his turn. 
But why may not a man also argue on the 



1 Homer, Hind, xx. 240. 

2 Petrarch, Son. Kl. 

a riulin U., wlin defealed the French near St. Quenti 
the -'< > 1 1 1 of \uguu, lMti, being at. Lawrence's day. 
< Luc. vii. 734. 
14 



contrary, that it is the effect of a precipitous 
and insatiate spirit not to know how to re- 
strain its ardour; that it is to abuse the favour 
of God to exceed the measure he has prescribed 
them ; and that again to throw a man's self 
into danger, after a victory is obtained, is again 
to expose himself to the mercy of fortune; and 
that it is one of the highest rules in the art of 
war not to drive an enemy to despair? Sylla 
and Marius, in the social war, having defeated 
the Marsians, seeing yet a body of reserve that, 
prompted by despair, was coming on like furious 
beasts to charge in upon them, thought it not 
convenient to await them. Had not Monsieur 
De Foix's ardour transported him so precipi- 
tously to pursue the remains of the victory of 
Ravenna, he had not obscured it by his own 
death. And yet the recent memory of his ex- 
ample served to preserve Monsieur d'Anguien 
from the same misfortune at the battle of Seri- 
soles. 'Tis dangerous to attack a man you 
have deprived of all means to escape but by his 
arms; for necessity teaches violent resolutions: 
Gravissimi sunt morsus irritates necessitatis. 6 
" Enraged necessity bites deep." 

Vincitur haud gratis, jugulo qui provocat hostem.' 
" The foe that meets the sword sells his life dear." 

This it was that made Pharax withhold the 
King of Lacedcemon, who had won a battle of 
the Mantineans, from going to charge a thou- 
sand Argians, who were escaped in an entire 
body from the defeat; but rather let them steal 
off at liberty, that he might not encounter 
valour whetted and enraged by mischance. s 
Clodomir, King of Aquitaine, after a victory 
pursuing Gondemar, King of Burgundy, beaten 
and flying, compelled him to face about, and 
make head ; and his obstinacy deprived him of 
the fruit of his conquest, for he there lost his 
life. 

In like manner, if a man were to choose 
whether he would have his sol- 
diers richly accoutred and armed, Whether sol- 

, J , r , diers should be 

or armed only for necessary de- ri( . n i y arme d. 
fence ; this argument would step 
in in favour of the first (of which opinion were 
Sertorius, Philopcemen, Brutus, Csesar, and 
others), that it is to a soldier an enflaming of 
Courage, and a spur to glory, to see himself 
bravely apparelled, and withal affords occasion 
to be more obstinate in fight, having his arms, 
which are in & manner his estate and inherit- 
ance, to defend; which is the reason, says 
Xenophon, why those of Asia carried their 
wives, concubines, with their choicest jewels 
and greatest wealth, along with them to the 
wars. 9 But then these arguments would offer 
on the other side: that a general ought rather 
to lessen than increase, in his soldiers, their sc- 



158 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



brave and 
insult the 
enemy. 



licitude of preserving themselves : that by this 
means they will be in a double fear of hazard- 
ing their persons; as also that it will be a 
double temptation to the enemy to fight for a 
victory where so rich spoils are to be obtained. 
And this very thing has been observed, in for- 
mer times, notably to encourage the Romans 
against ' the Samnites. Antiochus showing 
Hannibal the army he had raised, wonderfully 
splendid, and rich in all sorts of equipage, 
asked him — "Will the Romans be satisfied 
with that army 1" " Satisfied !" replied the 
other; "yes, doubtless, were their avarice 
never so great.'" Lycurgus not only forbad 
his soldiers all manner of sumptuousness in 
their equipage, but moreover to strip their con- 
quered enemies, because, he said, he would 
have poverty and frugality shine with the rest 
of the battle. 2 

At sieges, and elsewhere, where occasion 
draws us near to the enemy, we 

MfoXbe rea( % f ff % 0U ™ t0 braV f t 

suffered to rate, and affront the enemy with 

all sorts of injurious language ; 
and not without some colour of 
reason ; for it is of no little con- 
to take from them all hopes of mercy 
and composition, in representing to them that 
there is no fair quarter to be expected from an 
enemy they have incensed to that degree, nor 
other remedy remaining, but in victory. And 
yet Vitellius found himself out in this way 
of proceeding ; for having to do with Otho, 
weaker in respect of his soldiers, long un- 
accustomed to war, and effeminated with the 
delights of the city ; he so nettled them at last, 
with stinging language, reproaching them with 
cowardice, and the regret of the mistresses and 
entertainments they had left behind at Rome, 
that by this means he inspired them with such 
resolution as no exhortation would have had 
the power to have done; and himself made 
them fall upon him, with whom their own 
captains before could by no means prevail. 
And, indeed, when they are injuries that touch 
to the quick, it may very well fall out that he 
who went but sluggishly to work in the behalf 
of his prince will fall to it with another sort of 
mettle, when the quarrel is his own. 

Considering of how great importance is the 

preservation of the general of an 

raifoifghfto a™y> and that the universal aim 

disguise them- of an enemy is levelled directly 

battle. bef ° re a at the head U P° n Which a11 0therS 

depend; the advice seems to ad- 
mit of no dispute, which we know has been 
taken by many great captains, of changing 



their dress, and disguising their persons, upon 
the point of going to engage. Nevertheless, 
the inconvenience a man, by so doing, runs 
into, is not less than that he thinks to avoid : 
for the captain, by this means, being concealed 
from the knowledge of his own men, the cou- 
rage they should derive from his presence and 
example comes by degrees to cool and to decay ; 
and not seeing the wonted marks and ensigns 
of their leader, 3 they presently conclude him 
either dead, or that, despairing of the business, 
he is gone to shift for himself. Experience 
shows us that both these ways have been both 
successful and otherwise. What befel Pyrrhus 
in the battle he fought against the consul 
Levinus, in Italy, will serve us to both pur- 
poses: for though, by shrouding his person 
under the arms of Megacles, and making the 
latter wear his, he undoubtedly preserved his 
own life, yet by that very means he was withal 
very near running into the other mischief of 
losing the battle. Alexander, Csesar, and 
Lucullus, loved to make themselves known in 
battle, by rich accoutrements and arms of a 
particular lustre and colour. Agis, Agesilaus, 
and that great Gilippus, 4 on the contrary, used 
to fight obscurely armed, and without any 
imperial attendance or distinction. 

Amongst other oversights Pompey is charged 
withal, at the battle of Phar- . . 

salia, he is condemned for making besuo faUupon 
his army stand still to receive the an enemy, or to 
enemy's charge; 6 "by reason ™ t t a j£ oran 
that" (I shall here steal Plu- 
tarch's own words, that are better than mine,) 
" he, by so doing, deprived himself of the vio- 
lent impression the motion of running adds to 
the first shock of arms, and hindered the im- 
petus of the combatants, which was wont to 
give great impetuosity and fury to the first 
encounter; especially when they come to rush 
in with their utmost vigour, their courages 
increasing by the shouts and the career ; thereby 
rendering his soldiers' animosity and ardour, as 
a man may say, more reserved and cold." 
This is what Plutarch says; 6 but if Cssar had 
come by the worse, why might it not as well 
have been urged that, on the contrary, the 
strongest and most steady posture of fighting 
is that wherein a man stands planted firm, 
without motion; and they who make a halt 
upon their march, closing up, and reserving : 
their force within themselves for the push of 
the business, have a great advantage against 
those who are disordered, and who have already 
spent half their breath in running on preci- 
pitously to the charge. Besides, that an army 



i Aulus Gellius, v. 5. 

2 Plutarch, Jipoth. of the Lacedemonians. 

s As at the battle of lvry, in the person of Henry the 
Great. 

* It is my opinion, observes M. Coste, that one who has 
been forced to fly his country from a sentence of death, for 
having robbed ihc public, can never deserve the title of a 
great man. As to 1 lie infamous robbery committed by this 
Gilippus, sec Diodorus of Sicily. His father, whose name 



was Clcarchus, was in the same scrape. Being cast for his 
life, he fled, says Diodorus, before the sentence. Thus, adds ;| 
the historian, did these two personages, who in other res- || 
pects were bolh reputed excellent men, throw a scandal ;! 
upon the rest of their lives and actions, by suffering them- 
selves to be corrupted with sordid avarice. 

6 It is Csesar himself that lays this blame on Pompey.— | 
Dc Bcllo Civili, iii. 17. 

e Life of Pompey, c. 19. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



159 



being a body made up of so many members, it 
is impossible for it to move in this fury with so 
exact a motion as not to break the order of 
battle, and that the readiest are engaged before 
their fellows can come up to relieve them. In 
that, disgraceful battle betwixt the two Persian 
brothers, the Lacsedemonian, Clearchus, who 
commanded the Greeks of Cyrus's party, led 
them on gently, and without precipitation, to 
the charge; but coming within fifty paces, put 
them to full speed, hoping, in so short a career, 
both to preserve their order, to husband their 
breath, and, at the same time, to give the 
advantage of impetuosity both to their persons 
and their missive arms. 1 Others have regu- 
lated this question in charging, thus; "if your 
enemy come running upon you, stand firm to 
receive him ; if he stand to receive you, run 
full drive upon him." 2 

In the expedition of the Emperor, Charles 

the Fifth, into Provence, King 

Whether it is Francis was put to choose whether 

best for a to „ mee t him in Italy, or to 

prince to wait »." . . ... j ■ • 

r.iriiiscMicinyiii await him in his own dominions; 
his own terri- an d though he well considered of 
ZhZX him how great advantage it was to 
upon his. preserve his own territories entire, 

and clear from the troubles of 
war, to the end that, being unexhausted of her 
stores, it might continually supply men and 
money at need ; that the necessity of war re- 
quires at every turn to spoil and lay waste the 
country belbre them, which cannot very well 
be done upon one's own; besides which, the 
country people do not so easily digest such 
havoc by those of their own party as from an 
enemy, so that seditions and commotions might 
by such means be kindled amongst us ; that the 
license of pillage and plunder, which is not to 
be tolerated at home, is a great ease and re 
freshment against the fatigues and sufferings of 
war; and that he who has no other prospect of 
gain than his bare pay will hardly be kept 
from running home, being but two steps from 
his wife and his own house ; that he who lays 
the cloth is ever at the charge of the feast; 
that there is more alacrity in assaulting than 
defending : and that the shock of the loss of a 
battle in our own bowels is so violent as to 
endanger the disjointing of the whole body, 
there being no passion so contagious as that of 
fear, that is so easily believed, or that so sud 
denly diffuses itself; and that the cities that 
should hear the rattle of this tempest, that 
should take in their captains and soldiers, still 
trembling and out of breath, would be in dan- 
ger, in this heat and hurry, to precipitate 
themselves upon some untoward resolution: 
notwithstanding all this, he chose to recal the 
forces lie had beyond the mountains, and to 
suffer the enemy to come to him. 



For he might, on the other hand, imagine 
that, being at home, and amongst his friends, 
he could not fail of plenty of all manner of 
conveniences; the rivers and passes he had at 
his devotion would bring him in both provisions 
and money in all security, and without the 
trouble of convoy ; that he should find his sub- 
jects by so much the more affectionate to him, 
by how much their danger was more near and 
pressing; that having so many cities and bar- 
riers to secure him, it would be in his power to 
give battle at his own opportunity and best 
advantage; and, if it pleased him to delay the 
time, that under covert, and at his own ease, 
he might see his enemy founder and defeat 
himself with the difficulties he was certain to 
encounter, being engaged in an enemy's country, 
where before, behind, and on every side, war 
would be upon him ; no means to refresh him- 
self, or to enlarge his quarters, should disease 
infest them, or to lodge his wounded men in 
safety. No money, no victuals, but all at the 
point of the lance; no leisure to repose and 
take breath; no knowledge of the ways or 
country, to secure him from ambushes and 
surprises; and, in case of losing a battle, no 
possible means of saving the remains. 3 Neither 
is there want of example in both these cases. 

Scipio thought it much better to go and at- 
tack his enemy's territories in Africa than to 
stay at home to defend his own, and fight him 
in Italy, where he then was ; and it succeeded 
well with him. But, on the contrary, Hanni- 
bal, in the same war, ruined himself, by aban- 
doning the conquest of a strange country, to go 
and defend his own. The Athenians, having 
left the enemy in their own dominions, to go 
over into Sicily, were not favoured by fortune 
in their design; but Agathocles, King of Syra- 
cuse, found her favourable to him, when he 
went over into Africa, and left the war at 
home. 

Thus we are wont to conclude, and with 
reason, that events, especially in war, do for the 
most part depend upon fortune, who will not be 
governed by, nor submit unto, human reason or 
prudence, according to the poet, 

Et male consultis pretium est; pnidentia fallax. 
Ncc fortuna proba't causas, soqiiiturque inerentes, 
Sed vaga per cunctos nullo discrimine fcrtur. 
Scilicet est aliud, quod nos cogatque regatque 
Majus, et in proprias ducat inbrtalia leges. 1 



i Xeuophon, Anabasis, i. 8. 

,J Plutarch, Precepts of Marriage. 

» The whole of this reasoning is taken, 



Prudence deceitful and unce 


tain i? 




111 counsels sometimes hit, w 


here i. 


lod ones miss ; 


J hough Fortune sometimes 


he lies 


t cause approves, 



Ad 

To that some greater and more constant cause 

Rules and subjects all mortals to its laws." 

But, to take the thing right, it should seem 
that our counsels and deliberations depend as 
much upon fortune as any thing we do, and tl; it 
she engages our very reason in her uncertainly 



Manilius, iv. 05. 



160 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS 



and confusion. "We argue rashly and adven- 
turously," says Timaeus in Plato, "because, as 
well as ourselves, our reason has a great share 
in the temerity of chance." 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

OF DESTRIERS. 

Here am I become a grammarian — I, who 
never learned any language but by rote, and 
who do not yet know adjective, conjunctive, or 
ablative. I think I have read that the Ro- 
mans had a sort of horses, by them called 
Funales, or Dextrarios, 1 which were either led- 
horses, or relay-horses, to be taken fresh upon 
occasions; and thence it is that we call our 
horses of service Destriers : and our romances 
commonly use the phrase of Adestrer for Ac- 
cowpagner, to accompany. They also called 
those horses Desultorios Equos, which were 
taught to run full speed side by side, without 

bridle or saddle, so as that the 
chaise in the R° man gentlemen, armed at all 
height of speed, points, would shift and throw 

themselves from the one to the 
other. The Numidian men-at-arms had always 
a led-horse in one hand, besides that they rode 
upon, to change in the heat of battle. Quibus, 
desullorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, 
inter acerrimam saspe pugnam in recentem 
equum, ex fessn, armatis transsultaremos erat: 
tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile equorum 
genus? " Whose custom it was, leading along 
two horses, after the manner of the Desultorii, 
armed as they were, in the heat of fight, to 
vault from a tired horse to a fresh one; so 
active were the men, and the horses so docile." 
There are many horses trained to help their 
■riders, so as to run upon any one that presents 
& drawn sword, to fall both teeth and heels upon 
any that front or oppose them. But it often 
falls out that they do more harm to their friends 
than their enemies; besides that you cannot 
reduce them again into order, when they are 
once engaged and grappled ; so that you re- 
main at the mercy of their quarrel. It hap- 
pened very unfortunately to Artybius, general 
of the Persian army, fighting man to man with 
Onesilus, King of Salamis, to be mounted upon 
a horse taught in this school ; for it was the 
occasion of his death ; the squire of Onesilus 



' Suetonius (Life of Tiberius), sin] Statins (Thebaicl. vi. 
461), have employed the term funalis in this sense; but 
rlrrirnrins is a barbarism used only by the authors of the 
middle ages. 

a Livy, xxiii. 2!). 

3 Herortot. v. lit. 

< In the narrative which Philip de Onmincs has given of 
this battle (viii. 6), in which he himself v/as present, he 
tells us of \vomb'i ful p: Tion.'iatiers by the horse on which 
the king was mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, 
and it was the most Ivaulifnl horse he had ever seen. 
During the battle the kin.? ..vaspr.sonalh atiarkad.whenhe 
had nobody near him bit a va'l -l de dmrnbrc, a little fellow, 



cleaving him down with a scythe betwixt the 
shoulders, as the horse was reared up upon his 
master. 3 And what the Italians report, that, 
in the battle of Fornuova, King Charles's horse, 
with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master 
from the enemy that pressed upon him, without 
which he had been slain, seems a strange effect 
of chance, if it be true. 4 The Mamelukes make 
their boast that they have the 
most adroit horses of any cavalry The horses of 
in the world ; that by nature and |^ef very dex. 
custom they are taught to know terous. 
and distinguish the enemy, whom 
they are to fall foul upon with mouth and heels, 
according to a word or sign given ; as also to 
gather up, with their teeth, darts and lances 
scattered upon the field, and present them to 
their riders, according as he orders. 'Tis said 
of Caesar, and also of the great 
Pompey, that amongst their ^ e ^ ood 
other excellent qualities, they horsemen, 
were both excellent horsemen, 
and particularly of Csesar, that, in his youth, 
being mounted on the bare back of a horse, 
without saddle or bridle, he could make him 
run, stop, and turn, with his hands behind him. 5 
As Nature designed to make of this personage, 
and of Alexander, two miracles of military art, 
you may say she did her utmost to arm them 
after an extraordinary manner. For every one 
knows that Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, had 
a head inclining to the shape of a 
bull, that he would suffer himself ^ 
to be mounted nor accoutred by 
none but his master, and that he was so ho- 
noured after his death as to have a city erected 
to his name. Caesar had also another, that had 
fore-feet like the hands of a man, Cffisar , g h0 ' 
his hoof being divided in the form 
of fingers, which likewise was not to be ridden 
by any but Caesar himself; who, after his death, 
dedicated his statue to the goddess Venus. 6 

I do not willingly alight when I am once on 
horseback ; for it is the place where, whether 
well or sick, I find myself most 
at ease. Plato recommends it for **£*$ a ver y 

i i.i » i i t-.i- •. ■ wholesome 

health, 7 and also Pliny says it is exercise, 
good for the stomach and the 
joints. 8 Let us pursue the matter a little fur- 
ther, since we have entered upon it. 

We read, in Xenophon, a law forbidding any 
one, who was master of a horse, to travel on 
foot. 9 Trogus and Justin say, 10 that the Par- 
thians were wont to perform all offices and 



and not well armed. " The king," says Philip de Onmines, 
" had the best horse under him in the world, and therewith 
he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a 
great way from him, arrived at the critical minute, when 
the Italians ran away." This does not seem very contra- 
dictory to what the Italians say, that had it not been for 
his horse, King Charles would have been lost. 

6 Plutarch, Life of Casar, c. 5. 

o Suetonius, Life of Cesar, c. til. 

••Laws, vii. 

8 Hook xx viii. 9.4. 

9 Cyropisdia. iv. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



161 



ceremonies, not only in war, but 
The Parthians a ] so & \\ affairs, whether public or 
almost always . . ' r 

on horseback. private, make bargains, confer, 
entertain, take the air, and all on 
horseback; and that the greatest distinction 
betwixt freemen and slaves amongst them was 
that the one rode on horseback and the other 
went on foot: an institution of which King 
Cyrus was the founder. 

There are several examples in the Roman 
History (and Suetonius more particularly re- 
marks it in Caesar 1 ) of captains who, in pressing 
occasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, 
both by that means to take from them all hopes 
of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped 
for in this sort of fight. Quo, hnud dubie, 
superat Romanus : " Wherein the Romans did, 
questionless, excel;" says Livy. 2 The first 
thing they did to prevent insurrections in the 
nations of new conquest was to take from them 
their arms and horses : and therefore it is that 
we so often meet in Csesar: Arma proferri, 
jumenla produci, obsides dari jubel? "He 
commanded the arms to be produced, the horses 
brought out, and hostages to be given." The 
Grand Seignior, to this day, suffers not a 
Christian or a Jew to keep a horse of his own 
throughout his empire. 

Our ancestors, particularly at the time they 
had war with the English, in all 
offiTi^nToT their greatest engagements and 
horseback". pitched battles fought for the 

most part on foot, that they might 
have nothing but their own strength and cou- 
rage to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern 
as life and honour. You stake (whatever 
Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to the contrary) 
your valour and your fortune upon that of your 
horse ; his wound or death brings you into the 
same danger; his fear or fury shall make you 
rash or cowardly ; if he have an ill mouth, or 
will not answer to the spur, your honour must 
answer it. 4 And, therefore, I do not think it 
strange that those battles were more firm and 
furious than those that are fought on horse- 
back: 

Cedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant 
Victores victique ; neque his t'nga nota, neque illis;& 
" By turns they quit their ground, bv turns advance, 
Victors and vanquished, in the various field, 
Nor wholly overcome, nor wholly yield :" 

their battles were much better contested: 
now-a-days there are nothing but routs; — 
Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit." 
"The first shout, or the first charge, settles 
the business." And the arms we make use of 
in so great a hazard should be as much as pos- 
sible at our own command ; wherefore I should 
advise to choose them of the shortest, and such 
of which we are able to give the best account. 
A man may repose more confidence in a sword 



> Suetonius, Life of Cxsar, c. 60. 

5 Livy, ix. 22. J Dt Bell Oali. vii. 11. 

« Ci/rapctdia, iv. 3, 8. 

» JEaeii. ix. 750. 

14* 



he holds in his hand than in a bullet he dis- 
charges out of a pistol, wherein there must be 
a concurrence of several executions to make it 
perform its office, the powder, the stone, and 
the wheel, if any of which fail, it endangers 
your fortune. The blow a man strikes himself, 
is much surer than that which the air carries 
for him : 

Et quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis: 
Ensis ha bet vires; et gens quaecumque virorum est, 
Bella gerit gladiis." 7 

" Far off with bows 
They shoot, and where it lists the wind bestows 
Their wounds ; but the sword-firrht does strength require ; 
All manly nations the sword-fight desire." 

But of that weapon I shall speak more fully 
when I come to compare the arms of the an- 
cients witli our own; the astonishment of the 
ear excepted, which every one grows familiar 
with in a little time, I look upon it as a wea- 
pon of very little execution, and hope we shall 
one day lay it aside. That missile weapon 
which the Italians formerly made use of, both 
with fire and without, was much more terrible. 
They called a certain kind of 
javelin, armed at the point with p h h a e , a u r s ica a tbe 
an iron three feet long, that it weapon of the 
might pierce through and through ^" c ' e " t 
6 i ,', ■ , •" , Italians, 

an armed man, phalamca, which 

they sometimes in the field threw by hand, 
sometimes from engines, for the defence of 
beleagured places; the shaft whereof being 
rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and 
other combustible matter, took fire in its flight, 
and, lighting upon the body of a man, or his 
target, took away all the use of arm9 and 
limbs. And yet, coming to close fight, I should 
think they would also endamage the assailant, 
and that the field being covered with these 
flaming truncheons, would produce a common 
inconvenience to the whole crowd: 



" A knotted lance, laree. heavy, strong, 
Which roared like thunder as it whirled along." 

They had, moreover, other devices which cus- 
tom made them perfect in, but which seem in- 
credible to us who have not used them, by 
which they produced the effects of our powder 
and shot. They darted their heavy spears with 
so great force as oft-times transfixed two targets, 
and two armed men at once, and pinned them 
together. Neither was the effect of their 
slings less certain or speedy. Saxis globosis. . . 
funda, mare apertum incessentes . . . coronas 
madid circuli, magna ex intervallo loci, assueti 
trajicere, non capita modo hostium vulne- 
rabant, sed quern locum destinassenl. 9 " Culling 
round stones from the shore for their 6lings, 
and with them practising at a great distance to 



Livy, xxv. 45. 
Luc. vili.:!H4. 
JEneid, ix. 705. 
1 Livy, jtxviii. 29. 



162 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



throw through a circle of very small circum- 
ference, they would not only wound an enemy 
in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure." 
Their pieces of battery had not only the exe- 
cution, but the thunder of our cannon: — Ad 
ictus mcenium cum terribili sonitu editos, pavor 
et trepidatio cepit. 1 "At the battering of the 
walls, which is performed with a dreadful noise, 
the defenders began to fear and tremble." The 
Gauls, our kinsmen, in Asia, abominated these 
treacherous missile arms, it being their use to 
fight with greater bravery, hand to hand. 
Non tarn paienlibus plagis moventur . . . ubi 
latior quarn altior plaga est, etiam gloriosius se 
pugnare putant : iidem, quum aculeus sagittce 
nut glandis abditas introrsus tenui vulnere in 
speciem urit . . . turn in rabiem et pudorem, tarn 
paevo perimentis pestis versi, prusternunt cor- 
pora hwmi. 2 " They are not so much concerned 
at large wounds ; when a wound is wider than 
deep, they think they have fought with greater 
glory ; but when they find themselves tor- 
mented with a slight wound with the point of 
a dart, or some concealed glandulous body, 
then, transported with fury and shame, to 
perish by so mean a messenger of death, 
they fall to the ground;" a representation 
something very like a musket-shot. The ten 
thousand Greeks, in their long and famous 
retreat, met with a nation who very much 
galled them with great and strong bows, car- 
rying arrows so long that, taking them up, one 
might return them back like a dart, and with 
them pierce a buckler and an armed man 
through and through. 3 The engines that Dio- 
nysius invented at Syracuse, to shoot vast massy 
darts, and stones of a prodigious size, with 
impetuosity, 4 and at a great distance, came very 
near to our modern inventions. 

But don't let us forget the pleasant posture 
of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity, 
whom Monstrelet reports always to have rode 
through the streets of Paris, aside upon his 
mule, like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, 
that the Gascons had terrible horses that would 
-wheel in their full speed, which the French, 
Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon 
as a miracle, "having never seen the like 
before ;" these are his very words. 5 Cssar 
speaking of the Suabians: 6 "in the charges 
they made on horseback," says he, "they 
often throw themselves off to fight on foot, 
having taught their horses not to stir in the 
mean time from the place, to which they pre- 
sently run again upon occasion ; and, according 



i Livy, xxviii. 5. 
» r«l. ib. 31. 

3 Xenophon, JLnah., v. ii. 

1 The Caiirj,ii!in, which /Elian, in his Various Histories, 
vi. 12., assigns the invention of to Dionysius himself. Dio- 
rlorns Siciilus, xiv. 12., merely fays that it was invented at 
Syracuse in the time of Dionysius the Elder. Pliny, vii. 
5!i, states that this engiue was first used by the Syro- 
I'htenicians. 

6 Monstrelet, vol. i. c. 66, who to the Gascons adds the 
Lombards, whom Montaigne forgot, or purposely omitted. 

6 All the editions, up to Coste's, have it, Swedes, which 



to their custom, nothing is so unmanly and so 

base as to use saddles or pads, and they despise 

such as make use of them; insomuch that, 

though but a very few in number, they fear not 

to attack a great many." That „, 

which I have formerly wondered J^f^" 9 ' 

at, to see a horse made to perform Africa, ride on 

all his airs with a switch only, So?K 

and the reins upon his neck, was 

common with the Massilians, who rode their 

horses without saddle or bridle. 

Et gens, qua; nudo residens Massylia dorso, 
Ora levi flectit, froenorum nescia, virga.' 
Et Numidffi infrseni cingunt. 6 
" Massilians, who unsaddled horses ride, 
And with a switch, not knowing bridles, guide 
The rapid steed; and fierce Numidians, too, 
That use no rein, begirt us round.'' 

Equi sine f ranis ; deforms ipse cursus, rigida 
cervice, et extento capite currentium? " The 
career of a horse without a bridle must needs 
be ungraceful, his neck being extended stiff, 
and his nose thrust out." 

King Alphonso, 10 he who first instituted 
the order of the Chevaliers de 
la Bande, or, de V Escharpe, ^S,". tonour- 
amongst other rules of the order, able or riis- 
gave them thus, That they should f^Xrent 
never ride mule or mulet, upon a 
penalty of a mark of silver, which 
I read lately in Guevara's letters, of which, 
whoever gave them the title of Golden Epistles, 
had another kind of opinion than I have. 
" The Courtier" 11 says that, till his time, it was 
a disgrace to a gentleman to ride one of those 
creatures. But the Abyssinians, on the con- 
trary, as they are nearer advanced to the person 
of Prester John, their prince, affect to ride 
large mules for the greater dignity and 
grandeur. 

Xenophon tells us 12 that the Assyrians were 
fain to keep their horses fettered in the stable, 
they were so fierce and vicious; and that it 
required so much time to loose and harness 
them that, to avoid any disorder this tedious 
preparation might bring upon them, in case of 
surprise, they never sat down in their cam; 
till it was first well fortified with ditches and 
ramparts. His Cyrus, who was so great s 
master of equestrian exercises, made his horses 
pay their shot, and never suffered them to have 
anything till first they had earned ^ ,, , 

•,r .,° . n J , • j c The blood aim 

it by the sweat or some kind of urine of 1]or3er 

work. The Scythians, when in serve for nor 

the field, and in scarcity of pro- cieTfneld. 
visions, used to let their horses' 



must be an error of the press. Ctesar's expression is 
Suevorum gens. Sweden was not known to the Romans 



Caesar' 
well. 
i Lucan 
s JEneii 



, which Montaigne must have known very 



,41. 



i« Alphonso XI. of Leon anil Castile, died J350. 

it 11 Corti/rimw, by Balthasar CnstiL'lino. published 152H. 
This passage cited by Montaigne is at the beginning of the 
second book. 

12 Cyrvpccdia, iii. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



blood, which they drank, and sustained them- 
selves by that diet : 

Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo.i 

'"Hither lliu Scyliiian also sleers liis course, 
Gorged with the juices of his Weeding horse." 

Those of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, 
were in so great necessity tor drink that they 
were fain to quench their thirst with their 
horses' urine. 2 
And to show how much cheaper the Turkish 
armies support themselves than 
How the ours (] > t j s sa i(j that, besides 

i'lirkish armies .,..,' , ,. , . , ' ., . 

subsist. that the soldiers drink nothing 

but water and eat nothing but 
rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which every 
one may easily carry about with him a month's 
provision), they can feed upon the blood of 
their horses as well as the Muscovites and 
Tartars, and salt it for their use. 

These new discovered Indians, when the 
Spaniards first landed amongst 

much Ueemed J he J n ' J la , d 60 8"** * n °P in , ion 
by the Ame- both or the men and horses that 
■■' *' M' -■ '*>• the they looked upon them equally 
,!!' 1 !!' , '.'i', ,'.,. as i'.'oils; or at least animals en- 

nobled above their own nature: 
insomuch that some of them, after they were 
subdued, coming to the soldiers to sue for peace 
and pardon, and to bring them gold and pro- 
visions, failed not to offer the same to the horses, 
with the same kind of harangue to them which 
they had made to the men, interpreting their 
neighing for a language of truce and friendship. 

In the other Indies to ride upon an elephant 
was anciently the highest honour ; the second 
to ride in a coach with four horses ; the third 
to ride upon a camel, and the last and lowest 
to be carried or drawn by one horse only. 3 One 
of our late writers tell us that he has been in 
a country in those parts where they ride upon 
oxen with pads, stirrups, and bridles, and that 
he found this equipage very much to his ease. 

Quintus Fabius Maximus Rutilianus, 4 in a 
battle with the Samnites, seeing his cavalry, 
after three or four charges, had failed of break- 
ing into the enemies' main body, took this 
course — to make them unbridle all their horses, 
and spur their horses with all their might, so 
that, having nothing to check their career, 
they might through weapons and men open the 
way for his foot, who by that means gave them 
a bloody defeat. The same command was 
given by Quintus Fulvius Flaccus against 



the Celtibcrians: Id 



rum mnjttre vi equnrum 



facietis, si effrwnatos in hostes equos immit 
titis ; quod sxpe Romanes equites cum laude 

fecisse sua memorise prodilum est 

Belraclisque frwnis, bis ultro citroque cum 
magna strage hostium, infractis omnibus hastis, 



i Martial, Spcctac. lib. iii. I. 
- V'.-tl. Max. vii. C>. Ext. i. 
3 Arrian, Hist. Ind. c. 17. 

* Or rather Rullianus. See Livy, vii. 30. 
■'' I .ivy, xl. 40. 

* See the Chronicle of Muscovy, by Peter Petrejus, a 
Swede, printed in High Dutch, utJLcipsic, in Ki'JO, in 4to., 



transcurrerunt. s " You will do your business 
with greater advantage of your horses' strength 
if you spur them unbridled upon the enemy, as 
it is recorded the Roman horse to their great 

glory have often done And their 

bits being pulled off without breaking a lance, 
they charged through and through with great 
slaughter of the enemy." 

The Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged 
to pav this reverence to the Tar- 
tars, "that when they sent any £»J "J* 
embassy to him he went out to the Tartars, 
meet the ambassadors on foot, 
and presented them with a goblet of mare's 
milk (a beverage of greatest esteem among 
them); and if, in drinking, a drop fell by 
chance upon the horse's mane, he was bound to 
lick it off with his tongue. 6 The army that 
Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed 
with so dreadful a tempest of snow that, to 
shelter and preserve themselves from freezing, 
many ripped up and embowelled their horses, 
to creep into their bellies and enjoy the benefit 
of that vital heat. Bajazet, after that furious 
battle wherein he was overthrown by Tamer- 
lane, 7 was in a hopeful way of securing his 
own person by the flectness of an Arabian 
mare he had under him, had he not been con- 
strained to let her drink her fill at the ford of a 
river in his way, which rendered her so heavy 
and indisposed that he was afterwards easily 
overtaken by those that pursued him. They 
say, indeed, that to let a horse stale takes him 
off his mettle; but I should rather have thought 
that drinking would have refreshed her and 
revived her spirits. 

Cro3sus, marching his army over a common 
near Sardis, met with an infinite number of 
serpents, which the horses devoured with great 
appetite, and which Herodotus says 8 was a bad 
omen to his affairs. 

We call a horse cheval entier that has his 
mane and ears entire, and no other will pass 
muster. The Lacedaemonians having defeated 
the Athenians in Sicily, returning 
triumphant from the victory into ""^f^ed'fn 6 ' 1 
the city of Syracusa, amongst triumph, 
other bravadoes caused all the 
horses they had taken to be shorn and led in 
triumph. 9 Alexander fought with a nation 
called Dahae ; a people whose discipline it was 
to march two and two together, armed and on 
horseback, to the war ; but being in fight, one 
always alighted, and so they fought one while 
on horseback and another on foot, one after 
another, by turns. 10 

I do not think that for good and graceful 
riding any nation excels the French, though a 
good horseman, according to our way of speak- 
ing, seems rather to respect the courage of the 



part ii. p. 109. This species of slavery li'L'.'in alum! the 
middle of the thirteenth century, and lasted ueui . 

» In 1401. 

e Book i. c. 78. 

o Plutarch, Life of Mcias, c. 10. 

io Quintus (Junius, vii. 7. 



164 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



man than his horsemanship and address in 
riding. The most knowing in that art that 
ever I knew, that had" the best seat and the 
best method in taming a horse, was Monsieur 
de Carnavalet, who served our King Henry 
the Second in this respect. I have seen a man 

ride with both his feet upon the 
Instances of saddle, take off the saddle, and 

at his return take it up again, 



the wonderful 
dexterity of 



refit and remount it, riding all the 
while full speed; having gal- 
lopped over a cap, make at it very good shots 
backward with his bow, take up any thing from 
the ground, setting one foot down and the 
other in the stirrup, with twenty other apes' 
tricks, which he got his living by. 

There has been seen in my time at Constan- 
tinople two men upon a horse, who, in the 
height of his speed, would throw themselves 
off and into the saddle again by turn ; and one 
who bridled and saddled his horse with nothing 
but his teeth. Another, who betwixt two 
horses, one foot upon one saddle and another 
upon the other, carrying another man upon his 
shoulders, would ride full career; the other 
standing bolt upright upon him, making excel- 
lent shots with his bow. Several who would 
ride full speed with their heels upwards and 
their heads upon the saddle, betwixt the rows 
of scimitars fixed in the harness. When I was 
a boy, the Prince of Sulmona, riding a rough 
horse at Naples to all his airs, held reals under 
his knees and toes as if they had been nailed 
there, to show the firmness of his seat. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS. 

I should willingly pardon our people for ad- 
mitting no other pattern or rule of perfection 
than their own peculiar manners and customs, 
it being a common vice not of the vulgar only, 
but almost of all men, to look upon their own 
country's fashions as the best. I am content 
when they see Fabricius or Lselius, that they 
look upon their countenance and behaviour as 
barbarous, seeing they are neither clothed nor 
fashioned according to our mode. But I find 
fault with their especial indiscretion in suffering 
themselves to be so imposed upon 

ve h r e y«ab.e a " d Winded b 7 the ^^^ <* 

in their dress, the present custom,as every month 
to alter their opinion, if custom 
60 require, and that they should so vary their 
judgment in their own particular concern. 
When they wore the belly-pieces of their 
doublets as high as their breast, they stiffly 
maintained that they were in their proper 
place. Some years after they were slipped down 
between their thighs, and then they laughed 



at the former fashion as uneasy and intolerable. 
The new fashion in use makes them absolutely 
condemn the old with so great a warmth, and 
so universal a contempt, that a man would 
think there was a kind of madness crept in 
amongst them, that infatuates their understand- 
ings to this strange degree. Now seeing that 
our change of fashions is so prompt and sudden 
that the inventions of all the tailors in the 
world cannot furnish out new whim-whams 
enough, there will often be a necessity that the 
old despised ones must again come in vogue, 
and again fall into contempt; and that the same 
judgment must, in the space of fifteen or twenty 
years, take up not only different, but contrary, 
opinions, with an incredible lightness and in- 
constancy. There is not any of us so discreet 
that suffers not himself to be gulled with this 
contradiction, and both in external and internal 
sight to be insensibly blinded. 

I will here muster up some old customs that 
I have in memory; some of them the same 
with ours, others different, to the end that, 
bearing in mind this continual variation of 
human things, we may have our judgments 
clearer and more firmly settled. 

The use amongst us of fighting with rapier 
and cloak, was in practice amongst 

the Romans also : Sinistras saicis T iVt P rac . tic ^ 
, . . ,. v ,. . £* , of the ancient 
involvunt,gladwsquedis(ringunt, 1 Romans to 
" They wrapped their cloaks fi e ht with 
round the left arm, and wielded r c Xk. 
the sword with the right," says 
Csesar; and he mentions an old vicious custom 
of our nation, which continues yet amongst us, 
which is to stop passengers we meet upon the 
road, to compel them to give an account who 
they are, and to take it for an injury and just 
cause of quarrel if they refuse to do it. 2 

At the bath, which the ancients made use 
of every day before they went to 
dinner, and, indeed, as frequently The ancients 
as we wash our hands, they at ^^^ 
first only bathed their arms and dinner. 
legs, 3 but afterwards, and by a 
custom that has continued for many ages in 
most nations of the world, they bathed stark 
naked in mixed and perfumed water, so that it 
became a mark of great simplicity- of life to 
bathe in pure water. The most delicate and 
affected perfumed themselves all over three or 
four times a day. They often caused all their 
hair to be pulled out, as the women of France 
have some time since taken up a fancy to do 
their foreheads, 

Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod brachia vellis,« 
" How dost thou twitch thy breast, thy arms and thighs," 

though they had ointments proper for that 
purpose. 

Psilotro nitet, aut acida latet oblita creta.s 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



165 



They delighted to lie soft, and allowed it for a 
great testimony of hardiness, to lie upon a 
mattrass; 1 they all lying upon beds, much 
after the manner of the Turks in this age. 

Inde toro pater .(Eneas sic orsus ah alto.» 
"Then thus .(Eneis from his bed of state." 

And 'tis said of the younger Cato, that, after 
the battle of Pharsalia, being entered into a 
melancholic disposition at the ill posture of the 
public affairs, he took his food always sitting, 
assuming a strict and austere course of life. 3 
It was also their custom to kiss the hands of 
great persons by way of honouring and ca- 
ressing them: and meeting with their equals, 
they always kissed in salutation, as do the 
Venetians : 

Gratatusque darem cum dulcibus oscula verbis ;« 
" And kindest words I would with kisses mix." 

In petitioning or saluting any great man, they 
used to lay their hands upon his knees. Pa- 
sicles, the philosopher, brother of Crates, in- 
stead of laying his hand upon the knee, laid it 
upon the private parts, and being roughly 
repulsed by him to whom he addressed himself, 
" What," said he ; " is not that part your own, 
as well as the other ?" 5 They used to eat their 
fruit as we do, after dinner. They cleaned 
themselves after stool with a sponge, which is 
the reason that spongia is a smutty word in 
Latin ; which sponge was also fastened to the 
end of a stick, as appears by the story of him 
who, as he was led along to be thrown to the 
wild beasts in the sight of the people, asked 
leave to do his business, and, having no other 
way to dispatch himself, forced the sponge and 
stick down his own throat, and choaked him- 
self. 6 They used to terge, after coition, with 
perfumed wool : — 

At tibi nil faciam ; sed lota mentula lana.' 

They placed in the streets of Rome certain 
vessels and little tubs for passengers to make 



They had collation betwixt meals. There were 
in summer persons who made a 
thfftrwinewitb business of selling snow to cool 
snow. the wine; and some there were 

who made use of snow in winter, 
not thinking their wine cool enough even at 
that season of the year. The men of quality 
had their cup-bearers and carvers, and their 
buffoons to make them sport; they had their 



meat served up in winter upon a sort of chafing 

dishes which were set upon the The 

table, and had portable kitchens ablekiteheM; 

(of which I myself have seen 

some), wherein all their service was carried 

after them. 



In summer they had a contrivance to bring 
fresh and clear rills through their 



guests took out with their own 
hands to be dressed, every man according to 
his own liking. 10 Fish has ever had this pre- 
eminence, and keeps it still, that even great 
men pretend to be cooks in their favour; and 
indeed, the taste is more delicate than that of 
flesh, at least to me. But in all sorts of 
magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous in- 
ventions of effeminacy and expense, we do, in 
truth, all we can to equal them (for our wills 
are as corrupt as theirs), but we want power to 
reach them; we are no more able to parallel 
them in their vicious, than in their virtuous, 
qualities; for both the one and the other pro- 
ceed from a vigour of soul which was, without 
comparison, greater in them than in us; and 
souls by how much the weaker they are, by so 
much have they less power to do very well, or 
very ill. 

The place of honour amongst them was 
the middle. The name going Tne most h0 . 
before or following after, either nourabie place 
in writing or speaking, had no i™ 011 g the 

. . „ ,P „ r ,°' . Romans. 

signification of grandeur, as is 
evident by their writings. They as readily 
said " Oppius and Cassar," as " Csesar and 
Oppius;" and "me and thee" indifferently 
with " thee and me." This is the reason that 
made me formerly take notice in the life of 
Flaminius, in our French translation of Plu- 
tarch, of one passage, where it seems as if the 
author, speaking of the jealousy of glory 
betwixt the ^Etolians and Romans, as to the 
winning of a battle they had with their joint 
forces obtained, made it of some importance 
that in the Greek songs they had put the 
iEtolians before the Romans; if there be no 
amphibology in the words of the French 
version. 

The ladies in their baths made no scruple of 
admitting men amongst them, 
and moreover made use of their The men and 

, , • . women bathed 

serving-men to rub and anoint , oge ti )er . 
them : 



i " Lnudnrc solrhat Attains ciileitram quaresisteret cor 
pori. Tali utcir ctium senex," says Seneca, Epist. 108. 
■'JEnri,!, ii ■>. 

a Plutarch, Life of Cnlo of Utica, C. 15. 
« Ovid, i)r Ponto, iv. 9, 13. 
'' Dlod. Laertius, vi. 89. 
o Seuec, Epist. 70. 



i Martial, ii. 58, 11. 

e Lucretius, iv. 1024. 

» Martial, vii. 48. Sec also Seneca, Epist. 78. 

•o Or, " Everv man in his place." according to some 
cil i i ii his. lieek'lbnl, in his account of a visit to the Convent 
nf Meniiai-a, cives a description of one of these interior 
fish pools that he met with there. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



They powdered themselves with a certain pow- 
der, to moderate perspiration. 

The ancient Gauls, says Sidonius Apollinaris, 2 
wore their hair long before, and quite short 
behind, a fashion that begins to be revived by 
this vicious and effeminate age. 

The Romans used to pay the watermen their 
fare at their first stepping into 
paid i™. the boat, which we never do till 
termen at em- after landing : 



"Whilst the fare's paying, and the mule is tied, 
A whole hour's time, at least, away doth slide." 

The women used to lie on that side the bed 
next the wall ; and for that reason they called 
Cassar, Spondam Regis Nicomedis.* 

They took breath in their drinking, and 
watered their wine : 

Quis puer ocius 
Restinguet ardentis falerni 
Pocula praetereunte lympha?5 



And the roguish looks and gestures of our lac- 
queys were also in use amongst them. 

O Jane ! a tergo quern nulla ciconia pinsit. 
Nee inanus auriculas imitata est mobilis altas, 
Nee linguae, quantum sitiat canis Appula, tantum. 6 

" O Janus ! happy in thy double face ! 
Safe and protected from unseen grimace! 
From pocking finder, and from gibes and sneers, 
Provok'd by wagging hands, like asses' ears, 
From lolling tongue, such as the Appulian hound, 
Panting with thirst, drops almost to the ground." 

The Argian and Roman ladies always 
mourned in white,' as ours did formerly ; and 
should do still, were I to govern in this point. 
But there are whole books might be made on 
this subject. 



CHAPTER L. 



OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS. 

The judgment is an utensil proper for all sub- 
jects, and will have an oar in 

IcUve'in'every eVer y thin £ : which is the reaSOn 

thing. >hat, in these Essays, I take hold 

of all occasions. If I light on a 
subject I do not very well understand, I try, 
however, sounding it at a distance ; and, if I 
find it too deep for my stature, I keep me on 
the firm shore. And this knowledge, that a 
man can proceed no further, is one effect of its 
virtue ; aye, and one on which it prides itself 
the most. Sometimes, in an idle and frivo- 



i Martial, vii. 35. 2 Carm. V. 230. 

3 Horace, Sat. i. 5, 13. 

■> Suetonius, Life of Cmsar, c. 49. Sponda is the Latin 
word for the inner side of the bed. 



lous subject, I try to find out matter whereof 
to compose a body, and then to prop and sup- 
port it. Another while I employ it in a noble 
subject, one that has been tossed and tumbled by 
a thousand hands, wherein a man can hardly 
possibly introduce any thing of his own, the 
way being so beaten on every side that he must 
of necessity walk in the steps of another. In 
such a case, 'tis the work of the judgment to 
take the way that seems best, and, of a thou- 
sand paths, to determine that this or that was 
the best chosen. I leave the choice of my 
arguments to Fortune, and take that she first 
presents me ; they are all alike to me ; I never 
design to go through any of them ; for I never 
see all of any thing : neither do they who so 
largely promise to show it others. Of a hundred 
members and faces that every thing has, I take 
one — one while to look it over only, another 
while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to 
pinch it to the bones ; I give a stab, not so wide, 
but as deep as I can ; and most frequently like 
to take it in hand by some less-used light. 
Did I know myself less, I might, perhaps, 
venture to handle something or other to the 
bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability, 
but sprinkling here one word, and there an- 
other, patterns cut from several pieces, and 
scattered without design, and without engaging 
myself too far, I am not responsible for them, 
or obliged to keep close to my subject, without 
varying it at my own liberty and pleasure, and 
giving up myself to doubt and uncertainty, and 
to my own governing method, ignorance. 

All motion discovers us. The very same soul 
of Caesar, that made itself so conspicuous in 
marshalling and commanding the 
battle of Pharsalia, was also seen n^covered'fn 
as solicitous and busy in the softer an its motions, 
affairs of love. A man judges of 
a horse not only by seeiug him caracol and 
exhibit airs in the riding-school, but by his 
walk, nay, and by seeing him stand in the 
stable. 

Amongst the functions of the soul there are 
some of a lower and meaner form, and he who 
does not see her in those inferior offices, as well 
as those of nobler note, is never fully acquainted 
with her; and peradventure she is best dis- 
covered where she moves her own natural pace. 
The winds of the passions take most hold of her 
in her highest flights ; and the rather, by reason 
that she wholly applies herself to, and exercises 
her whole virtue upon, each particular subject, 
and never handles more than one thing at a 
time, and that not according to it, but accord- 
ing to herself Things in respect 
to themselves have peradventure lt s ive3 things 
their weight, measure, and con- C0 | 0llr j t 
dition ; but when we once take pleases. 
them into us, the soul forms them 

5 Horace, Od. ii. 11, 18. 
« Persius, i. 58. 
i Herod, iv. 2, 6. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



167 



as she pleases. Death is terrible to Cicero, 
coveted by Cato, and indifferent to Socrates. 
Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, 
riches, beauty, and their contraries, do all strip 
themselves at their entering into us, and receive 
a new robe, and of another fashion, from the 
soul ; brown, bright, green, dark ; sharp, sweet, 
deep, or superficial, as best pleases each par- 
ticular soul, for they are not agreed upon any 
common standard of forms, rules, or proceed- 
ings ; every one is a queen in her own dominions. 
Let us therefore no more excuse ourselves upon 
the external qualities of things : it belongs to 
us to give ourselves an account of them. Our 
good or ill has no other dependence but on 
ourselves. 'Tis there that our offerings and 
our vows are due, and not to fortune : she has 
no power over our manners ; on the contrary, 
they draw and make her follow in her train, 
and cast her in their own mould. Why should 

not I judge Alexander, roaring 
iMcmt.-iiKiiR's arl( j drinking at the rate he some- 
chess. " times used to do? Or, if he 

played at chess, what string of 
his soul was not touched by this idle and child- 
ish game 1 I hate and avoid it because it is 
not play enough — that it is too grave and 
serious a diversion ; and I am ashamed to lay 
out as much thought and study upon that as 
would serve to much better uses. He did not 
more pump his brains about his glorious expe- 
dition into the Indies; and another, that I will 
not name, took not more pains to unravel a 
passage upon which depends the safety of all 
mankind. To what a degree then does this 
ridiculous diversion molest the soul, when all 
her faculties shall be summoned together upon 
this trivial account 1 And how fair an oppor- 
tunity she herein gives every one to know, and 
to make a right judgment of, himselH I do 
not more thoroughly sift myself in any other 
posture than this. What passion are we ex- 
empted from in this insignificant game? Anger, 

spite, malice, impatience, and 



ourselves. 



better in a matter wherein 
were more excusable to be am- 
bitious of being overcome : for to be eminent, 
and to excel above the common rate in frivolous 
things, is nothing becoming in a man of quality 
and honour. What I say in this example may 
be said in all others. Every particle, every 
employment of man, does exhibit and accuse 
him equally with any other. 

Democritus and Heraclitus were two philo- 
sophers, of which the first, think- 
Drmncntiis ln „ numan condition ridiculous 
and Heraclitus, s , , , , 

ihnrciiiiurcnt anu vain > never appeared abroad 
humours. but with a jeering and laughing 

countenance: whereas Heraclitus, 
commiserating that condition of ours, appeared 



i Juven. 10, 28. 

« Plutarch, Life qfjtf. Brutus, c. ! 



always with a sorrowful look and tears in 
his eyes. 

Alter 
Rklebat, quoties ;1 limine moverat unum 
l'rotuleratque pedem ; flebat contrarius alter.' 

" One always, when he o'er his threshold stept, 
Laugh'd at the world, the other always wept." 

I am clearly for the first humour; not because 
it is more pleasant to laugh than to weep, but 
because it is more contemptuous, and expresses 
more condemnation than the other; for I think 
we can never be sufficiently despised to our 
desert. Compassion and bewailing seem to 
imply some esteem of, and value for, the thing 
bemoaned : whereas the things we laugh at are 
by that expressed to be of no moment. I do 
net think that we are so unhappy as we are 
vain, or have in us so much malice as folly: 
we are not so full of mischief as inanity, nor so 
miserable as we are vile and mean. And there- 
fore Diogenes, who passed away his time in 
rolling himself in his tub, and made nothing 
of the great Alexander, esteeming us no better 
than flies, or bladders puffed up with wind, was 
a sharper and move penetrating, and conse- 
quently, in my opinion, a juster 
_udge than 

Man-hater; for what 
hates he lays to heart. This last 
was furious against mankind, passionately de- 
sired our ruin, and avoided our conversation as 
dangerous, and proceeding from wicked and 
depraved natures : the other valued us so little 
that we could neither trouble nor infect him 
by our contagion, and left us to herd with one 
another, not out of fear, but contempt of our 
society, concluding us as incapable of doing 
good as ill. 

Of the same strain was Statilius's answer 
when Brutus courted him to the 
conspiracy against Caesar : — " He wou y' not enter 
was satisfied that the enterprise into the con- 
was just, but he did not think w™* a e ainst 
mankind so considerable as to 
deserve a wise man's concern." 2 According 
to the doctrine of Hegesias, who said, " a wise 
man ought to do nothing but for himself, for- 
asmuch as he only is worthy of it;" 3 and to 
that of Theodorus, " That it is not reasonable 
a wise man should hazard himself for his 
country, and endanger wisdom for a set of 
fools." 4 Our condition is as ridiculous as 
risible. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

ON THE VANITY OF WORDS. 

A rhetorician of times past said, That his 
profession was to make little things appear 

• Laertius, in viti. 

* Id. ib. 



168 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



great. This also a shoemaker can do ; he can 
make a great shoe for a little foot. 1 They 
t fh would, in Sparta, have sent such a 
torfcdeceitfut fellow t0 be whipped for making 
profession of a lying and de- 
ceitful art; and I fancy that Archidamus, 
who was king of that country, was a little 
surprised at the answer of Thucydides, when 
enquiring of him which was the better wrestler, 
Pericles or he, he replied, "That is hard to 
affirm ; for when I have thrown him, he always 
persuades the spectators that he had no fall, 
and carries away the prize." 2 They who paint 
and plaister up women, filling up their wrinkles 
and deformities, are less to blame, for it is no 
great loss not to see them in their natural 
complexion. Whereas these make it their 
business to deceive not our sight only, but our 
judgments, and to adulterate and corrupt the 
very essence of things. The republics that have 
maintained themselves in a regular and well- 
modelled government, such as those of Lace- 
dffimon and Crete, had orators in no very great 
esteem. 3 Aristo did wisely define rhetoric to 
be "a science to persuade the people;" 4 So- 
crates and Plato 5 " an art to flatter and deceive." 
And those who deny it in the general des- 
cription, verify it throughout in their precepts. 
The Mahometans will not suffer their children 
to be instructed in it, as being useless; and the 
Athenians, perceiving how pernicious the prac- 
tice of it was, it being in their city of universal 
esteem, ordered the principal part, which is to 
move affections, to be taken away, with the 
exordiums and perorations. 'Tis an engine in- 
vented to manage and excite a disorderly and 
tumultuous rabble, and is never made use of 
but like physic, in a diseased state. In those 
governments where the vulgar or the ignorant, 
or both together, have been all-powerful, as 
in Athens, Rhodes, and Rome, and where the 
public affairs have been in a continual tempest 
of commotion, to such places have the orators 
always flocked. And, in truth, we find few 
persons in those republics who have pushed 
their fortunes to any great degree of eminence 
without the assistance of eloquence. Pompey, 
Caesar, Crassus, Lucullus, Lentulus, and Me- 
tellus, have therein found their chiefest aid in 
mounting to that degree of authority to which 
they did at last arrive ; making it of greater 
use to them than arms, contrary to the opinion 
of better times; for L. Volumnius, speaking 
publicly in favour of the election of Q. Fabius 
and Pub. Decius to the consular dignity : — 
" These are men," said he, " born for war, and 
great in execution; in the combat of the tongue 
altogether to seek ; spirits truly consular. The 
subtle, eloquent, and learned are only good 



i This is a saying of Agesilaus. See Plutarch, Apothegms 
of the Lacedaemonians. 
s Plutarch, Life of Pericles, c. 5. 
a Sextus Empiricus, Advers. Mathem., ii. 
* Quintilian, ii. 16. 



for the city to make praetors of, to administer 
justice." 6 

Eloquence flourished most at Rome, when 
the public affairs were in the 
worst condition, and the republic quencVwas 
most disquieted with civil wars, as most flourish- 
a free and unfilled soil bears the in & at Rome ' 
worst weeds. By which it would seem that a 
monarchical government has less need of it 
than any other ; for the stupidity and facility 
of the common people, which render them 
subject to be turned and twined, and led by 
the ears by this charming harmony of words, 
without weighing or considering the truth and 
reality of things by the force of reason; — this 
facility, I say, is not easily found in a single 
person, and it is also more easy, by good 
education and advice, to secure him from the 
impression of this poison. There never was any 
famous orator known to come out of Persia or 
Macedon. 

I have entered into this discourse upon the 
occasion of an Italian I lately received into my 
service, who was clerk of the kitchen to the 
late Cardinal Caraffa till his death. I put this 
fellow upon an account of his 
office ; where he fell to discourse science piea- 
of this palate-science with such santiy ridi- 
a settled countenance and magis- culed- 
terial gravity, as if he had been handling some 
profound point of divinity. He made a learned 
distinction of the several sorts of appetites, 
that which a man has before he begins 
and of those after the second and third service ; 
the means simply to satisfy the first, and then 
to raise and quicken the other two ; the ordering 
of the sauces, first in general, and then pro- 
ceeded to the qualities of the several ingredients 
and their effects. The difference of salads, 
according to their seasons, which of them ought 
to be served up hot, and which cold ; the man- 
ner of their garnishment and decoration, to 
render them yet more acceptable to the eye. 
After which he entered upon the order of the 
whole service, full of weighty and important 
considerations : 

Nee minimo sane discrimine refert, 
Quo gestu lepores, et quo gallina secetur ; 7 



And all this set out with lofty and magnificent 
words, the very same we make use of when we 
discourse of the government of an empire: 
which learned lecture of my man brought this 
of Terence to my memory : 

Hoc salsum est, hoc adustum est, hoc lautum est parum : 
Illud recte; iterum sic memento: sedulo 
Moneo, qure possum, pro mea sapientia. 
Postremo, tanquam in speculum, in patinas, Demea, 
Inspicere jubeo, et moneo, quid facto usus sit. 8 



Ltsameu 
ites, of | 
to eat, ! 



« In the Oorgias. 

• Livy, x. 22. 

' Juvenal, v. 123. 

b Terence, Addphi, iii, 3, 7. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



too salt, this burnt ; this is too plain, 
well, remember to do so again, 
o I still advise to have things fit, 



To order all things as they should be done." 

And yet even the Greeks themselves did very 
mucli admire and highly applaud the order and 
disposition that Paulus iEmilius observed in 
the feast he made for them at his return from 
Macedon. 1 But I do not here speak of effects; 
I speak of words only. 

I do not know whether it may have the same 
operation upon other men that it 

of ^rchflecTs! lias u P on me > but wlien l hear 

our architects thunder out their 
bombast words of pilasters, architraves, and 
cornices, of the Corinthian and Doric orders, 
and such like stuff, my imagination is presently 
possessed with the palace of Apollidonius; 2 
when, after all, I find them but the paltry 
pieces of my own kitchen-door. 

And to hear men talk of metonymies, me- 
taphors, and allegories, and other 
mafia 1 .'". grammar words, would not a man 

think they signified some rare and 
delicate and exotic form of speaking] yet these 
are terms which apply to the chatter of your 
chamber-maid. 

And this other is a gullery of the same stamp, 
Too lofty titles to ca ^ tne °ff ces of our kingdom 
given to offices, by the lofty titles of the Romans, 
and illustrious thousfh they have no similitude of 

surnames mis- . f. J , ... . , . 

appii.-ii to per- function, and still less authority 
sons of mean r power. And this, also, which 
I doubt will one day turn to the 
reproach of our present age, unworthily and 
indifferently to confer upon any we think fit 
the most glorious surnames with which antiquity 
honoured but one or two persons in several 
ages. 

Plato carried away the surname of Divine 
by so universal a consent that never any one 
repined at it, or attempted to take it from 
him. And yet the Italians, who pretend, and 
with good reason, to more sprightly wits 
and sounder judgments than the other na- 
tions of their time, have lately honoured 
Aretin with the same title; in whose writings, 
except it be a tumid phrase set out with 
some smart periods, ingenious indeed, but far- 
fetched and fantastic, and some degree of 
eloquence, I see nothing above the ordinary 
writers of his time, so far is he from ap- 
proaching the ancient divinity. And we make 
nothing of giving the surname of Great to 
princes that have nothing in them above a 
popular grandeur. 



CHAPTER LII. 

OF THE PARSIMONY OF THE ANCIENTS. 

Attilius Regulus, general of the Roman 
army in Africa, in the height of all his glory 
and victories over the Carthaginians, wrote to 
the Republic to acquaint thern that a certain 
peasant, whom he had left in charge of his 
estate, which was in all but seven acres of land, 
was run away with all his instruments of hus- 
bandry, entreating, therefore, that they would 
please to call him home, that he might take 
order in his own affairs, lest his wife and chil- 
dren should suffer. Whereupon the Senate 
appointed another to manage his business, 
caused his losses to be made good, and ordered 
his family to be maintained at the public 
expense. 3 

The elder Cato, returning consul from Spain, 
sold his war-horse, to save the money it would 
have cost in bringing him back by sea into 
Italy; and, being governor of Sardinia, made 
all his visitations on foot, without other atten- 
dant than one officer of the republic, to hold up 
the train of his gown, and carry a censer tor 
sacrifices; and, for the most part, carried his 
mail himself. He bragged that he had never 
worn a gown that cost above ten crowns, nor 
had ever sent above ten-pence to the market 
for one day's provisions; and that, as to his 
country-houses, he had not one that was rough- 
cast on the outside. 4 

Scipio .(EmiHanus, after two triumphs and 
two consulships, went an embassy with no more 
than seven servants in his train. 5 'Tis said that 
Homer had never more than one, Plato three, 
and Zeno, founder of the sect of Stoics, none at 
all. 6 Tiberius Gracchus was allowed but five- 
pence-halfpenny a day when employed on a 
mission about the public affairs, and being at 
that time the greatest man of Rome. 7 



CHAPTER LIII. 

OF A SAYING OF CESAR. 

If we would sometimes bestow a little consi- 
deration upon ourselves, and employ that time 
in examining our own abilities which we spend 
in prying into other men's actions, and discover- 
ing things without us, we should roon perceive 
of how infirm and decaying materials this fabric 
of ours is composed. Is it not a 
singular testimony of imperfection 
that we cannot establish our sa- 



1 Plutarch, Life of Paulus JEmMus, c. 15. 

• I>t uli.i desires to lw acquainted with the mar- 
vels oi tins palace, and with Apollidonius who built it by 
must read the first chapter of the second hook of 
Qaul, and the second chapter of the fourth book. 
1 Val. Mux iv. J, 0. 
« Plutarch, in vitu, c. 3. 

15 



Man's imper- 
fection demon- 
, slratcd bv the 
tisfaction in any one thing, and inconstancy of 
that even our own fancy and 
desire should deprive us of the 



desires. 



Val. Max. iv. 3. 13. 

1 Seneca, Consolnl. ad IMrinm, c. 12. 

' Plutarch, in the Life of Tiberius Gracchus, cap. 4. But 
here Montaigne misemploys tins passage, which makes 
nothing for his purpose; for Plutarch there sa\ 
ly, that this little sum was allowed to Tiberius Gracchus 
purely to vex and mortify him. 



170 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



power to choose what is most proper and useful 
for us ] A very good proof of this is the great 
dispute that has ever heen amongst the philoso- 
phers of finding out what is man's sovereign 
good — a dispute that continues yet, and will 
eternally continue, without solution or agree- 
ment. 

Dum abest quod avemus, ill exuperare videtur 
Canera ; post aliud, cum contigit illud, aveinus, 
Et sitis a;qua tenet. 1 
"Still with desire through Fancy's regions tost, 
We seek new joys, and prize the absent most." 

Whatever it is that falls within our knowledge 
and possession, we find it satisfies not, and we 
still pant after things to come, and unknown; 
and these because the present do not satiate us ; 
not that, in my judgment, they have not in them 
wherewith to do it, but because we seize them 
with a weak and ill- regulated hold. 

Nam cum vidit hie, ad victum qua; flagitat usus, 
Et per qua; possent vitain cousistere tutam, 
Omnia jam ferine mortalibus esse parata; 
Divitiis homines, et honore, et laude potentes 
Affluere, atque bona natorum excellere fania; 
Nee minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda, 
Atque animurn infestis cogi servire querelis: 
Intellexit ibi vitium vas efficere ipsum, 
Omniaque, illius vitio, corrumpere intus, 
Qua; collata foris et coinmoda quieque venirent.a 

' For when he saw all things that had regard 
To life's subsistence for mankind prepar'd, 
That men in wealth and honours did abound. 
That with a noble race their joys were crown'd; 
That yet they groan'd. with cares and fears oppress'd, 
Each finding a disturber in his breast ; 
He then perceiv'd the fault lay hid in man, 
In whom the bane of his own bliss began." 

Our appetite is irresolute and fickle, it can 
neither keep nor enjoy any thing as it should. 
Man, concluding it to be the fault of the things 
he is possessed of, fills himself with, and feeds 
himself upon, the idea of things he neither 
knows nor understands, to which he devotes his 
hopes and his desires, paying them all reverence 
and honour, according to the saying of Caesar : 
Communi fit vitio natures, ut invisis, lalitanti- 
bus atque incognitis rebus magis confidamus, 
vehementiusque exterreamur. 3 " 'Tis the com- 
mon vice of nature that we have the most 
confidence in, and the greatest fear of, things 
unseen, concealed, and unknown." 



CHAPTER LIV. 

OF VAIN SUBTLETIES. 

There are a sort of little knacks and frivolous 
subtleties from which men sometimes expect to 
derive reputation and applause; as the poets, 

who compose whole poems with 
o^Tfancy every line beginning with the 

same letter. We see the shapes 
of eggs, globes, wings, and hatchets, cut out by 



i Lucret. iii. 1095. 2 Lucret. vi. 9. 

s De Bcllo Civil, ii. 4. 

1 Alexander the Great, SeeQuintilian, ii.20; who, how 
iver, mentions small peas, not millet. 



the ancient Greeks by the measure of their 
verses, making them longer or shorter, to re- 
present such or such a figure. Much in this 
manner did he spend his time who made it his 
business to compute into how many several 
ways the letters of the alphabet might be trans- 
posed, and found out that incredible number 
mentioned in Plutarch. I am mightily pleased 
with the humour of him who, having a man 
brought before him that had learned to throw 
a grain of millet with such dexterity as never 
to miss the eye of a needle : and being after- 
wards desired to give something for the reward 
of so rare an attainment, pleasantly, and in my 
opinion ingeniously, ordered several bushels of 
the same grain to be delivered to him, that he 
might not want wherewithal to exercise so 
famous an art. 4 'Tis a strong evidence of a 
weak judgment when men approve of things 
for their being rare and new, or where virtue 
and usefulness are not conjoined to recommend 
them. 

I come just now from playing with my own 
family at who could find out the 
most things that were in use only instances of 
in the two extremes: as Sire, things that are 
which is a title given to the t c W o extaemi- 6 
greatest person in the nation, the ties, 
king, and also to the vulgar, as 
pedlars and mechanics, but never to any de- 
gree of men between. The women of great 
quality are all called Madam, inferior gentle- 
women, Mademoiselle, and the meaner sort of 
women, Madam, as the first. The canopy of 
state over tables is not permitted but in the 
palaces of princes and in taverns. Democritus 
said that gods and beasts had sharper senses 
than men, who are of a middle form. 5 The 
Romans wore the same habit at funerals and 
at feasts. 

It is certain that extreme fear and extreme 
ardour of courage do equally trouble and relax 
the stomach. The nickname of Trembling, 
with which they surnamed Sancho XII, King 
of Navarre, informs us that valour will cause 
a trembling in the limbs as well 
as fear. Those who were arming erRc^produwd 
nim or some other of a like by fear and by 
nature, tried to compose him, by ^ u ™" r e dinary 
representing as less the danger he 
was going to engage himself in : " You under- 
stand me ill," said he ; " for could my flesh 
know the danger my courage will presently 
carry it into, it would sink down to the 
ground." The faintness that surprises us from 
frigidity or dislike in the exercises of Venus are 
also occasioned by a too violent desire and an 
immoderate heat. Extreme cold and extreme 
heat boil and roast. Aristotle says that sows 
of lead melt and run with cold in the extremity 
of winter as well as with a vehement heat. 6 



° Plutarch, de P/ncitis. Plii/os. iv. 10. 

o Aristotle, de Mirab. Jluscul., whose expressions, how- 
ever, do not convey exactly Montaigne's interpretation of 
them. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



171 



Desire and satiety fill all the gradations above 

and below pleasure with pain. 
yvisfinin and Stupidity and wisdom meet at 
tSnwThesame t!le salne centre of sentiment and 
ends. resolution in the suffering of 

human mishaps: the wise control 
and triumph over ill, the others know it not. 
These last are, as a man may say, on this side 
of misfortune, the others are beyond them ; 
who, alter having well weighed and considered 
their qualities, measured and judged them what 
they are, by virtue of a vigorous soul, leap out 
of their reach. They disdain and trample them 
under loot, having a solid and well fortified 
soul, against which the darts of fortune coming 
to strike, they must of necessity rebound and 
blunt themselves, meeting with a body upon 
which they can fix no impression; the ordinary 
and middle conditions of men are lodged betwixt 
these too extremes, consisting of such who 
perceive evils, feel them, and are not able to 
support them. Infancy and decrepitude meet 
in the imbecility of the brain; avarice and 
profusion in the same thirst and desire of getting. 
A man may say, with some colour of truth, 

that there is an abecedarian ig- 
ignorance! ° norance that precedes knowledge, 

and a doctoral ignorance that 
comes after it; an ignorance which knowledge 
creates and begets, as she dispatches and destroys 
the first. Of simple understandings, little in- 
quisitive, and little instructed, are made good 
The fitness of Christians, who by reverence and 
plain undiT- obedience implicitly believe, and 
Btandingsto are constant in their belief. In 
' a,n y ' the moderate understandings, and 
the middle sort of capacities, error of opinions 
is forgot. They follow the appearance of the 
first sense, and have some colour of reason on 
their side, to impute our walking on in the old 
beaten path to simplicity and stupidity, — I 
mean in us who have not informed ourselves by 

study. The higher and nobler 
M-m of the souls, more solid and clear- 
^he'r'.'i.tilieti'st sighted, make up another sort 
christians. of true believers, who by a long 

and religious investigation have 
obtained a clearer and more penetrating light 
into the Scriptures, and have discovered the 
mysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical 
polity. And yet we see some who have arrived 
to this last stage in the second, with marvellous 
fruit and confirmation, as to the utmost limit of 
Christian intelligence, and enjoying their victory 
with great spiritual consolation, humble ac- 
knowledgment of the divine favour, exemplary 
reformation of manners, and singular modesty. 
I do not intend with these to rank some others, 
who, to clear themselves from all suspicion of 
their former errors, and to satisfy us that they 
are sound and firm to us, render themselves 
extremely indiscreet and unjust in the carrying 
on our cause, and by that means blemish it 
with infinite reproaches of violence and oppres- 
sion. The simple peasants are good people, 
and so are the philosophers, or, as we call 



them now-a-days, men of strong 
and clear reason, whose souls are The mere 
enriched with an ample provision jh''^'"|, ,'!"j,i, : . r 
of useful science. The mon- good men. 
grels, who have disdained the 
first form of the ignorance of letters, and 
have not been able to attain the other (sitting 
betwixt two stools, as 1 and a great many 
more of us do), are dangerous, foolish, and 
troublesome; these are they that disturb the 
world. And therefore it is that I, for my own 
part, retreat as much as I can towards my first 
and natural station whence I so vainly attempted 
to advance. 

The vulgar and purely natural poetry has in 
it certain proprieties and graces, 
by which she may come into Popular poetry 
some comparison with the greatest toThe'moVt 
beauty of poetry perfected by perfect, 
art; as is evident in our Gascon 
villanelles, and the songs that are brought us 
from nations that have no knowledge of any 
manner of science, nor so much as the use of 
writing. The indifferent and middle sort of 
poetry betwixt the two is despised, of no value, 
honour, or esteem. 

But seeing that the ice being once broke, 
and a path laid open to the fancy, 
I have found, as it commonly JKgjjIg. 
falls out, that what we make tolerable. 

choice of for a rare and difficult 
subject, proves to be nothing so, and that after 
the invention is once warm it finds out an 
infinite number of parallel examples. I shall 
only add this one — that were 
these Essays of mine considerable ^SSlTm 
enough to deserve a criticism, it Essays, 
might then, I think, fall out that 
they would not much take with common and 
vulgar capacities, nor be very acceptable to the 
rarer and more eminent; for the first would 
not understand them enough, and the last too 
well ; and so they might hover in the middle 
region. 



CHAPTER LV 



OF SMELLS. 

It has been reported of others, 
Alexander the Great, 1 that their 
sweat exhaled an odoriferous 
smell, occasioned by some very 
uncommon and extraordinary 
constitution, of which Plutarch 
and others have been inquisitive 
But the ordinary constitution of 
is quite otherwise, and their best 
be exempt from smells. Nay, 
even of the purest breaths has 
of greater perfection than to bi 



as well as of 



Alexander's 



into the cause, 
human bodies 
condition is to 
the sweetness 
nothing in it 
5 without any 



172 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



offensive smell, like those of healthful children ; 
which made Plautus say, — 

Mulier turn bene olet, ubi nihil olet.t 
" The best odour in a woman is not to smell at all." 

And such as make use of exotic 
t\i'mes g create a P errames are w ' tn g°°d reason to 
suspicion. be suspected of some natural im- 

perfection, which they endeavour 
by these odours to conceal. 2 Whence the an- 
cient poets said that to smell well was to stink. 



"Because thou, Coracinus, still dost go 
With musk and ambergrease perfumed so, 
We under thy contempt, forsooth, must fall ; 
I'd, rather than smell sweet, not smell at all." 

And elsewhere, 

Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet/i 



I am, nevertheless, a great lover of pleasant 
smells, and as much abominate the ill ones, 
which also I reach at a greater distance, I think, 
than other men : 

Namque sagacius unus odoror, 
Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in alis, 
Gluam canis acer, ubi lateat sus.s 

Of smells, the most simple and natural seem to 
me the most pleasing-. And let the ladies look 
to this, for 'tis chiefly their concern. In 
an age of the darkest barbarism, the Scythian 
women, after bathing, were wont to powder 
and crust the face, and the whole body, with 
a certain odoriferous drug, growing in their 
country ; which being washed off, when they 
were about to have familiarity with men, 
made them perfumed and sleek. Tis not to 
be believed how strangely all sorts of odours 
cleave to me, and how apt my skin is to imbibe 
them. He that complains of" Nature, that she 
has not furnished mankind with a vehicle to 
convey smells to the nose, had no reason ; for 
they convey it themselves; especially in me, 
for my very mustachios, which are large, per- 
form that office ; if I but touch them with my 
gloves or handkerchief, the smell will remain a 
whole day : they show where I have been. The 
close, luscious, devouring, glowing kisses of 
youthful ardour left, in my former days, a 
sweetness upon my lips for several hours after. 
And yet I have ever found myself very little 
subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught 
either by conversing with the sick, or bred by 
the contagion of the air ; I have escaped from 
those of my time, of which there have been 



i Mostellaria, i. 3. 116. The text has " recte 0\ 
3 "Still to be neat, still to be drest, 
As you were going to a feast, 
Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd, 
Lady, it is to he presuin'd, 
Though art's hid causes are not found, 
All is not sweet, all is not sound," 



several sorts in our cities and armies. We read 
of Socrates that, though he never departed from 
Athens during the frequent plagues that infested 
that city, he was the only man that was never 
infected. 6 

Physicians might (I believe), if they would, 
extract, more uses from odours than they do; 
for I have often observed that they cause an 
alteration in me, and work upon my spirits 
according to their several virtues; which makes 
me approve of what is said, namely, that the 
use of incense and perfumes in T h e origin of 
churches, so ancient, and so uni- the use of 
versally received in all nations incense in 
and religions, was intended to 
cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses, the 
better to fit us for contemplation. 

I could have been glad, the better to judge 
of it, to have tasted of the culinary art of those 
cooks who had so rare a way of 
seasoning exotic odours with the witooXife.'* 8 
relish of meats; as it was parti- rous drugs, 
cularly observed in the service of 
the King of Tunis, 7 who, in our days, landed at 
Naples, to have an interview with Charles the 
emperor. His meats were stuffed with odorife- 
rous drugs, to that degree of expense that the 
cookery of one peacock and two pheasants 
amounted to a hundred ducats, to dress them 
after their fashion. And when the carver came 
to cut them up, not only the dining-room, but 
all the apartments of his palace, and the adjoin- 
ing streets, were filled with a fragrant vapour, 
which was some time dissipating. 

My chief care in choosing my lodging is 
always to avoid a thick and stinking air; and 
those beautiful cities, Venice and Paris, very 
much lessen the kindness I have for them, the 
one by the offensive smell of her marshes, and 
the other of that of her dirt. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

OF PRAYERS. 

I propose formless and undetermined fancies, 
like those who publish subtle questions to be 
after disputed upon in the schools, not to estab- 
lish truth, but to seek it; I submit them to the 
better judgments of those whose office it is to 
regulate, not my writings and actions only, but 
moreover my very thoughts. Let what I here 
set down meet with correction or applause, it 
shall be of equal welcome and utility to me, 
myself before-hand condemning it for absurd 
and impious, if anything shall be found, through 



4 Martial, ii. 12. 14. 

6 Horace, Epod. 12, 4. The meaning of the quotation is 

expressed generally in Che preceuiug sentence. 

6 Laertius, in vil.a. 

1 Muley-U assan, who landed at Naples in 1543, to implore 
for a second time the aid of Charles V. against his revolted 
subjects. The emperor, however, was not there. In chap. 
8, of the second hook, Montaigne, in again referring to this 
personage, calls him Mulcasscs. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



173 



ignorance or inadvertency, set down in this 
rhapsody, contrary to the holy resolutions and 

1 (rescripts of the Apostolical and Roman Catho- 
ic Church, in which I was born, and in which 
I will die. 1 And yet, always submitting to the 
authority of their censure, who have an absolute 
power over me, I thus temerariously venture at 
every thing, as upon this present subject. 

I don't know whether I am deceived or not; 

but since, by a particular favour of the Divine 

bounty, a certain form of prayer 

Paternoster, a has been prescribed and dictated 

ESSrtu^ t0 us ' word for wor(3 - froin the 



ought con- mouth of God himself, I have 

atamiy to use. ever been of opinion that we 
ought to have it in more frequent 
use than we have, and, if I were worthy to 
advise, at sitting down to, and rising from, our 
tables, at our rising and going to bed, and in 
every particular act wherein prayer is wont to 
be introduced, I would have Christians always 
make use of the Lord's prayer; if not that 
prayer alone, yet, at least, that prayer always. 
The Church may lengthen or alter prayers 
according to the necessity of our instruction, 
for I know very well that it is always the same 
in substance, and the same thing. But yet 
such a preference ought to be given to that 
prayer that the people should have it continually 
in their mouths; for it is most certain that all 
necessary petitions are comprehended in it, and 
that it is infinitely proper for all occasions. 'Tis 
the only prayer I use in all places and circum- 
stances, and what I still repeat instead of 
changing; whence it also happens that I have 
no other by heart but that. 

It just now comes into my mind whence 

we should derive that error of 

Men ought not having recourse to God in all our 

to rail upon j • j ,, 

God inuiii'e- designs and enterprises, to call 
rentiy upon all him to our assistance in all sorts 
occasions. of affairs, and in all places where 

our weakness stands in need of 
support, without considering whether the occa- 
sion be just, or otherwise ; and to invoke his 
name and power, in what condition soever we 
are, or action we are engaged in, how vicious 
soever. lie is, indeed, our sole and only pro- 
tector, and can do all things for us: but, though 
he is pleased to honour us with his paternal 
care, he is, notwithstanding, as just as he is 
good and mighty, and does oftener exercise his 
justice than his power, and favours us according 
to that, and not according to our petitions. 

Plato, in his Laws, makes out three sorts of 
belief injurious to the gods; "that there is 
none ; that they concern not themselves about 
human aflkirs; and that they never reject or 
deny anything to our vows, offerings, and sacri- 
fices." The first of these errors, according to 
his opinion, did never continue rooted in any 
man, from his infancy to his old age ; the other 
two, he confesses, men might be obstinate in. 



i Montaigne, in his lifetime, was accused, on account liaius; hut the Innuii 
of this chapter, of being touched with the heresy of » Juvenal, viii. 144. 

15* 



God's justice and his power are inseparable, 
and 'tis therefore in vain we invoke his power 
in an unjust cause. We must have our souls 
pure and clean, at that moment 
at least wherein we pray to him, The soul must 
and purified from all vicious pas- beqnite pure 

r ., . , ' when it prays 

sions, otherwise we ourselves pre- io God. 
sent him the rods wherewith to 
chastise us. Instead of repairing any thing we 
have done amiss, we double the wickedness and 
the offence, when we offer to him, to whom we 
are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreve- 
rence and hatred. Which makes me not very 
apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so 
frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest 
the prayer do not give me some evidence of 
reformation. 

Si, nocturnus adulter 
Tempora Santonico velas adopnrta cucullo.' 

"With ni?ht adulteries disgraced and foul, 
Thou sliad'st thy guilty forehead with a cowl." 

And the practice of a man that mixes devotion 
with an execrable life seems in some sort even 
more to be condemned than that of a man con- 
formable to his own propension, and dissolute 
throughout : and for that reason it is that our 
church denies admittance to, and communion 
with, men obstinate and incorrigible in any 
kind of wickedness. We pray 
only by custom, and for fashion's Praying to 

i J ' .., , i God, only for 

sake; or rather, we read and fashion sake, 
pronounce our prayers aloud, biameahie. 
which is no better than a hypo- 
critical show of devotion. And I am scandalized 
to see a man make the sign of the cross thrice 
at the benedicite, and as often at another's 
saying grace (and the more, because it is a sign 
I have in great veneration and constant use, 
even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the 
other hours of the day to acts of malice, avarice, 
and injustice : one hour to God, the rest to the 
devil, as if by commutation and consent. 'Tis 
a wonder to me actions so various in themselves 
succeed one another with such an uniformity 
of method as not to interfere nor suffer any 
alteration, even upon the very confines and 
passes from the one to the other. What a pro- 
digious conscience must that be that can be at 
quiet within itself, whilst it harbours under the 
same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a 
society, both the crime and the judge! 

A man whose whole meditation is continually 
working upon nothing but lechery, which he 
knows to be so odious to God, what can he 
say when he comes to speak to him ? He 
reforms, but immediately falls into a relapse. 
If the object of the divine justice, and the pre- 
sence of his maker, did, as he pretends, strike 
and chastise his soul, how short soever the re- 
pentance might be, the very fear of offending 
that infinite majesty would so often present 
itself to his imagination that he would soon 
see himself master of those vices that are most 



i k no notice of the matter- 



174 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



natural and habitual in hi 



But 



prayers of"* settle their whole course of life 
those who upon the profit and emolument 

SrttoWT of sins which the y know to be 

habits. mortal ! How many trades and 

vocations have we admitted and 
countenanced amongst us, whose very essence 
is vicious! And he that opening himself to 
me voluntarily told me that he had all his life- 
time professed and practised a religion, in his 
opinion, damnable and contrary to that which 
he had in his heart, only to preserve his credit 
and the honour of his employments, how could 
his courage suffer so infamous a confession! 
What can men say to the divine justice upon 
this subject! Their repentance consisting in a 
visible and manifest reformation and restitution, 
they lose the colour of alleging it both to God 
and man.- Are they so impudent as to sue for 
remission without satisfaction and without peni- 
tence 1 I look upon these as in the same con- 
dition with the first: but the obstinacy is not 
there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety 
and volubility of opinion, so sudden and violent 
as they pretend, is a kind of miracle to me. 
They present us with the state of an indigestible 
anxiety and doubtfulness of mind. 

It seemed to me a fantastic and ridiculous 
imagination in those who, these late years past, 
used to reproach every man whom they knew to 
be of any extraordinary parts, and at the same 
time made profession of the Roman Catholic 
religion, that it was but outwardly ; maintain- 
ing, moreover, to do him honour, forsooth, that, 
whatever he might pretend to the contrary, he 
could not but in his heart be of their reformed 
opinion. An untoward disease, that a man 
should be so rivetted to his own belief as to 
fancy that no man can believe otherwise than 
as he does; and yet worse in this, that they 
should entertain so vicious an opinion of such 
parts as to think that any man so qualified 
should prefer any present advantage of fortune 
before the hope of eternal happiness, or the 
fear of eternal damnation. They may believe 
me: could anything have tempted my youth, 
the ambition of the danger and difficulties in the 
late commotions had not been the least motives. 

It is not without very good reason, in my 

opinion, that the church interdicts 

How, and by the promiscuous, indiscreet, and 

■ ■ Inun Davids - ,-. ., . , j 

l'saims ought irreverent use of the holy and 
to be sung? divine Psalms, with which the 
Holy Ghost inspired King David. 
We ought not to mix God in our actions but 
with the highest reverence and caution. That 
poetry is too sacred to be put to no other use 
than to exercise the lungs and to delight our 
ears. It ought to come from the soul, and not 
from the tongue. It is not fit that a 'prentice 
in his shop, amongst his vain and frivolous 
thoughts, should be permitted to pass away his 
time, and divert himself with such sacred things. 
Neither is it decent to see the Holy Bible, the 
rule of our worship and belief, tumbled up and 



down a hall or a kitchen. They were formerly 
mysteries, but are now become sports and re- 
creations. 'Tis a study too serious and too 
venerable to be cursorily or slightly turned 
over. The reading of the Scripture ought to 
be a temperate and premeditated act, and to 
which men should always add this devout pre- 
face, sursum cnrda, preparing even the body to 
so humble and composed a gesture and counte- 
nance as shall evidence their veneration and 
attention. Neither is it a book for every one 
to handle, but the study of select men set apart 
for that purpose, and whom Almighty God has 
been pleased to call to that office and sacred 
function : the wicked and ignorant blemish it. 
'Tis not a story to tell, but a history to reve- 
rence, fear, and adore. Are not they then 
amusing persons who think they have rendered 
it palpable to the people by translating it into 
the people's tongue 1 Does the understanding 
of all therein contained only stick at words'! 
Shall I venture to say, farther, that, by coming 
so near to understand a little, they are much 
wider of the whole scope than before? A total 
ignorance, and wholly depending upon the 
exposition of other and qualified persons, was 
more instructive and salutary than this vain 
and verbal knowledge, the nurse of temerity 
and presumption. 

And I believe, farther, that the liberty every 
one has taken to disperse the sacred Writ into 
so many idioms, carries with it a great deal 
more of danger than utility. The Jews, Ma- 
hometans, and almost all others, have espoused 
and revere the language wherein their laws 
and mysteries were first conceived, and have 
expressly, and not without colour of reason, 
forbid the version or alteration of them into 
any other. Are we assured that in Biscay and 
in Brittany there are competent judges enough 
of this affair to establish this translation into 
their own language 1 The universal church 
has not a more difficult and' solemn judgment 
to make. In preaching and speaking 'tis dif- 
ferent ; for here the interpretation is vague, 
unrestrained, variable, and disconnected. 

One of our Greek historians does justly 
accuse the age he lived in for that the secrets 
of the .Christian religion were dispersed into 
the hands of every mechanic, to expound and 
argue upon according to his own fancy; and 
that we ought to be much ashamed, we who 
by God's especial favour enjoy the purest 
mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be pro- 
faned by the ignorant rabble ; considering that 
the Gentiles expressly forbade Socrates, Plato, 
and the other sages, to inquire into, or so much 
as to mention, the things committed only to 
the priests of Delphos ; saying moreover that 
the factions of princes, upon theological sub- 
jects, are armed not with zeal, but with fury ; 
that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and 
justice, and governs itself with prudence and 
moderation; but degenerates into hatred and 
envy, producing tares and nettles instead of 
corn and wine, when conducted by human 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



175 



And it was truly said by another, 
who, advising the Emperor Theodosius, told 
him that disputes did not so much rock the 
schisms of the church asleep as it roused and 
animated heresies ; that therefore all conten- 
tions and logical disputations were to be avoided, 
and men absolutely to acquiesce in the pre- 
scripts and formulas of faith established by the 
ancients. And the Emperor Andronicus ' having 
overheard some great men at high words in 
his palace with Lapodius, about a point of ours 
of great importance, rebuked them severely, 
and even threatened to cause them to be thrown 
into the river if they did not desist. The very 
women and children, now-a-days, take upon 
them to school the oldest and most experienced 
men about the ecclesiastical laws : whereas the 
first of those of Plato forbids them to inquire 
so much as into the reason of civil laws, which 
were to stand instead of divine ordinances. 
And allowing the old men to confer amongst 
themselves, or with the magistrate, about those 
things, he adds, provided it be not in the 
presence of young or profane persons. 

A bishop 2 has left, in writing, that, at the 
other end of the world, there is an island, by 
the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly 
fertile in all sorts of trees and fruits, and of 
an exceeding healthful air, the inhabitants of 
which are Christians, having churches and 
altars adorned only with crucifixes, without 
any other images; great observers of fasts and 
feasts; exact payers of their tithes to the 
priest ; and so chaste that none of them is per- 
mitted to have to do with more than one woman 
in his life. As to the rest, so content with 
their condition that, environed with the sea, 
they know nothing of navigation; and so 
simple that they understand not one syllable of 
the religion they profess, and wherein they are 
so devout. A tiling incredible to such as do 
not know that the pagans, who are so zealous 
idolators, know nothing more of their gods 
than their bare names and their statues. The 
ancient beginning of Menalippus, a tragedy of 
Euripides, ran thus : 



I have seen also, in my time, some men's 
writings found fault with for 

V:;:tLt bein £ p ure] y humari and pi»i°- 

i>y itself. sophical, without any mixture of 

divinity; and yet he would not 
be without reason on his side who should, on 
the contrary, say that divine doctrine, as Queen 
and Regent of the rest, better keeps her state 



' Jtiirtronicus Cumnrna. See Mcelns, 
ever, c s i,nt snv a word nhout Laportiu 

2 Osoriua, llishop of Kilves, in Ai-nn 

work entitled de Rebus g-cstis r.mn .'< 

Hut it is I'rom tln> SiiMir fionlart, his tr 
from Osoriua himself, thai Montaigne hi 
lell i us aboul the Inhabitants ofth : i lam 
first edition ut thi' /..',,■„,.,, pnliiishi'il 
nothing upon ill i subje i forC ilan ti 

appear till l.V-l. wiwimni ., . , .i, , 

» were so chaste thai noneoi them were 



4, who, how- 



apart; that she ought to be sovereign through- 
out, not subsidiary and suffragan; and that, 
peradventure, grammatical, rhetorical, and lo- 
gical examples may elsewhere be more suitably 
chosen, and also the arguments for the stage, 
and public entertainments, tiian from so sacred 
a matter; 3 that divine reasons are considered 
with greater veneration and attention when by 
themselves, and in their own proper style, than 
when mixed with, and adapted to, human dis- 
courses; that it is a fault much more often 
observed, that the divines write too humanly, 
than that the humanists write not theologically 
enough. Philosophy, says St. Chrysostom, has 
long been banished the holy schools as a hand- 
maid altogether useless, and thought unworthy 
to peep, so much as in passing by the door, 
into the sanctum of the divine doctrine; the 
human way of speaking is of a much lower 
form, and ought not to clothe herself with the 
digfTity, majesty, and authority of divine elo- 
quence. I leave him, verbis imlisciplinatis,* to 
talk of fortune, destiny, accident, good and 
evil, the gods, and other such like phrases, 
according to his own humour ; I, for my part, 
propose fancies merely human and my own 
simply as human fancies, and separately con- 
sidered, not as determined by an ordinance from 
heaven, incapable of doubt or dispute ; matter 
of opinion, not matter of faith; things which 
I discourse of according to my own capacity, 
not what I believe according to God; after a 
laical, not clerical, and yet always a very 
religious, manner, as children propose their 
instructable, not instructing. 

And it were as rational to affirm that an 
edict enjoining all people but such as are public 
professors of divinity to be very reserved in 
writing of religion would carry with it a 
colour of utility and justice ; and me, amongst 
the rest, to hold my prating. I 
have been told that even those Go<1 ' s name 
who are not of our church do usfd in°com- be 
nevertheless,amongstthemselves, mon discourse, 
expressly forbid the name of God 
to be used in common discourse; not so much 
as by way of interjection, exclamation, assertion 
of a truth, or comparison; and I think them 
in the right. And upon what occasion soever 
we call upon God to accompany and assist us, 
it ought always to be done with the greatefst 
reverence and devotion. 

There is, as I remember, a passage in Xeno- 
phon, where he tells us that we 
ought so much the more seldom G " ,' n "" ht t0 ' ,e 

. ° ,, /-,,,, , seldom pravpd 

to call upon God, by how much to, and why. 
it is hard to compose our souls to 



to do with more than one woman in their lives," he misap- 
prehends the meaniiiL'ol'Goulart, who says, oonl'orinntih to 

they many m,l\ mi ■ ',■ . ii ' i, i i i.;, I Kan ml' that poly lm my 
« i- not prrmiit. d annmi: th in. ih.v b"iiiL' Christians. The 
modi in n.' in" in tins i.i.iiin i- s ..-, t,,ra , in in- ■ 
nani" v .In, Ii ret, 1 1 ns. -on i, ■ \ o-t i"rs oi'iisatirient appellation. 
8 - Baj Ifi's Dirt., in the article Dioscoridot, 

•' Plutarch, On Love. 

*"ln vulgar and unhallowed terms." St. August., Dc 
Cicit. Dai, .\. 89. See note to c. 33. 



176 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



such a degree of calmness, penitency, and 
devotion as it ought to be in at such a 
time, otherwise our prayers are not only vain 
and fruitless, but vicious in themselves. " For- 
give us our trespasses, as we forgive them that 
trespass against us;" — what do we mean by 
this, but that we present him a soul free from 
all rancour and revenge 7 And yet we make 
nothing of invoking God's assistance in our 
vices, and inviting him to our unjust designs. 

ftuas, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis.J 



The covetous man prays for the conservation of 
his vain and superfluous riches ; the ambitious 
for victory, and the conduct of his fortune ; the 
thief calls God to his assistance to deliver him 
from the dangers and difficulties that obstruct 
his wicked designs, or returns him thanks for 
the facility he has met with in robbing a poor 
peasant. At the door of a house they are 
going to scale, or break into by force of a 
petard, men fall to prayers for success, having 
their heads and hopes full of cruelty, avarice, 
and lust. 

Hoc igitur, quo tu Jovis aurem impellere tentas, 
Die agendum Staio: proh Jupiter! 6 bone.clamet, 
Jupiter! at sese non clamet Jupiter ipse? 2 



in his own name?" 

Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, tells of a 
young prince (whom, though she does not name, 
is easily enough, by his great quality, to be 
known), who, going upon an amorous assig- 
nation to lie with an advocate's wife of Paris, 
his way thither being through a church, he 
never passed that holy place, going to, or 
returning from, this godly exercise, but he 
always kneeled down to pray. In what he 
would implore the divine favour, his soul being 
full of such virtuous meditations, I leave others 
to judge. Yet this she instances for a testimony 
of singular devotion. 3 But this is not the only 
proof we have that women are not altogether 
fit to treat of theological matters. 

A true prayer, and religious reconciling of 
ourselves to God, cannot enter into an impure 
soul, subjected at the time to the dominion of 
Satan. He who calls God to his assistance, 
whilst in the pursuit of vice, does as if a cut- 
purse should call a magistrate to help him, or 
like those who introduce the name of God to 
the attestation of a lie. 



1 In whispers oft we guilty prayers do make." 



• Persius, ii. 4. 

»Ib. ii. 21. 

» Hcptameron, Day 3, Novel 25, where, however, the 
prince is represented as stopping to pray only on his 
return ; a discriminating devotion. 

' Lucan, v. 104. 

' "How great," says Seneca, (Epist. 10) " is the folly of 



There are few men who durst publish to the 
world the prayers they make to God: 6 

Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque 

susurros 
Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto.« 



And this is the reason why the Pythagoreans 
would have them always public, to be heard by 
every one, to the end they might not prefer 
indecent or unjust petitions, as he did, 

" Clare cum dixit, Apollo ! 
J^abra movet, metuens audiri : " pulchra Laverna, 
Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri ; 
Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem." ' 

"Who with loud voice pronoune'd Apollo's name; 
But when the following prayers he preferr'd, 
Scarce moves his lips for fear of being heard. 
'Beauteous Laverna, my petition hear; 
Let me with truth and sanctity appear: 
Oh ! give me to deceive, and with a veil 
Of darkness and of night, my crimes conceal !" 

The gods did severely punish the wicked prayers 
of CEdipus in granting them. He had prayed 
that his children might amongst themselves de- 
termine the succession to his throne by arms; 
and was so miserable as to see himself taken at 
his word. We should not pray that all things 
fall out as our will would have them, but that 
our will should subserve what is just and right. 
We seem in truth to make use of our prayers 
as a kind of gibberish, and as those do who 
employ holy words in sorceries and magical 
operations; and as if we made account the 
benefit we are to reap from them depended 
upon the contexture, sound, and jingle of 
words, or upon the composing of the counte- 
nance. For having the soul contaminated with 
concupiscence, not touched with repentance, 
or comforted by any late reconciliation with 
Almighty God, we go to present him such 
words as the memory suggests to the tongue, 
and hope thence to obtain the remission of 
our sins. There is nothing so easy, so gentle, 
and so favourable, as the divine law: she calls 
and invites us to her, guilty and abominable 
as we are; extends her arms, and receives us 
into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at 
present are, and are for the future to be. But 
then, in return, we are to look upon her with 
a pleased eye, we are to receive this pardon 
with gratitude and submission, and, for that 
instant at least wherein we address ourselves to 
her, to have the soul angry with its faults, and 
at defiance with those passions that seduced 
her to offend. Neither the gods nor good 
men (says Plato 8 ) will accept the present of a 
wicked man. 



mankind! they whisper the most execrable prayers to the 
Gods, and ifany mortal lend an ear they are Bilent for fear 
men should know what they mutter to the Deity." 

6 Persius, ii. 6. 

» Horace, Ep. i. 16, 59. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



177 



Immunis aram si tetigit manus, 
Non sumptuosa hlaiidiur liostia, 
Mollivit aversos Penates, 
Farre pio, et saliente mica.' 
"The pious off'ring of a piece of bread, 
If by pure bands upon the altar laid. 
Than costly hecatombs will better please 
Th' offended gods, and their just wrath appease." 



CHAPTER LVII. 



approve of the proportion we settle 
upon ourselves, and the space we 



see that the sages contract it 
very much, in comparison of the 
common opinion. "What," said the younger 
Cato to those who would stay his hand from 
killing himself, "am I now of an age to be 
reproached that I go out of the world too 
soon?" And yet he was but eight and forty 
years old. 2 He thought that to be a mature 
and competent age, considering how few arrive 
to it. And such as, soothing their thoughts 
with what they call the course of nature, pro- 
mise to themselves some years beyond it, might 
have some reason to do so, could they be privi- 
leged from, the infinite number of accidents to 
which they are by natural subjection exposed, 
and which may at any moment interrupt this 
natural course they look forward to. What an 
idle conceit it is to expect to die of a decay of 
strength, which is the last effect of the extremest 
age, and to propose to ourselves no shorter 
lease of life than that, considering it is a kind 
of death of all others the most rare, and very 
hardly seen? We call that only a natural 
death, as if it were contrary to nature, to see a 
man break his neck with a fall, be drowned in 
shipwreck, or snatched away with a pleurisy 
or the plague, and as if our ordinary condition 
of life did not expose us to these and many 
more inconveniences. Let us no more flatter 
ourselves with these fine-sounding words: we 
ought rather to call that natural which is 
common and universal. 

To die of old age is a death rare, extraordi- 
nary, and singular, and therefore 

J'eathi'n °' d 6 ° mUCh ' GSS natural tllan tne 
"mgular'and Others. 'Tis the last and ex- 
extraordinary, tremest sort of dying, and the 
more remote the less to be hoped 
for. It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond 
which we are not to pass : which the law of 
nature has pitched for a limit not to be ex- 
ceeded. But to last till then is withal a privi- 
lege she is rarely seen to give us. 'Tis a lease 
she only signs by particular favour, it may be, 
to one only, in the space of two or three ages; 
and then with a pass to boot, to carry him 



Horace, Oil. iii. 23. 17. 
' Plutarch, in vita, c. 20. 
1 Suetonius, in vita, c. 12 



through all the traverses and difficulties she has 
strewed in the way of this long career. And 
therefore my opinion is that when once forty 
years old, we should consider it as an age to 
which very few arrive : for, seeing that men do 
not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we 
are pretty well advanced ; and 6ince we have 
exceeded the ordinary bounds, which make the 
just measure of life, we ought not to expect to 
go much farther. Having escaped so many 
precipices of death, whereinto we have seen 
so many other men fall, we should acknow- 
ledge that so extraordinary a fortune as that 
which has hitherto rescued us from those im- 
minent perils, and kept us alive beyond the 
ordinary term of living, is not likely to continue 
long. 

'Tis a fault in our very laws to contain this 
error that a man is not capable 
of managing his estate till he The defect of 
be five and twenty years old, the laws, in 
whereas he will have much ado \£ie incite " 
to manage his life so long, before they 



declared that to be thirty years estates, 
old was sufficient for a judge. 3 
Servius Tullius relieved the knights of above 
seven and forty years of age from the fatigues 
of war; 4 Augustus dismissed them at forty-five. 
Though methinks men should hardly be sent to 
the fire-side till five and fifty, or sixty years of 
age. I should be of opinion that our employ- 
ment should be as long as possible extended 
for the public good: I find the fault on the 
other side, that they do not employ us early 
enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole 
world at nineteen, and yet would have a man 
to be thirty before he could decide a dispute 
about a gutter. 

For my part I believe our souls are adult at 
twenty as much as they are ever 
like to be, and as capable then f^^'"^ 
as ever. A soul that has not by f age. 
that time given evident earnest 
of its force and virtue will never after come to 
proof. Natural parts and excellences produce 
what they have of vigorous and fine within 
that term, or never: 

Si l'espine nou picque qtiand nai, 
A penu que picque jamai, 6 

as they say in Dauphiny. Of all the great 
human actions 1 ever heard or 
read of, of what sort soever, I 
have observed, both in former 
ages and our own, more per- 
formed before thirty than after; and oft-times 
in the lives of the same men. May I not con- 
fidently instance in those of Hannibal and his 
great competitor Scipiof The better half of 
their lives they lived upon the glory they had 



capable of the 



> AuliisGcllius, X. 28. 

i " If the thorn pricks not when it first shoots, it hardly 



178 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



acquired in their youth; great men after, 'tis 
true, in comparison of others, but by no means 
in comparison of themselves. As to myself, I 
am certain that since that age both my un- 
derstanding- and my constitution have rather 
decayed than improved, retired rather than 
advanced. 'Tis possible that with those who 
make the best use of their time knowledge and 
experience may grow up and increase with 
their years ; but the vivacity, quickness, steadi- 
ness, and other qualities, more our own, of 
much greater importance, and much more 
essential, languish and decay. 

Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus ffivi 
Corpus, et obtusis ccciderunt viribus artus, 
Claudicat ingenium, tlelirat linguaque, niensque. 1 
" When once the body's shaken by time's rage, 
The blood and vigour ebbing into age, 
No more the mind its former strength displays, 
But every sense and faculty decays." 



Sometimes the body first submits to age, some- 
times the soul ; and I have seen men enough 
who had got a weakness in their brains before 
either in their legs or stomach : and by how 
much the more it is a disease of no great pain 
to the infected party, and of obscure symptoms, 
so much greater the danger is. 

And for this reason it is that I complain of 
our laws; not that they keep us too long to 
our work, but that they set us to work too 
late. Methinks, considering the frailty of 
life, and the many natural and ordinary 
wrecks to which it is exposed, we should 
not give so large a portion of it to idleness, 
either in childhood or in apprenticeship to 
the world. 



THE SECOND BOOK. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE INCONSISTENCY OF OUR ACTIONS. 

Those who make it their business to observe 
human actions never find themselves so much 
puzzled in any thing as how to reconcile and set 
them before the world in a self-consistent light 
and reputation; for they are generally such 
strange contradictions in themselves that it 
seems almost impossible they should proceed 
from one and the same person. One while we find 
young Marius the son of Mars, and another time 
the son of Venus. 1 Pope Boniface the Eighth, 
it is said, crept into the papal throne like a fox, 
reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. And 
who could believe it to be the same Nero, that 
perfect image of all cruelty, who, in the begin- 
ning of his reign, having the sentence of a 
condemned man brought to him to sign, cried 
out, " O, that I had never been taught to 
write !" 2 So much it went to his heart to con- 
demn a man to death. The history of every 
nation is so full of such examples, and all men 
are able to produce so many to themselves, 
either from their own conduct or observation, 
irresolution that l often w °nder to see men of 
the most com- sense give themselves the trouble 
mon vice of our of sorting these pieces, and en- 
deavouring to reconcile such con- 
tradictions ; especially when irresolution appears 
to me to be the most common and manifest vice 
of our nature ; witness the famous verse of the 
comedian Publius : 

Malum consilium est, quod mutari non potest.9 
" That counsel's bad that will admit no change." 



There seems indeed some possibility of form- 
ing a judgment of a man from the habitual 
features of his life, but, considering the natural 
instability of our manners and 
opinions, I have often thought The difficulty 
even the best authors a little of determining 
. . , . , .. . , , the characters 

mistaken in so obstinately endea- f men in ge- 
vouring to mould us into any ncrai. 
consistent and solid contexture. 
They choose some general air, and according to 
that arrange and interpret all the actions of a 
man, of which, if some be so stiff and stubborn 
that they cannot bend or turn them to any 
uniformity to the rest, they then, without fur- 
ther ceremony, impute them to dissimulation. 
Augustus has, nevertheless, escaped those gen- 
tlemen ; for there was in him so apparent, so 
sudden, and so continued a variety of action, 
throughout the whole course of his life, that he 
has slipt away clear from the boldest judges. 
For my part, I am with much more difficulty 
induced to believe in a man's consistency than 
in any other virtue in him ; while there is no- 
thing I so readily believe as his inconsistency : 
and whoso will meditate upon the matter closely 
and abstractedly will agree with me. Out of 
all antiquity 'twould be difficult to produce a 
dozen men who have formed their lives to one 
certain and fixed course, which is the principal 
design of wisdom ; for, says one of the ancients, 4 
to comprise it all in one word, and to contract 
all the rules of human life into one, "It is to 
will, and not to will, always the same thing: I 
shall not descend," continues he, "to add, pro- 
vided the will be just, for if it be not so, it is 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



179 



impossible it should be always one." I have, 
indeed, formerly learnt that vice is nothing but 
irregularity and want of measure, and therefore 
'tis impossible to fix consistency to it. 'Tis a 
saying of Demosthenes, 1 " that the beginning 
of all virtue is consultation and deliberation ; 
the end and perfection, consistency." If, by rea- 
son, we were to resolve on any certain course, 
we should pitch upon the best, but nobody has 
thought of it : 



"He now despises what he late did crave, 
And what he last neglected now would have : 
He fluctuates, ami flics from that to this, 
And his whole life a contradiction is." 

Our ordinary practice is to follow the incli- 
nations of our appetite, which way soever they 
. guide us, whether to the right 
ency'of our'" 1 or to l ^ e ' e ^> upwards or down- 
conduct, on wards, just according as we are 
what founded. wafted by the breath of occas j on . 

We never meditate what we would have till the 
instant we have a mind to it ; and change like 
that little creature which takes its colour from 
what it is laid upon. What we but just now 
proposed to ourselves, we immediately alter, 
and presently return to it again; 'tis nothing 
but shifting and inconstancy : 

Ducimur, tit nervis alienis mobile lignum. 3 
" Like tops witli leathern thongs we're whipped about." 

We do not go, we are driven ; like things that 
float, now leisurely, then with violence, accord- 
ing to the gentleness or fierceness of the current; 



Nonne ..... 

fluid sibi quisque velit nescire, et qua?rere semper ; 
Commutare locum, quasi onus deponere possit?* 

"Day after day we see men toil to find 
Some secret solace to an anxious mind, 
Shifting from place to place, if here or there 
They might set down the burthen of their care." 

Every day produces a new whim, and our hu- 
mours keep motion with time : 

Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse 
Jupiter auctiferas lustravit lumine terras.* 

" Such are the motions of the inconstant soul, 
As are the days and weather fair or foul." 

We fluctuate betwixt various notions; we 
will nothing freely, nothing absolutely, nothing 
constantly. 6 In any one that has prescribed 
and laid down determinate rules and laws to 
himself for his own conduct, we should perceive 
an equality of manners, an order, and an infal- 
lible relation of one thing or action to another, 
shine through his whole "life (Empedocles 7 ob- 
served this contradiction in the Agregentines, 



1 In the Funeral Oration, attributed to Demosthenes, on 
tin ivamers slain at Cheroucea. 

a Horace, Epist. i. i. !18. 

' Horace, Sat. ii. 7, 82. 4 Lucret. iii. ]070. 

» These two verses, preserved bv St. Auguslin (dc Civit. 
Jin. v. 8), are a translation bv Cicero from the Odussei/, 
xvni. 1.55. He is supposed to have quoted them iii his 
Academics, in reference to w hat Aristotle says of the Human 



that gave themselves up to delights as if every 
day was to be their last, and built as if they 
were to live for ever) ; and a judgment would 
not then be hard to make. And this is shown 
in the younger Cato : he who has touched one 
note, has touched all. 'Tis a harmony of very 
agreeing sounds, that cannot jar. But with us 
'tis quite contrary, every particular action re- 
quires a particular judgment. The surest way, 
in my opinion, would be to take our measures 
from the nearest allied circumstances, without 
engaging in a longer inquisition, or without 
concluding any other consequence. 

I was told, in the civil disorders of our un- 
happy kingdom, that a maid-servant, hard by 
the place where I then was, had thrown herself 
out of a window to avoid being forced by a 
ragamuffin soldier that was quartered in the 
house. She was not killed by the fall, and 
therefore, redoubling her attempt, would have 
cut her own throat, but was hindered ; though 
not before she had wounded herself dangerously. 
She herself confessed that the soldier had not as 
yet importuned her otherwise than by courtship, 
solicitation, and presents ; but that she was 
afraid that in the end he would have proceeded 
to violence : all which she delivered with such 
a countenance and language, and withal em- 
brued in her own blood, the testimony of 
her virtue, that she appeared quite another 
Lucretia; and yet I have since been well 
assured that, both before and after, she was no 
very difficult piece. As in the tale, — "Be as 
handsome a man, and as fine a gentleman as 
you will, never build too much upon your mis- 
tress's inviolable chastity ; for, having been 
repulsed by her, you do not know but she may 
have a much better stomach to your groom." 8 

Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers 
into a degree of favour and esteem for his vir- 
tue and valour, gave his physicians strict charge 
to cure him of an inward distemper which had 
a long time tormented him ; and observing that 
after his cure he went much more coldly to 
work than before, he asked him what had so 
altered and cowed him ? " You, yourself, sir," 
replied the other, " by having eased me of the 
pains that made me weary of my life." 9 One of 
Lucullus's soldiers having been rifled by the 
enemy, performed a brave exploit against him 
by way of revenge, by which he recovered his 
loss and more. Lucullus, who from that action 
had conceived a very advantageous opinion of 
the man, endeavoured, with all the persuasions 
and fine promises he could think of, 

Verbis, qua; timido quoque possent addere mentem," 
" With words that might a coward's heart inspire," 



Soul, by which author also these verses are quoted in his 
treatise On the Soul, iii. 3. 

8 Seneca, Epist. 52. 

i Dioe. Laertius, in vit/t. ./Elian attributes the remark 
to Plato, Var. Hist. xii. Jl). 

6 The Host's talc, in Ariosto. 

o PlDtarch, I.ifr of Pr/opidas, C 1. 

i° Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 36. 



180 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



to engage him in an enterprise of danger ; but 
" No," said the fellow ; " employ some mise- 
serable devil that has lost all his money." 

Quantumvis rusticus, ibit, 
Ibit eo, quo vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit.i 

" An't please you, captain let another trudge it, 
The man may venture who has lost his budget," 



and flatly refused to go. 

When we read that Mahomet having furiously 
reprimanded Chasan, Aga of the Janisaries, 
who seeing the Hungarians break into his bat- 
talion, had behaved himself very ill in the 
business, and that Chasan, instead of any other 
answer, rushed furiously, alone, with his sci- 
mitar in his hand, into the first body of the 
enemy, where he was presently cut to pieces, 
we are not to look upon this as so much a 
generous design to vindicate himself from the 
reproach of cowardice as a change of mind ; 
not so much natural valour as sudden vexation. 
The man you see to-day so adventurous and 
brave, you must not think it strange to find him 
as great a poltroon to-morrow : anger, ne- 
cessity, company, wine, or the sound of the 
trumpet may have roused his spirits; this is no 
valour formed and established by meditation: 
but accidentally created by those circumstances, 
and therefore it is no wonder, if by contrary 
circumstances, it appears quite another thing. 
These supple variations and contradictions in 
us have given some people occasion to believe 
that man has two souls ; others two distinct 
powers which always accompany and incline 
us, one towards good, and the other towards 
evil, according to its own nature and pro- 
pension ; so sudden a variety of inclination not 
being to be imagined to flow from one and the 
same fountain. 

For my part, I must own that the puff of 
every accident not only carries me along with 
it, according to its own proclivity, but that 
moreover I discompose and trouble myself by 
the instability of my own posture; and whoever 
will look narrowly into his own breast will 
hardly find himself twice in the same condition. 
I give my soul sometimes one face, and some- 
times another, according to the side I turn her 
to. If I speak variously of myself, it is because 
I consider myself variously. All contrarieties 
are there to be found in one corner or another, 
or after one manner or another. Bashful, 
insolent; chaste, lustful; talkative, silent; 
laborious, delicate ; ingenious, heavy ; melan- 
cholic, pleasant ; lying, sincere ; learned, 
ignorant; liberal, covetous, and prodigal; I 
find all this in myself, more or less, according 
as I turn myself about; and whoever will sift 
himself to the bottom will be conscious, even 
by his own judgment, of this volubility and 
discordance. I have nothing to say of myself 
entirely, simply, and solidly, without mixture 



and confusion, nor, in a word ; distinguo is the 
universal part of my logic. 

Though I always intend to speak well of 
the good, and rather interpret 
in a good sense such things as t0 iTjudged"!* 
may be so, yet such is the by the inten- 
strangeness of our condition that ,lon only - 
we are sometimes pushed on to do well, even 
by vice itself, if well doing were not judged by 
the intention only. One gallant action, there- 
fore, ought not to conclude a man valiant; if 
a man was brave, indeed, he would be always 
so, and upon all occasions. If it were a habit 
of virtue, and not a sally, it would render a 
man equally resolute in all accidents ; the same 
alone as in company, the same in lists as in 
battles ; for, let people say what they please, 
there is not one valour for the street, and 
another for the field. He would bear a sick- 
ness in his bed as" bravely as a wound in the 
trenches, and no more fear death in his own 
house than at an assault. We should not then 
see the same man charge into a breach with a 
brave assurance, and afterwards torment him- 
self, or whine like a woman, for the loss of a 
law-suit, or the death of a child. When being 
a coward in arms, he is firm under poverty; 
when he starts at the sight of a barber's razor, 
but rushes fearless among the swords of the 
enemy, the action is commendable, not the man. 
Many of the Greeks, says Cicero, cannot en- 
dure the sight of an enemy, and yet are cou- 
rageous in sickness ; the Cimbrians and Celti- 
berians quite the contrary. Nihil enim potest 
esse tequabile, quod non a certa ratione pro- 
ficiscatur? " Nothing can be uniform that 
does not proceed from solid reason." No valour 
could be more extreme in its kind than that of 
Alexander ; but it was but one kind ; nor was 
that kind full enough throughout, or universal. 
As peerless as it was, it had yet some blemishes; 
and of this his being so often at his wits' end 
upon every light suspicion of his captains con- 
spiring against his life, and the behaving 
himself in such enquiries with so much vehe- 
mency and injustice, and with a fear that sub- 
verted his natural reason, is one striking in- 
stance. The superstition also with which he was 
so much tainted carries along with it some image 
of pusillanimity; and the excess of his peni- 
tence for the murder of Cly tus is likewise another 
testimony of the unevenness of his courage. — 
All we do is a mere cento, as a man may say, 
of odds and ends, 3 and we would acquire honour 
by a false title. Virtue will not be followed 
but for herself; and, if we some- 
times borrow her mask for some ^'coune^for 
other occasion, she presently pulls u s own sake, 
it off again. 'Tis a strong and 
lively tincture, which, when the soul has once 
thoroughly imbibed it, will not out again but 
with the piece. And therefore to make a right 



Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 39. s Tusc. Qua*, ii. 27. lowing passage is inserted :— " Voltiptatem contemnant ; i 

1 In the edition of 1588, corrected by the Author, the fol- dolore suntmolles ; gloiiam negligunt ; franguutur iufaniia." 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



181 



judgment of a man, we are long and very 
observingly to follow his trace. If consistency 
does not there stand firm upon her own proper 
base, Cui vivendi via considerata atque pro- 
visa est;* "If the course of life is not plainly 
marked out;" if the variety of occurrences 
makes him to alter his pace (his path I mean, 
for the pace may be faster or slower), let him 
go; such a one runs before the wind, a vau le 
vent, as the Talbot motto has it. 

'Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, 2 
that chance has so great a dominion over us, 
since it is by chance we live. It is not possible 
for any one who has not designed his life for 
some certain end to dispose of particular 
actions. It is not possible for any one to fit the 
pieces together who has not the whole form 
already contrived in his imagination. To what 
use are colours to him, or to what end should 
he provide them, that knows not what he is to 
paint 1 No one lays down a certain plan of 
life; we only deliberate it by pieces. The 
archer ought first to know at what he is to aim, 
and then accommodate his arm, bow, string, 
shaft, and motion to it. Our opinions deviate 
and wander, because not levelled to any deter- 
minate end. No wind serves him who has no 
destined port. I cannot acquiesce in the judg- 
ment given by one in the behalf of Sophocles, 8 
who concluded him capable of the management 
of domestic affairs, against the accusation of 
his son, from having seen one of his tragedies. 

Neither do I think the conjecture of the 
Parians, sent to regulate the Milesians, suf- 
ficient for such a consequence as they drew 
from it. Coming to visit the island, they took 
notice of such grounds as were best cultivated, 
and such country houses as were best governed ; 
and having taken the names of the owners, 
when they had assembled the citizens, they 
appointed those farmers for the new governors 
and magistrates, concluding that they who had 
been so provident in their own private concerns 
would be so of the public too. 4 We are all 
unformed lumps, and of so various a contexture 
that every moment every piece plays its own 
game, and there is as much difference betwixt 
us and ourselves as betwixt us and others. 
Magnum rem pula unu/n hnminem agere. 6 — 
"'Tis a great matter to be always the same 
man." Since ambition can teach men valour, 
temperance, and liberality, and even justice; 
seeing that avarice can inspire a shop-boy, bred 
and nursed up in obscurity and ease, with cou- 
rage enough to expose himself, far from the 
fire-side, to the mercy of the angry waves, in 
a frail boat; that, further she can teach dis- 
cretion and prudence; and that even Venus can 
infuse boldness and resolution into boys under 
the discipline of the rod, and inflame the hearts 

i Cicero, Paradox., v. i. 
»Senec. Epist. 71. 
a Cicero, De Smututt, c. 7. 
• Herod, v. 89. 
16 



of tender virgins not out of leading-strings, 
with masculine courage ; 

Hacduce, custodes furtim transgressa jacentes, 
Ad jiivenem tenebria sola puella venit; 

"With Venus' aid, while sleep the guard disarms, 
She stole by night to her young lover's arms;" 

'tis not sound understanding to judge us 
simply by our outward action ; we must pene- 
trate the very soul, and there discover by what 
springs the motion is guided ; but that being a 
high and hazardous undertaking, I could wish 
that fewer would attempt it. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF DRUNKENNESS. 

The world is nothing but variety and dis- 
proportion ; vices are all alike, Tnere are some 
as they are vices, and 'tis thus, vices more 
perhaps, the Stoics understand enormous than 
it; but, though they are equally rs ' i 
vices, yet they are not all equal vices; and that 
he who has transgressed the bounds by a hun- 
dred paces, 

Quos ultra, citraque nequit consistere rectum, 6 
"Whence we cannot deviate without going wrong," 

should not be in a worse condition than he 
who has transgressed them but ten, is not to 
be believed ; or that sacrilege is not worse than 
stealing a cabbage : 

Nee vincet ratio hoc, tantumhem ut peccet, idemque, 

Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti, 

Et qui nocturnus divuin sacra legerit. 8 

" Nor seems it reason he as much should sin 
That steals a cabbage plant, as he who in 
The dead of night a temple breaks, and brings 
Away from thence the consecrated things." 

There is in this as great diversity as in anything 
whatever. The confounding of The con 
the order and measure of sins is founding of 
dangerous; murderers, traitors, sinsisadan- 
and tyrants gain too much gerous l ln 8- 
therein ; it is not reasonable they should 
solace their consciences, because another man is 
idle or lascivious, or less assiduous at his de- 
votion than he ought to be. Every one lays 
weight upon the sins of his companions, and 
lightens his own. In my opinion, our very 
instructors themselves range them very ill. As 
Socrates said, that the principal office of wis- 
dom was to distinguish good from evil, we, the 
best of whom are always vicious, ought also to 
say of knowledge that it is to distinguish be- 
twixt vice and vice, without which, and that 
very exactly performed too, the virtuous and 
the wicked will remain confounded and un- 
distinguishable. 



6 Senec. Epist 120. 
• Tihullus, ii. 1.71. 
J Horace, i. 1. 107. 
8 Id. ib. 3. 115. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Now among the rest, drunkenness seems to 
me to be a gross and brutish vice. The soul has 

more to do in all the rest, and 
stu UI id e bmtlsh tnere are some vices that have 
vice. ' something, if a man may say so, 

of the high and generous in them. 
There are vices wherein there is a mixture of 
knowledge, diligence, valour, prudence, dex- 
terity, and cunning; this is totally corporeal 
and earthly. The thickest-skulled nation this 
day in Europe is that where it is the most in 
fashion. Other vices discompose the under- 
standing; this totally overthrows it, and stuns 
the body. 

Cam vim vis penetravit, - - - 
Consequitur gravitris nn-uiljroriim, prscpediuntur 
Crura vacillanti, tardeseit lingua, madet mens, 
Nant oculi ; clamor, singultus, jurgia, gliscunt.i 

"When fumes or wine have fill'd the swelling veins. 
Unusual weight throughout the body reigns; 
The legs, so nimble in the race before, 
Can now exert their wonted pow'r no more ; 
Falters the tongue, tears gush into the eyes, 
And hiccoughs, noise, and jarring tumults rise." 

The worst condition of a man is that wherein 
he loses the knowledge and government of 
himself. And 'tis said, amongst other things 
upon that subject, that as the must, fermenting 
in a vessel, works up to the top whatever it has 
in the bottom, so wine, in those who have 
drunk beyond the measure, vents the most 
inward secrets. 

Tu sapientium 
Curas, et arcanum jocoso 
Consilium retegis Lyaeo. 2 



Josephus tells us 3 that, by giving an ambas- 
sador, whom the enemy had sent to him, his 
full dose of liquor, he wormed out his secrets. 
And yet Augustus, committing the most inward 
secrets of his affairs to Lucius Piso, who con- 
quered Thrace, never found him guilty of 
blabbing in the least; no more than Tiberius 
did Cossus, with whom he intrusted his whole 
counsels, though we know they were both so 
given to drink that they have often been car- 
ried home, both one and the other, drunk out 
of the senate-house. 4 

Hesterno inflatum venas, de more, Lyreo. 6 
"And swollen their veins, as wont.with wine of yesterday." 

And the design of killing Csesar was as 
safely communicated to Cimber, though he was 
often drunk, as to Cassius, who drank nothing 
but water; and upon this, Cimber once said 
merrily, "Shall I, who cannot bear wine, 
bear with a tyrant?" 6 We see our Germans, 
though never so drunk, know their post, re- 
member the word, and perform their duty: 



Nee facilis victoria de madidis, et 
Btesis, atque mero titubantibus. 7 
' Nor find it easy victory to command 
O'er men so drunk they scarce can speak or stand." 

I could not have believed there had been 
profound, senseless and dead a degree of 
drunkenness, had I not read in history that 
Attalus, having, in order to put a notable affront 
upon Pausanias, who for this cause afterwards 
killed Philip, King of Macedon, who, by his 
excellent qualities, gave sufficient testimony of 
his education in the house and company of Epa- 
minondas, invited him to supper, and made him 
drink to such a pitch that he could dispose of 
his body as that of a common prostitute to the 
grooms and meanest servants of the house. And 
I have been told by a lady whom I highly 
honour and esteem, that near Bordeaux, 
towards Castres, where she lives, a country- 
woman, a widow of excellent character, per- 
ceiving in herself the first symptoms of breeding, 
innocently told her neighbours that, if she had 
a husband, she should think herself with child ; 
but the causes of suspicion every day more and 
more increasing, and at last growing up to a 
manifest proof, the poor woman was reduced to 
the necessity of causing it to be proclaimed at 
her parish church that whoever had done that 
deed and would frankly confess it, she did not 
only promise to forgive, but moreover to marry 
him, if he liked the offer ; upon which a young 
fellow that served her in the quality of a 
labourer, encouraged by this proclamation, de- 
clared, that one holy-day he found her, having 
taken too much of the bottle, so fast asleep in 
the chimney-corner, and in so indecent a pos- 
ture, that he made use of her without waking 
her ; they still live together man and wife. 

It is certain that antiquity has not much 
decried this vice : the writings of 
several philosophers speak very Drunkenness 

, , r c -t r j r J . not much de- 

tenderly of it ; and even amongst c i a jmcd against 
the Stoics there are some who by the ancients, 
advise to give one's-self some- 
times the liberty to drink to a debauch, to 
recreate and refresh the soul. 



That censor and reprover of others, Cato, was 
reproached with being a toper : 



« of old 

Cato's virtue, we are told, 
Often with a bumper glowed." 

Cyrus, that so renowned king, among his other 
qualities, by which he claimed to be preferred 



i Lucret. iii. 475. » Horace, Od. iii. 21. 14. 

3 In his Life, p. J016. 
« Seneca, Epist. 83. 

° Virgil, Eclog. vi. 15. The text has it, " Inflatum hes- 
terno venas ut semper, Iaccho." 
6 Seneca, Epist. 83. The words in this author are, " Ego 



quemqnam feram qui vinum ferre noil possum?" But he 
has spniled Cinilier's jest for not having had the courage to 
give Osar the name of a tyrant, as Montaigne does. 

' Juvenal, xv. 47. 

8 Psuedo Callus, i. 47. 

a Horace, Od. iii. 21, 11. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



183 



before his brother Artaxerxes, urged this excel- 
lency, that he could drink a great deal more 
than lie. 1 And in the best governed nations 

this trial of skill in drinking was 
S»b2uih S in° U se very much in use. I have heard 
upongsi the Silvius, an excellent physician of 
i„ ; .st itoverutd p ar j Sj say t h a t, lest the digestive 

faculties of the stomach should 
grow idle, it were not amiss once a month to 
rouse and spur them on by this excess, lest they 
should grow dull and resty; and 'tis written 
that when the Persians were to consult upon 
any important affair they first warmed them- 
selves well with wine. 2 

My taste and constitution are greater enemies 

to this vice than I am ; for, besides 

Drunkenness a th t J easi ] y su b m it my belief to 
vii e not so bad , ,i •. /• . • • 

as some others, the authority of ancient opinions, 
I look upon it as a mean and 
stupid vice, but less malicious and hurtful than 
the others, almost every one of which more 
directly jostles public society. And if we 
cannot please ourselves but it must cost us 
something, as they hold, I conceive this vice 
costs a man's conscience less than any of the 
rest: besides, it is of no difficult preparation, 
nor is what we look for hard to be found; a 
consideration not altogether to be despised. A 
man well advanced both in dignity and age, 
among three principal comforts, which he said 
still remained to him of life, told me this of 
drinking was one ; and where would a man 
more justly find it than among the natural con- 
veniences '.' But he did not take it right ; for 
delicacy and a curious choice in 
avoidedinwine^ w ' ne s is therein to be avoided. 
If you ground your pleasure upon 
drinking the best, you condemn yourself to the 
penance of drinking the worst. 

Your taste must be more indifferent and free : 
a delicate palate does not suit a good toper. 
The Germans drink almost indifferently of all 
wines witli delight: their business is to pour 
down, and not to taste; and 'tis so much the 
better for them, their pleasure is so much the 
more constant and nearer at hand. On the 
other hand, not to drink after the French 
fashion, but at meals, and then very moderately 
too, is too much to restrict the bounty of the 
god of wine : there is more time and constancy 
required than so. The ancients spent whole 
nights in this exercise, and oft-times added the 
day following to piece it out ; we ought there- 
fore to take greater liberty than we do, and 
stick closer to our work. I have seen a great 
lord of my time, a man of high enterprise and 
famous success, who, without setting himself to 
it, and after his ordinary rate of drinking at 



> Plutarch. Life of Artaxerxes, c. 2. 
2 Herod, i. 133. 



genuine wo™ oi the E 

Book wan « i it ni igini 

Italian, French, Engl 



meals, swallowed down not much less than five 
quarts of wine, and at his going away appeared 
but too wise and discreet, to the detriment of 
our affairs. The pleasure we design an esteem 
for during the course of our lives, ought to 
have a greater share of our time dedicated to it. 
We should, like journeymen and labourers, 
refuse no occasion, and omit no opportunity, of 
drinking, and always have it in our minds. 
But methinks we every day abridge and curtail 
the use of wine; and the breaklast, drinking, 
and collations, I used to see in my father's 
house when I was a boy, were in those days 
more usual and frequent than at present. Is it 
that we pretend to reformation? Truly no; 
but it may be we are more addicted to Venus 
than our fathers were. They are two exer- 
cises that hinder one another in their vigour. 
Lechery has weakened our stomach on the one 
side, and on the other sobriety renders us more 
amorous and vigorous for the exercise of love. 

'Tis not to be imagined what strange stories 
I have heard my father tell of the chastity of 
that age wherein he lived. He 
might very well talk so, being * '^author's 
both by art and nature cut out father, 
and finished for the service of 
ladies. He spoke little and well, ever mixing 
his language with some illustration out of mo- 
dern authors, especially Spanish ; and amongst 
them Marcus Aurelius was very frequent in his 
mouth. 3 His behaviour was grave, humble, 
and modest ; he was very solicitous of neatness 
and decency in his person and dress, whether 
a-foot or on horseback. He was exceedingly 
punctual to his word, and of a conscience and 
religion tending rather towards superstition 
than otherwise. For a man of little stature, 
very strong, well proportioned, and well knit ; 
of a pleasing countenance, inclining to brown, 
and very adroit in all noble exercises. I have 
yet in the house to be seen canes full of lead, 
with which, they say, he exercised his arms 
for throwing the bar or the stone; and shoes 
with leaden soles, to make him afterwards 
lighter for running or leaping. Of his vaulting 
he has left little miracles behind him; and I 
have seen him, when past threescore, laugh at 
our agilities, throw himself in his furred gown 
into the saddle, make the tour of a table upon 
his thumbs, and scarce ever mount the stairs 
up to his chamber without taking three or four 
steps at a time. But as to what 
I was speaking of before, he said c > last jty of the 
there was scarce one woman of age wherein 
quality of ill fame in a whole £^£2 
province: would tell of strange 
privacies, and some of them his own, with 



"would fain have his work pass for a faithful translation 
of the treatise of Marcus Aurelius; but there is noihinti m 
the whole book which shows that the learned Spaniard who 
composed it had seen the treatise of this wise emperor." 
This Spaniard is Guevara, who does not deserve the title 
of learned, which is here Riven him by Mery Causauhon. 
The reader may see the character of his wit and works in 
Bayle's Dictionary, under the title of Guevara. 



184 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



virtuous women, without any manner of sus- 
picion. And, for his own part, solemnly swore 
he was a virgin at his marriage; and yet it 
was after a long practice of arms beyond the 
mountains, of which war he has left us a written 
journal under his own hand, wherein he has 
given a precise account, from point to point, of 
all passages, both relating to the public and to 
himself. And he was married moreover at a 
well advanced maturity, in the year 1528, the 
three and thirtieth year of his age, upon his 
way home from Italy. But let us return to 
our bottle. 

The incommodities of old age, which stand 
. in need of some refreshment and 

^"pi'easir! support, might with reason beget 
which man is in me a desire of this faculty, it 
C n P o b ii e i ° f being, as it were, almost the last 

enjoying, pleasure which the course of years 

deprives us of. The natural heat, say the good 
fellows, first seats itself in the feet, that concerns 
infancy ; from thence it mounts to the middle 
region, where it makes a long abode, and pro- 
duces, in my opinion, the only true pleasures 
of corporal life; all other pleasures sleep in 
comparison. Towards the end, like a vapour 
that still mounts upwards, as it exhales, it 
arrives at the throat, where it makes its last 
stop. I cannot nevertheless understand how 
men come to extend the pleasure of drinking 
beyond thirst, and to forge in the imagination 
an appetite artificial and against nature. My 
stomach would not proceed so far ; it has enough 
to do with what it takes for necessity. My 
constitution is not to care to drink, but as it 
follows eating, and to wash down my meat, 
and for that reason my last draught is always 
the greatest And as in old age we have our 
palates furred with phlegms, or depraved by 
some other ill constitution, the wine does not 
taste so well till the pores are washed and laid 
open: at least, I seldom relish the first glass 
much. Anacharsis ' wondered that the Greeks 
drank in greater glasses towards the end of a 
meal than at the beginning; which was, I 
suppose, for the same reason. The Germans 
do the same, who then begin the battle. 

Plato 2 forbids children to drink wine till 

eighteen years of age, or to get 

w?ne U de e n?ed to drunk till forty; but after forty 

children, and gives them leave to please them- 

FJZ^l selves, and to mix somewhat 

grown men. ,., '. . . . _ , 

liberally in their feasts the in- 
fluence of Dionysius, 3 that good deity, who 
restores young men their good humour, and 
old men their youth, who mollifies the passions 
of the soul, as iron is softened by fire ; and in 
his laws allows such merry meetings, provided 
they have a discreet chief to govern and keep 



i Laertius, in vita. 

» Laws, ii. 

s One of the names of Bacchus. 

4 This construction of" using sparingly" does not convey 
Plato's meaning. What he says is, " that he approves the 
Carthaginian law, which orders that no sort of wine be 
drunk in the camp, nor any thing but water." Laws, 
towards the end. 



them in order, as good and useful: drunken- 
ness being, says he, a true and certain trial of 
every one's nature, and withal fit to inspire 
old men with mettle to divert themselves in 
dancing and music: things of great use, but 
which they dare not attempt when sober. He 
moreover says that wine is able 

to supply the soul with tem- Restrictions re- 
j .l v. j ^i u i l quired in the 

perance and the body with health, use of wine. 
Nevertheless these restrictions, 
in part borrowed from the Carthaginians, please 
him : that they use it sparingly in expeditions 
of war; 4 that every judge and magistrate ab- 
stain from it when engaged in the duties of his 
post or in the consultation on the public affairs ; 5 
that such part of the day is not to be embezzled 
with it, as is due to other employments; nor 
that night in which a man intends to get 
a child. 

'Tis said that the philosopher Stilpo, when 
oppressed with age, purposely 
hastened his end, by drinking p "If ™" e a . n . 

„ „, ' ' :, . , ° enemy to old 

pure wine. 6 The same thing, but age. 

not of his own design, dispatched 

also the philosopher Arcesilaus, 7 weakened by 

years. 

But 'tis an old and pleasant question, whether 
the soul of a man can be overcome by the 
strength of wine ] 

Si munitae adhibet vim sapientiffi? 8 
" And each grave thought for frolic airs resign?" 

To what vanity does the good opinion we 
have of ourselves push us! The 
most regular and most perfect la/s^s liable 
soul in the world has but too to be disorder- 
much to do to keep itself upright, ^ ci !£ nt v s arious 
from being overthrown by its own 
weakness. There is not one of a thousand 
that is right and settled so much as one minute 
in his life; and it may very well be doubted 
whether, according to her natural condition, it 
can ever be otherwise. But to join consistency 
to it is her utmost perfection ; I mean though 
nothing should jostle and discompose her, which 
a thousand accidents may do. 'Tis to much 
purpose, indeed, that the great poet Lucretius 
keeps such a clutter with his philosophy, when 
behold he is ruined with a love-draught. Is it 
to be imagined that an apoplexy will not knock 
down Socrates as well as a porter] Some 
have forgotten their own names by the violence 
of a disease, and a slight wound has turned the 
judgment of others topsy-turvy. Let a man 
be as wise as he will, he is still a man ; and 
than that, what is there more frail, more a 
mere nothing] Wisdom does not force our 
natural dispositions: 



6 Or, as it is said, more properly, in Plato, during the 
year of their magistracy. 

« Laertius, in vita. 

■> Id., in vita.. 

s Hor. Od. Hi. 28, 4. Montaigne, however, has given rather 

a parody on the text than a quotation. The original stands, 

Munitceque adliibe vim sapientiw. 



MONTAIGNE S ESSAYS. 



185 



Sudores itaque, et pallorem exislere toto 
Corpora, et infringi linguam, vocemque ahoriri, 
Caligare oculus, sonere anres, succidere artus. 
Denique concidere, ex animi terrore, videmus:' 



; and sweat the countenance confounds, 
The tongue 's delivered of abortive sounds; 
The eyes crow dim. ears deaf, the knees grow lame, 
And do refuse to prop the trembling frame; 
And lastly, out of fear of mind, we all 
Things sue into a dissolution fall :" 

he must shut his eyes against the blow that 
threatens him ; he must tremble upon the brink 
of a precipice, like a child : nature having 
reserved these light works of her authority, not 
to be forced by our reason and stoical virtue, 
to teach man his mortality and little power. 
He turns pale with fear, red with shame, and 
groans with the cholic, if not very loud and 
despairingly, at least with a hoarse and broken 
voice : 

Humani a se nihil alienum putet. Q 
" Let him not think tie's free from human ties." 

The poets, that feign all things at pleasure, 
dare not acquit their greatest heroes of tears : 

Sic fatur lacrymans, classique immittit habenas.i 
" He said, and wept, then spread his sails." 

'Tis sufficient for a man to curb and moderate 
his inclinations; for totally to suppress them is 
not in him to do. Even our Plutarch, that 
excellent and perfect judge of human actions, 
when he sees Brutus and Torquatus kill their 
own children, begins to doubt whether virtue 
could proceed so far, and to question whether 
these persons had not rather been stimulated by 
some other passion. 4 All actions exceeding the 
ordinary bounds are liable to sinister interpre- 
tation: forasmuch as our taste does no more 
aiFect what is above than what is below it. 

Let us leave that other sect, which makes an 
express profession of haughty superiority: 6 but 
when, even in that sect, 6 reputed the most quiet 
and gentle, we hear these rhodomontades of 
Metrodorus : Occupavi te, Fortuna, alque cepi; 
omnesque aditus tuos inlerclusi, ut ad me ad- 
spirare non posses ,- 7 " Fortune, I have fore- 
stalled thee, and so fast shut up all the avenues 
thou canst not come at me ;" when Anax- 
archus, by the command of Nicocreon, tyrant 
of Cyprus, was put into a stone mortar and 
pounded with iron mallets, ceases not to say, 
"Strike, batter, 'tis not Anaxarchus, 'tis but 
bis sheath that you pound;" 8 when we hear! 
our martyrs cry out to the tyrant in the middle I 
of the flame, " This side is roasted, fall to and 
eat; it is enough done, begin to cook the 
other;" 9 when we hear the child in Josephus, 
torn piece-meal with biting pincers, defying 



Antiochus, and crying out with a firm and 
assured voice, " Tyrant, thou losest thy labour, 
I am still at ease ; where is the pain, where 
are the torments with which thou didst so 
threaten me! Is this all thou canst do? My 
constancy torments thee more than thy cruelty 
does me. O pitiful coward ! thou faintest, and 
I grow stronger; make me complain, make 
me bend, make me yield, if thou canst; en- 
courage thy satellites, cheer up thy executioners; 
see, see, they faint and can do no more ; arm 
them, flesh them anew, spur them up;" ,0 really 
a man must confess that there is some excite- 
ment and fury, how holy soever, that does at 
that time possess those souls. When we come 
to these stoical sallies, "I had rather be furious 
than voluptuous," Mtwsup fia.7~r.ov rj r l v9titp', a 
saying of Antisthenes : when Sextius tells us, 
" He had rather be fettered with affliction than 
pleasure:" when Epicurus takes upon him to 
play with his gout, and, refusing health and 
ease, with gaiety of heart defies torment, and 
despising the lesser pains, as disdaining to con- 
tend with them, covets and calls out for sharper, 
more violent, and more worthy of him ; u 



" Impatiently he views the feeble prey. 
Wishing some nobler beast to cross his way. 
And rather would the tusky hoar attend, 
Or see the tawny lion downward beud ;" 

who can but conclude that these are sallies 
of a courage that has broken loose from its 
place? Our soul cannot from her own seat 
reach so high ; 'tis necessary she must leave it, 
raise herself up, and, taking her bridle in her 
teeth, transport her man so far that he shall 
afterwards himself be astonished at what he has 
done. As in war the heat of battle sometimes 
pushes the gallant soldiers to perform things of 
so infinite danger as, after having recollected 
themselves, they themselves are the first to 
wonder at; as poets, too, are often struck 
with admiration of their own writings, and 
know not the track through which they made 
so fine a career: this is in them called ardour, 
fury. Plato says — "'Tis to no purpose for a 
sober man to knock at the door of the Muses ;" I3 
and Aristotle says — " That no excellent soul is 
exempt from a mixture of folly;"" and he has 
reason to call all transports, how commendable 
soever, folly, when they surpass our own judg- 
ment and understanding: because wisdom is a 
regular government of the soul, which is carried 
on with measure and proportion, and for which 
she is answerable to herself Plato argues thus, 
" That the faculty of prophecy is above us ; that 



H.ucret. iii. 155. 

' rnutont. i. i. 25. Montaigi 
i-xt. to u.tupt it to his sentence. 
» J&ncid. vi. 1. 

• I'lut. Life of Publicola. 

* That of the Stui ls , or of Zeno, its founder. 
« That of Epicurue. 
' Cicero, Tunc. Quits, v. 9, 
8 Diog. Laert. in vita. 

16* 



I • This is what Prudentius makes St. Laurence say. in his 
has altered the book entitled Trtpi ^cipdvmv, concerning crowns. Jiymn ii. 
ver. 401, &c. 
10 De Maccab. c. 8. 
» Seneca, (36 and 92. 
'2 JEncid iv. 158. 

n Seneca, rfe TVanquillitate, c. 15, from the Ion. 
" Problem, sec. 30. Cicero, Tunc. Quas. i. 33. Seneca, 
ut supra. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



we must be out of ourselves when we meddle 
with it, and our prudence must either be ob- 
structed by sleep, or sickness, or lifted from her 
place by some celestial rapture. 1 



CHAPTER III. 



THE CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA. 

If, according to the common definition, to phi- 
losophize is to doubt, much more 
phize, what, ought writing at random, and 
playing the fool, as I do, to be 
reputed doubting; for it is the business of no- 
vices and freshmen to enquire and dispute, and 
that of the chairman to determine. My mode- 
rator is the authority of the divine will, which 
governs us without contradiction, and which is 
seated above these vain and human contests. 

Philip 2 having entered the Peloponnesus in 
arms, some one said to Damindas that the 
Lacedaemonians were likely to be very great 
sufferers if they did not reconcile themselves to 
his favour. "Coward!" replied he, "what 
can they suffer that do not fear to die"!" It 
was asked of Agis, which way a man might live 
free? " By despising death," said he. These, 
and a thousand other sayings, to the same pur- 
pose, evidently refer to something more than a 
patient waiting the stroke of death when it 
. shall come ; for there are many 

tunes wovsew misfortunes in life far worse to 
suffer than suffer than death itself. Witness 

death. tne Lacedaemonian boy, taken by 

Antigonus, and sold for a slave, who, being 
by his new master commanded to some base 
employment : " Thou shalt see," says the boy, 
" whom thou ha.st bought ; it would be a shame 
for me to serve, being within reach of liberty ;" 
and, having so said, threw himself from the top 
of the house. Antipater severely threatening 
the Lacedaemonians, in order to make them 
acquiesce in a certain demand of his : " If thou 
threaten us with more than death," replied they, 
41 we shall the more willingly die." And to 
Philip, having writ them word that he would 
frustrate all their enterprises: "What! wilt 
thou also hinder us from dying?" This is the 
meaning of the sentence, " That the wise man 
lives as long as he ought, not so long as he 
can;" 3 and that the most obliging present Na- 
ture has made us, and which takes from us all 
colour of complaint of our condition, is to have 
delivered into our own custody the keys of life. 
She has only ordered one door into life, but a 
hundred thousand out of it. We may be straitened 
for earth to live upon, but earth sufficient to die 
upon can never be wanting ; as Bojocalus an- 



swered the Romans. 4 Why dost thou complain 
of this world? it detains thee not. If thou 
livest in pain, thy own cowardice _ . . 

, mi • Death depends 

is the cause, there remains no upon the will. 

more to die, but to be willing to 

die: 

Ubique mors est; optime hoc cavit Deus. 
Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest; 
At nemo mortem: mille ad hanc aditus patent. 6 

"Tender of human woes, indulgent fate 
Has left to death an ever-open gate; 
There's not a person on the earth hut may 
Take any fellow-creature's life away; 
And any man that will may yield his breath, 
There are a thousand ways that lead to death." 

Neither is it a recipe for one disease; death 
does not merely relieve us of one particular 
malady, 'tis the infallible cure of all, an assured 
port that is never to be feared, and very often to 
be sought: it comes all to one point, whether a 
man gives himself his end, or stays to receive 
it; whether he pays before his day, or stay 
till his day of payment comes. Whencesoever 
it comes, it is still his ; in what part soever the 
thread breaks, there's the end of the clue ; the 
most voluntary death is the finest. Life depends 
upon the will of others, death upon our own. 
There is nothing in which we ought not to 
accommodate ourselves to our own humour so 
much as in that. Reputation is not concerned 
in such an enterprise; and it's a folly to be 
diverted by any such apprehensions. Living is 
slavery, if the liberty of dying be away. The 
ordinary method of cure is carried on at the 
expense of life; they torment us with caustics, 
incisions, and amputations of limbs, interdicting 
aliments, and exhausting our blood; one 
further, and we are cured indeed. Why ' 
the jugular vein as much at our disposal as the 
median ? 5 For a desperate disease, a desperate 
cure, Servius, the grammarian, having the 
gout, could advise of no better remedy than to 
apply poison to his legs to deprive them of their 
sense; 7 let them be gouty if they will, so 
they are but insensible of pain. God gives us 
leave enough, when he is pleased to reduce us 
to such a condition than to live is far worse 
than to die. 'Tis weakness to truckle under 
infirmities, but 'tis madness to cherish them. 
The Stoics say 8 that it is living according to 
nature in a wise man to take his leave of life 
even in the height of prosperity, provided he 
does it opportunely ; and in a fool to prolong it 
though he be miserable, if he is not indigent of 
those things which are reputed the necessaries 
of life. As I do not offend the law provided 
against thieves when I embezzle my own 
money and cut my own purse, nor that against 
incendiaries, when I burn my own wood ; so 
am I not under the lash of those made against 
murderers, for having deprived myself of my 



i In the Timmus. 

2 This and the four following instances are taken from 

I'l'llan'li, Jii>t>lhc<!ms vf the LaccJa inoitians. 

3 Seneca, Epist. 70. i Tacitus, Annal. xiii. 56. 
e Seneca, Thcbaid, i. 1, 151. 



IStlCS, 

ding 
: step 
is not 



« Seneca, Epist. 69 and 70 ; whence the greater part of 
these remarks are taken. 

' Pliny, JVaf. Hist. xxv. 3. Suetonius, de Illust ^ 
c. 2. 

o ('urn,, de Finibus, in. 18. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



187 



own life. Hegesias said that as the condition 
of life did, so the condition of death ought to 
depend upon our own choice. 1 And Diogenes 
meeting the philosopher Speusippus, so blown 
up with an inveterate dropsy that he was fain 
to be carried in a litter, and being by him sa- 
luted with "Health to thee, Diogenes;" "No 
health to thee," replied the other, "who con- 
sentest to live in such a condition." And in 
truth, not long after, Speusippus, weary of so 
languishing a state of life, killed himself. 2 
But this does not pass without admitting a 

dispute : for many are of opinion 
Suicide proiii- that we cannot quit this garrison 
•"j]('i'to b hc 'mi'i'' of ' t ' ie wor ^ without express com- 
isi"'<i'iii"t'iw""" mand of him who has placed us 
otiicr world. in it ; and that it belongs to God 

alone, who has placed us here, 
not for ourselves only, but for his giory and the 
service of others, to dismiss us when it shall 
best please him, and not for us to depart without 
his license ; that we are not born for ourselves 
only, but for our country also, the laws of 
which require an account from us, upon the 
6Core of their own interest, and have an action 
of manslaughter good against us; or, if these 
fail to take cognizance of the fact, we are 

Sunished in the other world as deserters of our 
uty : 

Proxima deinde tenent mcesti loca, qui sibi lethum 
Insontes pepercro manu, lucemque perosi 
Projecere animas. 9 

"The next in place and punishment are they 
Who prodigally threw their souls away — 
Fools, who, repining at their wretched state, 
And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate." 

There is more constancy in suffering the chain 
we are tied in than in breaking it, and more 
evidence of fortitude in Regulus than in Cato. 
'Tis indiscretion and impatience that pushes us 
on. No misfortunes can make true virtue turn 
her back ; she seeks and requires pain and grief 
as her aliment. The menaces of tyrants, racks, 
and tortures, serve only to animate and rouse 
her; 

Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus 
Nigral feraci frondis in Algido, 
Per damna, per ccedes, ab ipso 
Ducit opes, animumque ferro:* 

" Are like an oak upon the wooden top 
Of shaded Algidus, bestrew'd with leaves, 

■s its green honours lop, 
ough losses, no decay can feel, 
"■' spirit from the steel." 



Collecting strengtl 
And, as the other says 



Noii est, ut putas, virtus, pater, 
Tiineie viiain ; sed uialis ingentibus 
Obstare, nee se vertcre, ac retro dare. 8 

'That fear to live is virtue, you contend, 
This point, my lather, you can ne'er defend: 

Thai 's virtue which can evils "real willlstand, 
And not retreat, no. shin to either hand." 



I.aertius, in vita. 

Id. ib. 
i . Knn.l, vi, 434. 
I Horace, Qd, iv. 4.57. 
I Seneca, Thcbaid, i. verse l'JO. 



Or as this : 



'Tis cowardice, not virtue, to lie squat in a 
furrow under a tomb, to evade the blows of 
fortune. Virtue never stops nor goes out of 
her path for the greatest storm that blows: 

Si fractus illahatur orbis 
Impavidum ferient ruinse. 7 



And for the most part, the flying of other 
inconveniencies brings us to this; endeavouring 
to evade death, we run into the jaws of it: 

Hie, rogo, non furor est, 



"Can there he greater madness, prav replv, 
Than that one should for fear of dying die?" 

like those who, for fear of a precipice, throw 
themselves headlong into it : 

Multos in summa pericula misit 
Venturi timor ipse mali : fortissimusille est. 
Qui promptus metuenda pati, si cominus instent, 
Et ditferre potest. 

" The fear of future ills oft makes men run 
Into far worse than those they strive to shun; 
But he deserves the noblest character, 
Dares boldly stand the mischiefs he doth fear. 
When they confront him, and appear in view. 
And can defer at least if not eschew." 

Usque adeo, mortis formidine, vita} 
Percipit humanos odium, hicisque videndte. 
Ut sibi consciscant ma.-renti pectore lethum, 
Obliti fontein curarem hunc esse timorem. 10 



"Death unto that degree doih some men fright, 
That, causing them to hate both life and light, 
They kill themselves, thus seeming not aware 
That this same fear 's the fountain of their care." 

Plato, in his Laws, 11 assigns an ignominious 
sepulture to him who has deprived his nearest 
and best friend, namely himself; of life and his 
destined course of years, being neither com- 
pelled so to do by public judgment, by any sad 
and inevitable accident of fortune, nor by any 
insupportable disgrace, but merely pushed on 
by the cowardice and imbecility of a timorous 
soul. And the opinion that makes so little of 
life is ridiculous; for it is our being, 'tis all we 
have. Things of a nobler and more elevated 
being may indeed accuse this of ours; but it 
is against nature for us to contemn and make 
little account of ourselves; 'tis a disease par- 
ticular to man, and not seen in any other 
creatures, to hate and despise itself. It is a 
vanity of the same stamp, to desire to be some- 
thing else than what we are. The effects of 
such a desire do not touch us, forasmuch as it 
is contradicted and hindered in itself. He that, 
desires to be changed from man into angel does 
nothing for himself; he would be never the 



Martial, xi. 56, 1 
Horace, Od. iii. 3 

I Martial, ii. 80. 2 
Luc. vii. nif. 

Lucret. iii. ?!). 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



better for it; for being no more who would 
there be to rejoice, or even be sensible of this 
benefit for him 1 

Debet enim, misere cui forte, tegreque futurum est, 
Ipse quoque esse in eo turn tempore, cum male possit 
Accidere.i 



Security, indolence, impassibility, and the 
privation of the evils of life, which we pretend 
to purchase at the price of dying-, are of no 
manner of advantage to us. That man evades 
war to very little purpose that can have no 
fruition of peace. And for as little does he 
avoid toil who cannot enjoy repose. 

Amongst those of the first of these two opi- 
nions, there has been great de- 
Wh.at , are tne bate ; what occasions are sufficient 

justest reasons . ' .- , , . 

for suicide. to justify the determination to 

kill one's-self, which they call 
siitoyov ^ayu>y/jv, 2 "a reasonable handsome 
exit ;" for though they say that men may die 
from trivial causes, seeing those that detain us 
in life are of no very great weight ; yet there 
is to be some limit to this. There are fantastic 
and senseless humours that have prompted not 
only particular men, but whole nations, to des- 
troy themselves, of which I have elsewhere 
given some examples; and we further read of 
the Milesian virgins that by an insane compact 
they hanged themselves, one after another, 'till 
the magistrate took order in it, enacting that 
the bodies of such as should be found so hanged 
should be drawn by the same halter, stark 
naked through the city. 3 When Therycion 
expected Cleomenes to dispatch himself, by 
reason of the ill posture of his affairs, and 
having evaded the death of most honour in the 
battle he had lost, to accept of this, the second 
in honour to it, and not to give the conquerors 
opportunity to make him undergo either an 
ignominious death or an infamous life; Cleo- 
menes, with a courage truly stoic and Lace- 
daemonian, rejected his counsel as unmanly and 
poor : " That," said he, " is a remedy that can 
never be wanting, and which a man never should 
make use of while there is an inch of hope 
remaining;" telling him "that it sometimes 
showed firmness and valour to live; that he 
would that even his death should be of use to 
his country ; and that he would make of it an 
act of honour and virtue." 4 Therycion thought 
himself in the right, and did his own business ; 
and Cleomenes after did the same, but not till he 
had first tried the utmost malevolence of fortune. 



All the inconveniencies in the world are not 
considerable enough that a man should die to 
evade them ; and, besides there being so many 
sudden changes in human things, it is hard 
ghtly to judge when we are at the end of 
our hope : 

Sperat ( 



All things, says the old adage, are to be 
hoped for by a man whilst he lives. " Aye," 
replies Seneca, "but why should this rather be 
always running in a man's head that fortune 
can do all things for the living man, than this, 
that fortune has no power over him that knows 
how to die V 6 We see Josephus when engaged 
in near and apparent danger, a whole people 
being risen up against him, and no visible 
means of escape, and being, as himself says, 7 
in this extremity counselled by one of his 
friends to dispatch himself, yet do well to main- 
tain himself in hope; for fortune, beyond all 
human expectation, so changed the face of 
things that he saw himself delivered without 
any manner of inconvenience. Whereas Bru- 
tus and Cassius, on the contrary, 
threw away the remains of the J )eaths £ atal b y 

r> 'it * c i.- . ,, having been 

Roman liberty, of which they precipitant, 
were the sole protectors, by the 
precipitation and temerity wherewith they 
killed themselves before the proper time and 
occasion. MoHsieur d'Anguien, at the battle 
of Serisolles, twice attempted to cut his throat, 
despairing of the fortune of the day, which 
went, indeed, very untowardly on that side of 
the field where he was engaged, and by that 
precipitation was very near depriving himself 
of the joy and honour of so glorious a victory. 3 
I have seen a hundred hares escape out of the 
very teeth of the greyhounds ; Aliquis carni- 
fici suo superstes fuit. "Some have survived 
their intended executioners." 

Multa dies, variusque labor mntabilis am 

Retulit in melius: multos alterna revisens 

Lusit, et in solido rursos fortuna locavit. 9 

"Good unexpected, evils unforeseen, 

Appear in turns as fortune shifts the scene. 

Some, raised aloft, come tiinib'ing down amain, 

Then fall so hard they bound and rise again." 

Pliny says there are only three sorts of dis- 
eases to escape any of which a Whaf ca|igeg 
man has good title to destroy may induce a 
himself; the worst of which is man to kill 
the stone in the bladder, when mmself - 
the urine is supprest. 10 Seneca says those only 



i Lucret. iii. 874 

2 This was the expression of the Stoics ; see Diogenes, 
Laertius, viii. 130, 
s Plutarch, On the virtuous deeds of Women. 
4 Id. Lives of J3<s't* and C/eomnies, c. 14. 
6 Pentadius, De Spe. apud Virgil. Catalecta. 
« Seneca. Epist. 70. 
' In his Life. p. 1009. 

8 Montluc's Commentaires. The battle was fought in 
]544. 

9 JEneii, xi. 425. 



io "In the quarto edition of these Essays, in 1.588," re- 
marks M. Coste, •' Pliny is said to mention two more, viz., 
a pain in the stomach, and the head-ache, which, he says, 
lib. xxv. cap. ;i, were the only three distempers, almost, for 
which men killed themselves. As to their right of killing 
themselves, he does not mention a word of it here; and I 
cannot conceive why .Montaigne, who, at first, entered tho- 
roughly into Pliny's sense, by sayiint that, according tothis 
author, it was the custom for men to kill themselves, in 
order to be rid of any one of these three distempers, made 
him say afterwards that they iiad a right to kill themselves 
for this very end." 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



189 



which for a long time discompose the functions 
of the soul. Some there have been who, to 
avoid a worse, have chosen a death of their own 
liking. Democritus, general of the ^Etolians, 
being brought prisoner to Rome, found means 
to make his escape by night; but being closely 
pursued by his keepers, rather than suffer him- 
self to be retaken, he fell upon his own sword 
and died. 1 Antinous and Theodotus, their city 
of Epirus being reduced by the Romans to the 
last extremity, gave the people counsel to kill 
themselves; but, the advice of giving them- 
selves up to the enemy prevailing, they went to 
seek death, rushing furiously upon the enemy, 
with an intention to strike home, but not to 
defend a blow. 2 The Island of Gozo 3 being 
forced some years ago by the Turks, a Sicilian, 
who had two beautiful daughters marriageable, 
killed them both with his own hand, and their 
mother, running in to save them, to boot ; 
which having done, sallying out of the house 

i with a cross-bow and a harquebuss, with those 
two shots he killed two of the Turks nearest to 
his door, and drawing his sword charged furi- 
ously in amongst the rest, where he was sud- 
denly enclosed and cut to pieces; by that means 
delivering his family and himself from slavery 
and dishonour. The Jewish women, after hav- 
ing circumcised their children, threw themselves 
down a precipice to avoid the cruelty of Anti- 
gonus. I have been told of a gentleman in one 
of our prisons, whose friends being informed he 

! would certainly be condemned, to avoid the 
ignominy of such a death, suborned a priest to 
tell him that the only means of deliverance was 
to recommend himself to such a saint under 
such and such vows, and fast eight days toge- 
ther without taking any manner of nourish- 
ment, what weakness or faintness soever he 
might find in himself during the time. He 
followed their advice, and by that means 
destroyed himself before he was aware, not 
dreaming of death or any danger in the expe- 
riment. Scribonia advising her nephew Libo 
to kill himself, rather than to attend the stroke 
of justice, told him " that it was to do other 
people's business to preserve his life, to put it 
after into the hands of those who, within three 
or four days, would come and fetch him to 
execution ; and that it was to serve his enemies 

1 to keep his blood to gratify their malice." 4 We 
read in the Bible that Nicanor, 5 the persecutor 
of the law of God, having sent his soldiers to 
seize upon the good old man Razias, surnamed, 
in honour of his virtue, the Father of the Jews; 

< the good man seeing no other remedy, his gates 
burnt down, and the enemies ready to seize him, 
choosing rather to die generously than to fall 
into the hands of his wicked adversaries, and 
6uffer himself to be cruelly butchered by them, 



» I.ivy, xxxvii. 36. » Id. xlv. 2G. 

• A small island to the west of Malta and not far from it 

• Suncca. P.pist. 70. 

» Maccabees, ii. 14, 37. 

• St. Ambrose, dc Firg. iii. 



contrary to the honour of his rank and quality, 
he stabbed himself with his own sword ; but 
the blow, from haste, not having been given 
home, he ran and threw himself from the top of 
a wall headlong among them, who separating 
themselves and making room, he pitched di- 
rectly upon his head. Notwithstanding which, 
feeling yet in himself some remains of life, he 
renewed his courage, and, starting up upon his 
feet, all bloody and wounded as he was, and 
making his way through the crowd, ran to a 
neighbouring precipice, but, not being able to 
reach the edge, through one of his wounds, he 
drew out his bowels, which, tearing and pulling 
to pieces with both his hands, he threw amongst 
his pursuers, all the while attesting and invok- 
ing the divine vengeance upon them. 

Of violence offered to the conscience, that 
against the chastity of woman is, . , „,„;„,„„„. 

. <= . . J ' Acts of violence 

in my opinion, the most to be committed on 
avoided, forasmuch as there is a t" e chastity of 
certain pleasure naturally mixed 
with it; and for that reason the dissent cannot 
be sufficiently perfect and entire, so that the 
violence seems to be mixed with a little consent 
of the forced party. The Ecclesiastical History 
marks with favour several examples of devout 
persons who have embraced death to secure 
them from the outrages prepared by tyrants 
against their religion and honour. Of Pelagia 6 
and Sophronia, 7 both canonized, the first preci- 
pitated herself with her mother and sisters into 
the river, to avoid being forced by some soldiers, 
and the last also killed herself to escape being 
ravished by the Emperor Maxentius. 

It may peradventure be an honour to us in 
future ages, that a learned author of this present 
time, and a Parisian, too, takes a great deal of 
pains to persuade the ladies of our age, rather 
to take any other course than to enter into the 
horrid meditation of such an act of despair. 1 
am sorry he had never heard (that he might 
have inserted it amongst his other stories) 
the saying of a woman, which was told me at 
Toulouse, who had passed through the handling 
of some soldiers, — "God be praised," said she, 
"that once at least in my life I have had my fill 
without sin!" Truly, these cruelties are very 
unworthy the French sweetness and good- 
nature; and indeed, God be thanked, our air 
is very well purged of it since this good advice. 
'Tis enough that they say No, in doing it, ac- 
cording to the rule of the good Marot. 9 

History is everywhere full of such as, in a 
thousand ways, have for death exchanged a 
painful and irksome life. Lucius 
Aruntius killed himself, to fly, he gea«J P^™; 
said, both the future and the past. 9 rauic life. 
Granins Silvanus and Statius 
Proximus, after having been pardoned by Nero, 



7 Riifinus, Hist. Eccles. viii. 27. 

9 In an episram, entitled "Yea and Nay," which begin* 
" (Jn doux Nenny avec un doux Sourire," i. e. "One soft 
nay, nay, with a sweet smile." 

» Tacit. Annal vi. *3. 



190 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



killed themselves ; ' either disdaining to live by 
the favour of so wicked a man, or that they 
might not be troubled at some other time to 
obtain a second pardon, considering his facility 
to suspect, and credit accusations against, wor- 
thy men. Spargapizez, the son of Queen 
Thomyris, being a prisoner of war to Cyrus, 
made use of the first favour Cyrus showed him, 
in commanding him to be unbound, to kill 
himself; having sought no other benefit of 
liberty but only to be avenged of himself for 
the disgrace of being taken. 2 Bogez, governor 
in Eiona for King Xerxes, being besieged by 
the Athenian army under the conduct of Cimon, 
refused the conditions offered, that he might 
return safe into Asia with all his wealth, un- 
able to survive the loss of a place his master 
had given him to keep ; wherefore, having de- 
fended the city to the last extremity, nothing 
being left to eat, he first threw the gold, and 
whatever else the enemy could make booty of, 
into the river Strymon, and, after causing a 
great pile to be set on fire, and the throats of 
all his wives, children, concubines, and servants, 
to be cut, he threw their bodies into the fire, 
and at last leaped into it himself. 3 

Ninachetuen, an Indian lord, so soon as he 
heard the first whisper of the Portuguese vice- 
roy's determination to dispossess 
Remarkable him, without any apparent cause, 

death of an In- . ' j • m- 1 .. 

dian of quality, of the command in Malaca, to 
transfer it to the King of Cam par, 
took this resolution with himself. He caused 
a scaffold, longer than broad, to be erected, 
supported by columns, royally adorned with 
tapestry, and strewed with flowers and abun- 
dance of perfumes; all which being thus pre- 
pared, in a robe of cloth of gold, set full of 
jewels of great value, he came out into the 
street, and mounted the steps to the scaffold, at 
one corner of which he ha'd a lighted pile of 
aromatic wood. Everybody ran to see to what 
end these unusual preparations were made: 
when Ninachetuen, with a manly but discon- 
tented countenance, began to remonstrate how 
much he had obliged the Portuguese nation, 
and with what fidelity he had carried himself 
in his charge; that having so often, with his 
sword in his hand, manifested, in the behalf of 
others, that honour was much more dear to him 
than life, he was not to abandon the concern of 
it for himself. That, fortune denying him all 
the means of opposing the affront designed to 
be put upon him, his courage at least enjoined 
him to free himself from the sense of it, and not 
to serve for a table-talk to the people, nor for 
a triumph to men less deserving than him- 
self; which having said, he leaped into the 
fire. 

Sextilia, the wife of Scaurus, and Paxea, the 
wife of Labeo, to encourage their husbands to 



i Tacit. Annul. 
a Herod, i. 213. 
s Id. vii. 107. 



evade the dangers that pressed 
upon them, wherein they had no ^yo wome^ 
other share than from mere con- se ivea to death, 
jugal affection, voluntarily gave to encourage 
up their own lives, to serve them, Jjf^ 5S?bmb3. 
in this extreme necessity, for com- 
pany and example. 4 What they did for their 
husbands, Cocceius Nerva did for his country, 
with less utility, though with equal affection. 
This great lawyer, flourishing in health, riches, 
reputation, and favour with the emperor, had 
no other cause to kill himself but the sole com- 
passion of the miserable estate of the Roman 
Republic. 5 Nothing can add to the grace of 
the death of the wife of Fulvius, a favourite of 
Augustus. Augustus having discovered that 
he or his wife had blabbed an important secret 
he had entrusted him withal, one morning that 
he came to his court received him very coldly. 
He returned home full of despair, and sorrow- 
fully told his wife that, being fallen into this 
misfortune, he was resolved to kill himself. 
To which she replied, "'Tis but reason you 
should, seeing that, having so often experienced 
the incontinency of my tongue, you could not 
take caution against it. But let me kill myself 
first;" and, without any more dispute, ran her- 
self through the body with a sword. 6 

Vibius Virius, despairing of the safety of his 
city besieged by the Romans, and likewise of 
their mercy, in the last deliberation of his city's 
senate, after many remonstrances conducing to 
that end, concluded that the most noble means 
to escape fortune was by their own hands : — 
telling them that the enemy would have them 
in honour, and Hannibal would be sensible how 
many faithful friends he had abandoned; in- 
viting those who approved of his advice to go 
take a good supper he had ready at home, 
where, after they had eaten well, they would 
drink together of what he had prepared; a 
beverage, said he, that will deliver our bodies 
from torments, our souls from injury, and our 
eyes and ears from the sense of so many hateful 
mischiefs as the conquered are to suffer from 
angry and implacable conquerors. "I have," 
said he, "taken order for fit persons to throw 
our bodies in a funeral pile' before my door so 
soon as we are dead." Many approved this 
high resolution, few adopted it: seven-and- 
twenty senators followed him, who, after having 
tried to drown the thought of this fatal deter- 
mination in wine, ended the feast with the 
mortal mess, and embracing one another, after 
they had jointly deplored the misfortune of 
their country, some retired home to their own 
houses, others stayed to be burned with Vibius 
in his funeral pile; and were all of them so 
long a dying, the vapour of the wine having 
prepossessed the veins, and by that means defer- 
ring the effect of the poison, that some of them 



I Tacit. Annal. vi. 29. 

i Id. ib. 

' Plutarch, On Talking too much. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



191 



were within an hour of seeing the enemy 
within the walls of Capua, which was taken 
the next morning, and of undergoing the mi- 
series they had at so dear a rate endeavoured 
to evade. 1 Taurea Jubellius, another citizen of 
the same country^seeing the consul, Fulvius, 
returning from the shameful butchery he had 
made on this occasion of two hundred and 
twenty-five senators, called him back fiercely 
by his name, and having made him stop, 
"Give the word," said he, "that somebody 
ma} 7 dispatch me after the massacre of so many 
others, that thou mayest boast to have killed 
a much more valiant man than thyself." Ful- 
vius, disdaining him as a man out. of his wits, 
and as also having received letters from Rome, 
contrary to the inhumanity of this execution, 
which tied his hands, Jubellius proceeded ; — 
"Since my country being taken, my friends 
dead, and having with my own hands slain my 
wife and children to rescue them from desolation 
and ruin, I am denied to die the death of my 
fellow-citizens, let us borrow from virtue ven- 
geance on this hated life !" and drawing a 
sword he carried concealed about him, he ran 
it through his own bosom, falling down back- 
ward and expiring at the consul's feet. 

Alexander, laying siege to a city of the 
Indies, those within, finding themselves very 
hardly pressed, put on a vigorous resolution to 
deprive him of the pleasure of his victory, and 
accordingly burned themselves in general, to- 
gether with their city, in spite of all his efforts 
to save them : a new kind of war, where the 
enemies sought to rescue them, and they to kill 
themselves, doing, to make themselves sure of 
death, all that men do to secure their lives. 3 

Astapa, a city of Spain, finding itself too 
weak in walls and defence to withstand the 
Romans, the inhabitants made a heap of all 
their riches and furniture in the public place, 
and, having ranged upon this heap all the wo- 
men and children, and piled them round with 
wood and other combustible matter to take 
sudden fire, and left fifty of their young men 
for the execution of that whereon they had re- 
solved ; they made a desperate sally, where, for 
want of power to overcome, they caused them- 
selves to be every man slain. The fifty, after 
having massacred every living soul throughout 
the whole city, and put fire to this pile, threw 
themselves lastly into it, finishing their generous 
liberty rather in an insensible, than after a sor- 
rowful and disgraceful, manner, and showing 
the enemy that, if fortune had been so pleased, 
they had the courage as well to take the victory 
out of their hands as to frustrate and render 
it dreadful, and even mortal, to those who, 
allured by the glitter of the gold melting in 
this flame, having approached it, were in great 
numbers there suffocated and burned, being 



kept from retiring by the crowd that followed 
them. 4 

The Abydeans, being pressed by King Philip, 
put on the same resolution, but, being come 
upon too suddenly, they could not put it jn 
effect; the king, however, who abhorred to see 
the precipitate rashness of tins execution, (the 
treasure and moveables which they had con- 
demned to fire and water being first seized,) 
drawing off his soldiers, granted them three 
days' time to kill themselves in, that they might 
do it with more order and at greater ease ; which 
space they filled with blood and slaughter, 
beyond the utmost excess of all hostile cruelty, 
so that not so much as any one soul was left 
alive that had the power to destroy itself. 5 There 
are infinite examples of like popular conclusions, 
which seem the more tremendous by how much 
the effect is more universal, and yet are really 
less than when singly executed. What argu- 
ments and persuasions cannot make upon 
individuals, they can do upon all, the ardour of 
society imposing upon particular judgments. 

The condemned who waited to be executed, 
in the reign of Tiberius, forfeited their goods, 
and were denied the rites of sepulture; but 
those who, by killing themselves, did anticipate 
it, were interred, and had liberty to dispose of 
their estates by will. 6 

But men sometimes covet death out of hope 
of a greater good. " I desire," says St. Paul, 7 
" to be dead, that I may be with 
Christ;" and " who shall rid me g"****, 
of these bonds: Cleombrotus a greater good. 
Ambraciota, 8 having read Plato's 
Phffido, entered into so great a desire of the 
life to come that without any other occasion 
he threw himself into the sea. By which it 
appears how improperly we call this voluntary 
dissolution despair, to which the eagerness of 
hope does often incline us, and often a calm and 
temperate desire, proceeding from a mature and 
considerate judgment. JaquesduChastel, Bishop 
of Soissons, in St. Louis's foreign expedition, 
seeing the king and the whole army upon the 
point of returning into France, leaving the 
affairs of religion imperfect, took a resolution 
rather to go into Paradise ; wherefore, having 
taken solemn leave of his friends, he charged 
alone, in the sight of every one, into the ene- 
my's army, where he was presently cut to 
pieces. In a certain kingdom of the New 
World, upon a day of solemn procession, when 
the Idol they adore is drawn about in public 
upon a car of wonderful size ; besides that seve- 
ral are then seen cutting off pieces of their flesh ' 
to offer to him, there are a number of others 
who prostrate themselves to be crushed an;', 
broken to pieces with the weighty wheels, to 
obtain the veneration of sanctity after their 
death, which is accordingly paid them. The 



> Livy, xxvi. 13. 

i. wii. 1c 
" I.ny, v.wiii. -.►■.>. 



'Tarittis. J}nnnls, vi. 29. 
! Epist. to the P/nlipp. u. I. 

: Or u( jjinl/racia, Cicero, 7Vsc. Q«<rs, 






192 



MONTAIGNE S ESSAYS. 



death of the fore-named bishop, with his sword 
in his hand, has more of gallantry in it, and 
less of feeling, the ardour of combat taking 
away part of the latter. 

There are some governments who have taken 
upon them to regulate the justice and oppor- 
tunity of voluntary deaths. In former times 
there was kept, in our city of 
Poison kept Marseilles, a poison prepared out 
the P P u r bFic r e e x- at of hemlock at the public charge, 
pense for such for those who had a mind to 

WmIkeus C e lined haSten lheir end ' llavin ? firSt 
of it. before the Six Hundred, which 

were their senate, giving an ac- 
count of the reasons and motives of their de- 
sign, and it was not otherwise lawful than by 
leave from the magistrate, and upon just oc- 
casion, to do violence to themselves. The same 
law was also in use in other places. 

Sextus Pompeius, in his expedition into Asia, 
touching at the Isle of Cea, in Negropont, it 
accidentally happened while he was there, as 
we have it from one that was with him, 1 that a 
woman of great quality having given an ac- 
count to her citizens why she was resolved to 
put an end to her life, invited Pompeius to her 
death, to render it the more honourable ; an 
invitation that he accepted, and having long 
tried in vain, by the power of his eloquence, 
which was very great, to divert her from that 
design, he acquiesced at last to grant her re- 
quest. She had passed four-score and ten 
years in a very happy state both of body and 
mind; but being then laid on her bed, belter 
drest than ordinary, and leaning upon her 
elbow: "The Gods," said she, "O, Sextus 
Pompeius, and rather those I leave than those 
I go to seek, reward thee, for that thou hast 
not disdained to be both the counsellor of my 
life, and the witness of my death. For my 
part, having always experienced the smiles of 
fortune, for fear lest the desire of living too 
long may make me see a contrary fate, I am 
going by a happy end to dismiss the remains of 
my soul, leaving behind two daughters and a 
legion of nephews." Which, having said, and 
having exhorted her family to live in union and 
peace, she divided amongst them her goods, 
and recommending her domestic gods to her 
eldest daughter, she took with a firm hand the 
bowl that contained the poison, and, having 
made her vows and prayers to Mercury to con- 
duct her to some happy abode in the other 
world, drank off the mortal potion, which 
% having done, she entertained the company with 
the progress of its operation, and how the cold 
by degrees seized the several parts of her body, 
one after another, till, having in the end told 
them it began to seize upon her heart and 
bowels, she called her daughters to do their 
last office and close her eyes. 

Pliny 2 tells us of a certain hyperborean na- 
tion, where, by reason of the sweet temperature 



Val. Max. ii. 6. 1 



of the air, lives did rarely end but by the volun- 
tary surrender of the inhabitants; but that, 
being weary of and satiated with 
life, they had a custom, at a very I h ' T? 1 , ^ 

, .' J „ . . ' , ', death of the 

old age, after having made good Hyperboreans, 
cheer, to precipitate themselves 
into the sea from the top of a certain rock, 
destined for that service. Pain, and the fear 
of a worse death, seem to me the most excusa- 
ble incitements. 



CHAPTER IV. 

BUSINESS TO-MORROW. 

Of all our French writers, I give, with justice, 
I think, the palm to Jaques Amiot, as well for 
the propriety and purity of his Ae . 
language, in which he excels all on Amiot, the 
others, as his application and pa- translator of 
tience in going through so long a lutalch - 
work, and the depth of his learning and judg- 
ment in having been able to unravel and explain 
so difficult an author ; (for let people say what 
they please, I understand nothing of Greek, 
but I meet with sense so well connected and 
maintained throughout his whole translation that 
certainly he either knew the true imagination 
of the author, or having, by long conversation 
with him, planted in his soul a thorough and 
lively idea of that of Plutarch, at least he has 
lent him nothing that either contradicts or dis- 
honours him;) but what I am most pleased 
with him for is the discreet choice he has made 
of so noble and useful a book to make a present 
of to his country. We ignorant people had 
been undone had not this book raised us out of 
the mire; by its favour we dare both speak and 
write; by it the ladies are able to school their 
schoolmasters : 'tis our breviary. If this good 
man lived, I would desire him to do as much for 
Xenophon: 'tis a much easier task than the 
other, and consequently more proper for his 
age. And besides, I know not how, but me- 
thinks, though he briskly and clearly enough 
gets over steps another would have stumbled 
at, that nevertheless his style is more his own 
where he does not encounter those difficulties, 
and rolls on at its ease. 

I was just now reading that passage where 
Plutarch says of himself, that Rusticus, being 
present at a declamation of his in Rome, he 
there received a packet from the emperor, and 
deferred to open it till all was over: for which, 
says he, all the company highly applauded the 
gravity of this person. 'Tis true, that his dis- 
course being upon Curiosity, and that eager 
passion for news which makes us, with so mnch 
indiscretion and impatience, quit all things to 
entertain a new comer, and, without any man- 
ner of respect or civility, tear open on a sudden, 
in what company soever, the letters that are 

2 JVM. Hist. iv. 12. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



193 



livored to us, he had reason to applaud the 
rtity of Rusticus upon this occasion; and 
jht moreover have added to it the commen- 
dation of his civility and courtesy, that would 
t interrupt the course of his declamation. 
But I doubt whether any one can commend his 
wk.ice; for, receiving unexpected letters, 
d specially from an emperor, it might well 
v alien out that the deferring to read them 
z\ have been of great prejudice. The vice 
•pon.te to curiosity is negligence, to which I 
naturally incline, and which I 

?ncc the , J , 

e vice to nave secn some men so extremely 

ootity. guilty of that one might have 

found the letters that had been 

I rot to them three or four days before, still 
1 up in their pockets. 
1 never opened any letters directed to another, 
lot merely those entrusted with me, but even 
Such as chance has placed in my hand ; and am 
annoyed if my eyes unawares steal any con- 

| tents of letters of importance which a great man 

: is reading when I stand near him. Never was 
man less inquisitive, or less prying into other 
men's affairs than I am. 

In our fathers' days Monsieur de Boutieres 
had liked to have lost Turin from neglecting, 
he having company at that time with him at 
sup| er, to read an information that was sent 
him of a conspiracy against the city where he 
commanded. And this very Plutarch tells me 
that Julius Caesar had preserved himself, if, in 
going to the Senate the day he was assassi- 
nated by the conspirators, he had read a paper 
that was presented to him by the way ; and he 
tells also the story of Archias, tyrant of Thebes, 
that the night before the execution of the de- 
sign Pelopidas had laid to kill him, to restore 
Ins country to liberty, he had an account sent 
him in writing by another Archias, an Athe- 
nian, of the whole conspiracy, and that this 
packet having been delivered to him while he 
sat at supper, he deferred the opening of it, 
saying, which afterwards became a proverb in 
Greece, " Business to-morrow." l 

A wise man may, I confess, out of respect 
to another, as not indecorously to disturb the 
company, as Rusticus did, or not to break off 
another affair of importance in hand, defer to 
read or hear any new thing that is brought 
him ; but if for his own interest or particular 
pleasure, especially if he be a public minister, 
he will not interrupt his dinner, or break his 

! sleep, he is inexcusable. And there was an- 
ciently at Rome the Consular Place, as they 

j called it, which was the most honourable at the 

table, for being a place of most 

S&Mttbto libert y- and of more convenient 

tin: most acciis- access to those who came in to 

talk with the person seated there. 2 

By which it appears that, though 

at meals, they did not totally abandon the con- 



17 



cern of other affairs. But, when all is said, it 
is very hard in human actions to give so exact 
a rule, upon the best grounds of reason, that 
Fortune will not have a hand in them, and 
maintain her own right. 



CHAPTER V. 

OF CONSCIENCE. 

The Sieur de la Brousse my brother, and I, 
travelling one day together during the time of 
our civil wars, met a gentleman of good mien. 
He was of the contrary party to ours, though I 
did not know so much, for he pretended other- 
wise ; and the mischief is that, in this sort of 
war, the cards are so shuffled, an enemy not 
being distinguishable from a friend by any ap- 
parent mark, either of language or habit, 
nourished under the same laws, air, and man- 
ners, that it is very hard to avoid disorder and 
confusion. This made me afraid myself of 
meeting any of our troops in a place where I 
was not known, that I might not be in fear to 
tell my name, and peradventure of something 
worse; as it has befallen me before, where, by 
one of these mistakes, I lost both men and 
horses; and, amongst others, an Italian gentle- 
man, my page, whom I had bred with the 
greatest care and affection, was miserably killed 
— in whom a promising youth of great expecta- 
tion was blasted. But the gentleman that my 
brother and I met had so strange a fear upon 
him at the meeting of any horse, or passing by 
any of the towns belonging to the king, that I 
at last discovered them to be alarms of con- 
science, and the poor man seemed to be in such 
a condition as if through his vizard, and the 
crosses upon his cassock, one might have pene- 
trated into his bosom, and read the most secret 
intentions of his heart. So wonderful is the 
power of conscience, that it makes us betray, 
accuse, and fight against ourselves; and, for 
want of* other witnesses, to give evidence against 
ourselves, 



Occultum quatiens i 



tortorc flagellum.: 

ce, ne'er asleep, 
okes, not loud, but 



This story is in every child's mouth: 
the Pteonian, being reproached with wanton- 
ness, for pulling down a nest of young sparrows 
and killing them, replied he had reason so to do, 
seeing that those little birds never ceased falsely 
to accuse him of the murder of his father. This 
parricide had till then been concealed and un- 
known, but the revenging fury of conscience 
caused it to be discovered by himself, who was 
justly to suffer for it. 4 Hesiod corrects the say- 



194 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ing- of Plato, "That punishment 
closely follows sin ;" it being, as 
he says, born at the same time 
with it.. 1 Whoever expects pun- 
ishment, already suffers it ; whoever has de- 
served it, expects it. 2 Wickedness contrives 
torments against itself: Malum consilium, con- 
sultori pessimum: 3 " 111 designs fall out worse 
to the contriver:" as the wasp stings and 
offends another, but most of all itself; for it 
there loses its sting and its power for ever, 

Vitasque in vulnere ponunt.* 
"And in the wound which they inflict expire." 

Cantharides have somewhere about them, by 
a contrariety of nature, a counterpoison against 
their poison. 5 In like manner, at the same 
time that we take delight in vice, there springs 
in the conscience a displeasure that afflicts us 
sleeping and waking with many tormenting 
imaginations : 

Quippe ubi se multi, per somnia stepe loquentes, 
Aut morbo delirantes, protraxe ferantur, 
Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse.o 



" The sruiltv seldom th< 
Bu " 



counsel keep, 
n their sleep ; 



Hut oft will blab it ev'n in their sleep; 

Or, in a fever raging, will reveal 

Crimes which they long had labour'd to conceal." 

Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself 
flayed by the Scythians, and after boiled in a 
cauldron, and that his heart muttered these 
words : "lam the cause of all these mischiefs 
that have befallen thee." 7 Epicurus said that 
no hiding place can conceal the wicked, since 
they can never assure themselves of being 
hid, for their consciences discover them to 
themselves. 8 



As an ill conscience fills us with fear, so a 
good one gives us greater confidence and as- 
surance ; and I can truly say that I have gone 
through several hazards with a more steady 
pace, in consideration of the secret knowledge 
I had of my own will, and the innocence of 
my intentions : 



" Despotic conscience rules our hopes and fears." 

Of this there are a thousand examples ; but 
it will be enough to instance three of one and 
the same person. Scipio being one day accused 
before the people of Rome of a heavy crime, 



i Plutarch, On Divine Justice. 

2 Seneca, Epist. 105. 

s JSpui Aid. Oell. iv. 5. 

< Virg. Gcnrff. iv. 238. 

a Plutarch, on Divine Justice. 

« Lucret. v. 1157. 

' Plutarch, of the Delay of the Divine Justice, c. 9. This 
Apollodorus, who reigned like a true tyrant, was King of 
CutKmidria, in Macedonia. 



instead of excusing himself, or flattering t! 
judges: "It will become you well," said he* 
"to sit in judgment upon him 
by whom you have the power ^i n e 0C ""J? (lt ( 
to judge all the world."" And Scipio." Cy J ( 
another time all the answer he 
gave to several impeachments brought agaii at 
him by a tribune of the people, instead of 
making his defence: "Come, citizens," snid 
he, "let us go render thanks to the gods fori 
the victory they gave me over the Cart 
ginians on such a day ;" and marching hims 
before them towards the temple, he had p 
sently all the assembly, and his very accuser' 
himself, following at his heels. 12 And Peti 
having been set on by Cato to demand of him. 
an account of the money that had passed throrgh 
his hands in the province of Antioch, Sci no, 
being come into the senate for that purp »se, 
produced a book from under his robe, in which, 
he told them, was an exact account of his 
receipts and disbursements; but being requ red 
to deliver it to the secretary to be exam ied 
and enrolled, he refused, saying, "He wHild 
not do himself so great a disgrace ;" and ii *he 
presence of the whole senate tore the book . th 
his own hands to pieces. 13 I do not believe at 
a seared conscience could have counterfeit 
great an assurance. " He had naturall 
high a spirit, and was accustomed to too 
a fortune," says Titus Livius, " to know how 
to be criminal, and to dispose himself to the 
meanness of defending his innocency." 

The putting men to the rack is a dangerous 
invention, and seems to be rather 
a trial of patience than of truth. "EtaS^ 
Both he who has the fortitude to the rack, 
endure it conceals the truth, and 
he who has not. For why should pain sooner 
make me confess what really is, than force me 
to say what is not? And, on the contrary, if 
he who is not guilty of what he is accused of 
has the courage to undergo those torments, why 
should not he who is guilty have the same, so 
fair a reward as life being in his prospect? I 
think the ground of this invention proceeds 
from the consideration of the force of con- 
science: for to the guilty it seems to assist the 
rack to make him confess his fault and t,o 
shake his resolution ; and on the other side, 
that it fortifies the innocent against the torture. 
But when all is done, 'tis in plain truth a trial 
full of uncertainty and danger. What would 
not a man say, what would not a man do, to 
avoid such intolerable torments'? 

Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor." 
" Pain the most innocent will make to lie." 



6 Seneca, Epist. 97. 

o Juvenal, xiii. 2. 
io Ovid, Fast. i. 485. 

» Plutarch, How far a Man may praise Himself. 
12 Val. Max. iii. 7, t. 
is Livy, xxxviii. 54. 
H Publius Syrus, Maxims. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



195 



whence it comes to pass that he whom the 
judge has racked that he may not die innocent 
is made to die both innocent and racked. A 
thousand and a thousand have charged their 
own iieads by false confessions, amongst whom 
I place Philotas, considering the circumstances 
of the trial Alexander put him upon, and the 
progress of his torture. 1 "But so it is," say 
they, "that it is the least evil human weakness 
could invent:" very inhuman notwithstanding, 
and to very little purpose, in my opinion. 
Many nations, less barbarous in this than 
the Greeks and Romans who call 
til' r';'r'i/('on- them so, repute it horrible and 
cii-mneii by cruel to torment and pull a man 

and e w!iy ati0nS ' t0 P ieCeS fbr a faalt ° f which 

they are yet in doubt. How can 
it help your ignorance'! Are not you unjust, 
that, not to kill him without cause, do worse 
than kill him? And that this is so, do but 
observe by how many times he had rather die 
without reason than undergo this examination, 
more painful than execution itself; and which 
often, by its extremity, anticipates execution 
and dispatches him. I know not where I had 
this story, 2 but it exactly matches the conscience 
of our justice in this particular. A country- 
woman came to a general 3 of very severe dis- 
cipline, and accused one of his soldiers that he 
had taken from her children the little food she 
had left to nourish them withal, the army 
having consumed all the rest; but of this, 
proof there was none. The general cautioned 
the woman to take good heed to what she said, 
tor that she would make herself guilty of a 
false accusation, and should suffer the punish- 
ment due to it if she told a lie ; but she per- 
sisting, he presently caused the soldier's belly 
to be ripped up, to clear the truth of the tact, 
and the woman was found to be in the right. 
An instructive sentence. 



CHAPTER VI. 

USE MAKES PERFECT. 

'Tis not to be expected that reasoning and 

instruction, though we never so 

sir!!.-™ ,i' with- voluntarily surrender our belief to 

•mi practice, them, should he powerful enough 

make us to ] ea( ] „ s on gQ f ar as to ac tj 0I1; 

if we do not over and above 
exercise and form the soul by experience to 
the course for which we design it: it will 
otherwise doubtless find itself at a loss when it 
comes to the pinch of the business. This is the 
reason why those amongst the philosophers who 
were ambitious to attain to a greater excellence 



' dniiit. Curtins, vi. 7. 
3 It is in Froissart. 

» Itiija/.r-t Hie First, whom Froissart calls Amorabaquin — 
a name » 1V cn to this prince because lie was the son of 

Amorato. 



were not contented to await the severities of 
fortune in their retirement and repose, lest 6he 
should surprise them raw and unexpert in the 
combat; but sallied out to meet her, and pur- 
posely threw themselves into the proof of diffi- 
culties. Some of whom abandoned riches to 
exercise themselves in a voluntary poverty; 
others have sought out labour, and an austerity 
of life, to inure themselves to hardships and 
inconveniences; others have deprived them- 
selves of their dearest members, as of their eyes 
and instruments of generation, lest their too 
delightful and effeminate service should soften 
and relax the stability of their souls. 

But in dying, which is the greatest work we 
have to do, practice can give us no assistance. 
A man may by habit fortify himself against 
pain, shame, poverty, and such like misfor- 
tunes; but as to death, we can experience it 
but once, and are all apprentices when we 
come to it. 

There have anciently been men such excel- 
lent managers of their time that they have 
tried even in death itself to relish and taste it, 
and who have bent their utmost faculties of 
mind to discover what this passage is. But 
they are none of them come back to give an 
account of it : 

Nemo expergitus extat, 
Frigida quern semel est vitai pausa sequuta.* 

"No person e'er again awak'il to breath 
Who once was ciasp'd in the cold arms of death." 

Canius Julius, a noble Roman of singular 
firmness and virtue, having been 
condemned to die by that rascal ^J"™"',^'!; 
Caligula, besides many admirable Roman, who, 
testimonies that he gave of his " llLn dying, 
resolution, as he was just going "ffecurf de^th. 
to receive the stroke of the execu- 
tioner was asked by a philosopher, a friend of 
his, — " Well, Canius, whereabout is your soul 
now? What is she doing? — what are you 
thinking of?" "I was thinking," replied he, 
"to keep myself ready, and the faculties of 
my mind concentrated and fixed, to try if in 
this short and quick instant of death I could 
perceive the motion of the soul when she parts 
from the body, and whether she has any sense 
of the separation, that I may hereafter come 
again, if I can, to acquaint my friends with it." 5 
This man philosophizes not unto death only, 
but in death itself. What a strange assurance 
was this, what loftiness of courage, to desire 
his death should be a lesson to him, and to 
have leisure to think of other things in so great 
an affair ! 



Jus hoc animi morientis habebat. 8 
' This mast'ry of his mind he, dying, had.' 



* Lucrct. iii. 942. 

Seneca, de Ttanquillitate. 

• Luc. viii. 63C. 



196 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



And yet I fancy there is some way of making 
it familiar to us, and in some sort 
may, in some °f making trial what it is. We 
measure, make may gain experience of it, if not 
to mm femiUar entire and Perfect, yet such, at . 
least, as shall not be perfectly use- 1 
less to us ; and that may render us more assured, j 
If we cannot undertake it, we may approach it 
and view it ; and if we do not advance so far 
as to the fort, we may at least discover and 
make ourselves perfect in the avenues. 

It is not without reason that we are taught 
to consider Sleep as a resemblance 
Bleep the image of death : with how great facility 
of death. <]o we p ass f rom waking- to sleep- 

ing, and with how little concern 
do we lose the knowledge of light and of our- 
selves ! Perhaps the faculty of sleeping would 
seem useless and contrary to nature, since it 
deprives us of all action and sense, were it not i 
that by it nature instructs us that she has 
equally made us to die as to live, and from life 
presents us the eternal estate she reserves for 
us after it, to accustom us to it and to take 
from us the fear of it. But such as have by 
some violent accident fallen into a swoon, and 
in it have lost all sense, these, methinks, have 
been very near seeing the true and natural face 
of death ; for as to the moment of the passage, 
it is not to be feared that it brings with it any 
pain or displeasure, forasmuch as we can have 
no feeling w ithout leisure : our sufferings require 
time, which in death is so short and precipitous 
that it must necessarily be insensible. The ap- 
proaches are what we have to fear, and these 
may fall within the limits of experience. 

Many things seem greater by imagination 
than they are in effect. I have passed a good 
part of my age in a perfect and entire health ; 
I say not only entire, but moreover sprightly 
and wanton. This state, so full of verdure, 
jollity, and vigour, made the consideration of 
sickness so horrible to me, that, when I came to 
experience it, I found the attacks faint and 
easy, in comparison of what I had feared. Of 
this I have daily experience : if I am under the 
shelter of a warm room, in a stormy and tem- 
pestuous night, I wonder how people can live 
abroad, and am afflicted for those who are out 
in the field: if I am there myself, I do not 
wish to be anywhere else. This one thing of 
being always shut up in a chamber I fancied 
insupportable : but I was presently inured to be 
so imprisoned a week, nay, a month together, 
weak and ill ; and have found that in the time 
of my health I did much more pity the sick 
than I think myself to be pitied when I am so, 
and that the force of my imagination enhances 
near one half of the essence and reality of the 
thing. I hope that when I come to die I shall 
find the same, and that I shall not find it worth 
the pains I take, so much preparation and so 
much assistance as I call in to undergo the 
stroke. But, at all events, we cannot give 
ourselves too much advantage. 



In the time of our third or second troubles 
(I do not well remember which), 
going one day abroad to take The story of an 
the air, about a league from my %%££%£ 
own house, which is seated in Montaigne, 



civil wars of France, thinking 
myself in all security and so near to my retreat 
that I stood in need of no better equipage, I 
had taken a horse that went very easy in his 
pace, but was not very strong. Being upon 
my return home, a sudden occasion falling out 
to make use of this horse in a kind of service 
that he was not very well used to, one of my 
people, a lusty, proper fellow, mounted upon a 
strong German horse, that had a very ill mouth, 
but wa3 otherwise vigorous and unfoiled, to 
play a bravado and get a-head of his fellows, 
comes thundering full speed in the very track 
where I was, rushing like a Colossus upon the 
little man and the little horse, with such a 
career of strength and weight that he turned 
us both over and over, topsy turvy, with our 
heels in the air: so that there lay the horse, 
overthrown and stunned by the fall, and I ten 
or twelve paces from him, stretched out at 
length, with my face all battered and bruised, 
my sword, which I had in my hand, above ten 
paces beyond me, and my belt broken all to 
pieces, without any more motion or sense than 
a stock. 'Twas the only swoon I was ever in 
till that hour in my life. Those who were with 
me, after having used all the means they could 
to bring me to myself, concluding me dead, 
took me up in their arms and carried me with 
very much difficulty home to my house, which 
was about half a French league thence. On 
the way, and after having for more than two 
long hours been given over for a dead man, I 
began to move and fetch my breath, for so great 
abundance of blood was fallen into my stomach 
that nature had need to rouse her forces to dis- 
charge it. They then raised me upon my feet, 
where I threw off a great quantity of pure 
blood, which I did also several other times on 
the way. This gave me so much ease that I 
began to recover a little life, but slowly, and 
by so small advances that my first sensations 
were much more like the approaches of death 
than life : 



The remembrance of this accident, which is 
very well imprinted in my memory, so natu- 
rally representing to me the image and idea of 
death, has in some sort reconciled me to it. 
When I first began to open my eyes after my 
trance, it was with so perplexed, so weak and 
dead a sight, that I could yet distinguish? 
nothing, and could only discern the light : 



1 Tasso, La Gerusalemme, xii. 74. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



197 



As to the functions of the soul, they advanced 
with the same pace and measure with those of 
the body. I saw myself all bloody, for my 
doublet was stained all over with the blood I 
had vomited. The first thought that came 
into my mind was that I had a cross-bow shot 
in my head; indeed at the same time there 
were several of these discharged round about 
us. Methought my life but just hung upon 
my lips, and I shut my eyes to help, methought, 
to thrust it out, and took a pleasure in languish- 
ing and letting myself go. It was an imagin- 
ation that only superficially floated upon my 
soul, as tender and weak as all the rest; but 
really not only exempt from pain, but mixed 
with that sweetness and pleasure that people 
are sensible of when they are falling into a 
slumber. 

I believe it is the very same condition those 
people are in whom we see swoon 
■vgoninga in w ' tn weakness, in the agony of 
the aioiiios of death, and I am of opinion that 
pailful™ Very we P'ty tnem without cause, sup- 
posing them agitated with griev- 
ous dolours, or that their souls suffer under 
painful thoughts. It has ever been my belief, 
contrary to the opinion of many, and even of 
Stephen Boetius, that those whom we see so 
subdued and stupified at the approach of their 
end, or depressed with the length of the disease, 
or by accident of an apoplexy or falling 
sickness, — 

Vi morbi srepe coactus 
Ante oculos aliquis nostras, ut fulminis ictn, 
Considit, et spuinas agit ; ingemit, et remit artus ; 
Desipit, extentat nervos, torquetur, anhelat, 
Incoiistanter et in jactamlo membra fatigat ;" 

" As if by thunder struck, oft have we known 
The dire disease's victims fall and groan, 
Foam, tremble, writhe, breathe short, until at length 
In various smugglings they exhaust their strength;" 

or hurt in the head, whom we hear to mutter, 
and by fits to give grievous groans; though we 
gather thence some signs by which it seems 
as if they had some remains of sense and 
knowledge, I have always believed, I say, both 
the body and the soul benumbed and asleep ; 

Vivit, et est vita nescius ipse sure; 3 
" He lives, but knows it not;" 

and I cannot believe that in so great a stupe- 
faction of the members, and so great a defection 
of the senses, the soul can maintain any force 
within to take cognisance of herself, or look 
into her own condition, and that therefore they 
had no reason or reflections to torment them, or 
make them consider and be sensible of the 
misery of their condition, and that consequently 
they were not much to be pitied. 



' Tasso, Ln OcriLsalen 
« Lucret. iii. 485. 
» Ovid, Trtit. i. 3. 12. 
17* 



I can, for my part, think of no state so in- 
supportable and dreadful as to have the soul 
vividly alive and afflicted, without means to 
declare itself; as I should say of such who are 
sent to execution, with their tongues first cut 
out (were it not that, in this kind of dying, 
the most silent seems to me the most graceful, 
if accompanied with a grave and firm coun- 
tenance), or of those miserable prisoners who 
fall into the hands of the base, bloody soldiers 
of this age, by whom they are tormented with 
all sorts of inhuman usage to compel them to 
some excessive and impossible ransom, kept in 
the mean time in such condition and place, 
where they have no means of expressing or sig- 
nifying their mind and misery to such as they 
may expect should relieve them. The poets have 
feigned some gods who favour the deliverance 
of such as suffer under a languishing death : 



And the unconnected words and the short and 
irregular answers one gets from them sometimes, 
by bawling and keeping a clutter about them; 
or the motions which seem to yield some consent 
to what we would have them do, are no testimony 
nevertheless that they live an entire life at least. 
It is thus that in the yawning of sleep, before 
it has fully possessed us, we perceive, as in a 
dream, what is done about us, and follow the 
last things that are said, with a perplexed and 
uncertain hearing, which seems but to touch 
upon the borders of the soul, and make answers 
to the last words that were spoken to us, 
which have more in them of chance than sense. 
Now, seeing I have, in effect, tried it, I 
made no doubt but I have hitherto made a 
right judgment of it. For first, being quite in 
a swoon, I laboured to tear open my doublet 
with my hands, for I was without a weapon, 
and yet I felt nothing in my imagination that 
hurt me; for we have many motions in us that 
do not proceed from our direction ; 

Semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant. 6 

•' And half-dead fingers grope about and feel, 
To grasp again the late abandoned steel." 

So falling people extend their arms before them 
by a natural impulse which prompts them to 
offices and motions, without any commission 
from us. 



Falciferosmemorant currus abscindere membra • - - 
Y\ tremere in terra videalur ab art. thus, id quod 
liecidit aljscis^-uin: cum in. -us tameii atque liominis vis, 
Mobilitate uiali, non quit sentire dolorem. 6 

"So chariots armed with keen scythes around. 
When fiercely driven, deal the desp'ran- wound ; 
And yet the wounded man, so quick 's the blnw, 
Is scarce disturb'd, scarce seems to feel or know 
His wound.'' 



JEneid. IV. 7Cr>. 
. Id. x. 3. 98. 
I .Lucret. ui. (HJ. 



198 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



My stomach was oppressed wth the coagulated 
blood, and my hands moved to that part by their 
own voluntary motion, as they frequently do to 
the part that itches, without being directed by our 
will. There are several animals, and even men, 
in whom one may perceive the muscles to stir 
and tremble after they are dead. Every one by 
experience knows that there are some members 
which grow stiff, and flag, often without his 
leave. Now these passions which only touch 
the outward bark of us, as a man may say, 
cannot be said to be ours; to make them so 
there must be a concurrence of the whole man ; 
and the pains which are felt by the hand or the 
foot, while we are sleeping, are none of ours. 

As I drew near my own house, where the 
alarm of my fall was already got before me, 
and my family ran to me with the clamour 
usual in such cases, I did not only make some 
little answer to the questions that were asked 
me, but they moreover tell me that I had so 
much sense about me as to order them to give a 
horse to my wife, who I saw was toiling and 
labouring along the road, which was a steep and 
uneasy one. This consideration should seem to 
proceed from a soul that retained its function, 
but it was not so with me. I knew not what 
I said or did ; they were nothing but idle 
thoughts in the clouds that were stirred up by 
the senses of the eyes and ears, and proceeded 
not from me. I knew not any the more whence 
I came, or whither I was going, neither was I 
capable to weigh and consider what was said to 
me. These were light effects that the senses 
produced of themselves, as of custom ; what 
the soul contributed was in a dream, and lightly 
touched, as it were, merely licked and bedewed 
by the soft impression of the senses. Meantime 
my condition was, in truth, very easy and 
quiet; 1 had no affliction upon me, either for 
others or myself. It was an extreme drooping 
and weakness, without any manner of pain. 
I saw my own house, but knew it not. When 
they had put me to bed, I found an inex- 
pressible sweetness in that repose; for I had 
been wretchedly tugged and jolted about by 
those poor people who had taken the pains to 
carry me upon their arms a very great, and a 
very ill way, and had, in doing so, all quite 
tired out themselves twice or thrice, one after 
another. They offertd me all sorts of remedies, 
but I would take none, certainly believing that 
I was mortally wounded in the head. And in 
earnest, it had been a very happy death ; for 
the weakness of my understanding deprived me 
of the faculty of discerning, and that of my 
body from the sense of feeling. I was suf- 
fering myself to glide away so sweetly, and 
after so soft and easy a manner, that I scarce 
find any other action less troublesome than that 
was. When I came again to myself, and to 
re-assure my faculties, 



i Ovid, Trist. i. 3. 14. 



Vx tandem sensus convaluere mei,i 
"As my lost senses did again return," 

which was two or three hours after, I felt my- 
self on a sudden involved in a terrible pain, 
having my limbs battered and knocked to 
pieces with my fall, and was so exceedingly ill 
for two or three nights after that, I thought 
once more I was dying, but a more painful 
death, and to this hour am sensible of the 
bruises of that shock. I will not here omit 
that the last thing I could make them beat 
into my head was the memory of the accident ; 
and I made it be over and over again repeated 
to me whither I was going, whence I was 
coming, and at what time of the day this mis- 
chance befel me, before I could comprehend it. 
As to the manner of my fall, that was concealed 
from me in favour to him who had been the 
occasion, and some other account was invented. 
But a long time after, and the very next day, 
when my memory began to return and represent 
to me the state wherein I was at the instant 
that I perceived this horse coming full drive 
upon me (for I had seen him at my heels, and 
gave myself for gone ; but this thought had 
been so sudden that fear had no leisure to in- 
troduce itself), it seemed to me like a flash of 
lightning that had pierced through my soul, 
and that was coming from the other world. 

This long story of so light a matter would 
appear vain enough, were it not 
for the knowledge I have gained ""j'^ 
by it for my own use ; for I really self, 
find that, to get acquainted with 
death, you have but nearly to approach it. 
"Every one," as Pliny says, 2 "is a good doc- 
tor to himself, provided he be capable of looking 
closely into himself" This is not my doctrine, 
'tis my study; it is not the lesson of another, 
but my own, and yet, if I communicate it, it 
ought not to be ill taken. That which is of 
use to me may also, perhaps, be useful to an- 
other. As to the rest, I spoil nothing, I make 
use of nothing but my own ; and, if I play the 
fool, 'tis at my own expense, and nobody else 
is concerned in it: for 'tis a folly that will die 
with me, and that no one is to inherit. We 
hear of but two or three of the ancients who 
have beaten this road, and yet we cannot say 
if it be after this manner, knowing no more of 
them but their names. No one since has fol- 
lowed the track : 'tis a ticklish subject, and 
more nice than it seems, to follow a pace so 
extravagant and uncertain as that of the soul : 
to penetrate the dark profundities of her intri- 
cate internal windings, to choose and lay hold 
of so many little nimble motions; it is a new 
and extraordinary undertaking, which with- 
draws us from the common and most recom- 
mended employments of the world. 'Tis now 
many years since that my thoughts have had 



2 JVa«. Hist. xxii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



no other aim and object than myself, that I 
have only pried into and studied myself: and if 
I do now and then study any other thing, 'tis all 
of a sudden, in order to apply it to myself, or 
rather, in myself. And I do not think it a fault 
if, as others do by much less profitable sciences, 
I communicate what I have learnt in this mat- 
ter; though I am not very well pleased with 
what progress I have made in it. There is no 
description so difficult, nor doubtless of so great 
utility, as that of one's-self. And withal a man 
must curl his hair, order his apparel, and adjust 
himself, to appear in public. Now, 1 am per- 
petually setting off myself, for I am eternally 
upon my own description. Custom has made 
all speaking of a man's self vi- 
vatlkyfor'a' 8 cious, and positively forbids it, in 
man to speak hatred to the vanity that seems 
himself/ ° f inseparably joined with the testi- 
mony men give of themselves. 
Because the child wants to blow his nose, they 
cut it off: 

In vitium ducit culpa* fuga.< 



I find more evil than good in this remedy. But 
though it should be true that to entertain people 
with discourses of ourselves must of necessity 
be a piece of presumption, yet I ought not, 
according to my general plan, to forbear an 
action that publishes this infirmity, since it is 
in me ; nor conceal a fault which I not only 
practise but profess. Nevertheless, to speak 
my mind freely of the matter, I think the cus- 
tom of condemning wine, because some people 
will be drunk, is to be condemned. A man 
cannot abuse anything but what is good in it- 
self; and I believe that this rule has only regard 
to the popular vice : it is a bridle for calves, by 
which neither saints, whom we hear speak so 
highly of themselves, nor the philosophers, nor 
the divines, will be curbed: neither will I, who 
am as little the one as the other. If these folks 
do not expressly name themselves, yet they 
take good care, whenever an occasion offers, 
to exhibit themselves so manifestly before you 
that there is no mistaking them. Of what does 
Socrates treat more largely than of himself! 
To what does he more direct and address the 
discourses of his disciples than to speak of them- 
selves ; not of the lesson in their book, but of 
the essence and motion of their souls? We 
confess ourselves religiously to God and our 
confessor, as our neighbours 2 do to all the 
people. But it may be said, — "there we 
speak nothing but accusation against our- 
selves." Why then we say all, for our very 
virtue itself is faulty and repentable. My trade 
and my art is to live. He that ftftbids'me to 
speak according to my own sense, experience, 
and practice, may as well enjoin an architect 
not to speak of building according to his own 
knowledge, but according to that of his neigh- 



bour; according to the knowledge of another, 
and not according to his own. If it be vain- 
glory for a man to publish his own virtues, why 
does not Cicero prefer the eloquence of Horten- 
sius, and Hortensius that of Cicero 1 Perhaps 
they mean that I should give testimony of my- 
self by works and effects, not barely by words: 
I chiefly paint my thoughts, an inform subject, 
and incapable of operative production. 'Tis ail 
that I can do to couch it in this airy body of 
the voice. The wisest and devoutest men have 
lived in the greatest care to avoid all discovery 
of works : effects would speak more of fortune 
than of me. They manifest their own office, 
and not mine ; but uncertainly, and by conjec- 
ture. They are but patterns of some one par- 
ticular virtue. 1 expose myself entire : 'tis an 
anatomy where, at one view, the veins, muscles, 
and tendons are apparent, each of them in its 
proper place. The effect of coughing produced 
one part, the effect of paleness or heart-beating 
another, but this doubtfully. I do not write my 
acts, but myself and my essence. 

I am of opinion that a man must be very 
prudent in valuing- himself, and . . 

1 i, ■ .■ i • It is a com- 

equally conscientious to give a niendahie thing 
true report, be it better or worse, for a man to 
indifferently If I thought my- ^^.f 6 
self perfectly good and wise, 1 
would sound it forth to good purpose. To 
speak less of a man's-self than what one really 
is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for 
current pay which is under a man's value is 
pusillanimity and cowardice, according to Aris- 
totle: 3 no virtue assists itself with falsehood: 
truth is never the matter for error: to speak 
more of one's-self than is really true is not 
always presumption, 'tis moreover very often 
folly : to be immeasurably pleased with what 
one is, and to fall into an indiscreet self-love, 
is the substance of this vice. The best remedy 
for it is to do quite contrary to what these 
people direct, who, in forbidding us to speak of 
ourselves, do consequently at the same time 
interdict thinking of ourselves. Pride dwells 
in the thought; the tongue can have but very 
little share in it. 

They fancy that to think of one's-self is to be 
delighted with one's-self; that to frequent and 
to converse with one's-self is to be over-indul- 
gent. But this excess arises only in those who 
take but a superficial view of themselves, and 
dedicate their main inspection to their affairs; 
that call meditation raving and idleness, and 
furnishing and fitting ourselves up building 
castles in the air ; looking upon themselves as 
a third person only, and a stranger. If any 
one is charmed with his own knowledge, whilst 
he looks only on those below him, let him but 
turn his eye upward toward past ages and his 
pride will be abated, when he shall there find 
so many thousand wits that trample him under 
foot. If he enter into a flattering vanity of his 






Horace, Art. Poet. 31. 



1 The Protestants. 



200 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



personal valour, let him but recollect the lives 
of Scipio, Epaminondas, so many armies and 
nations that leave him so far behind, and he 
will be cured of his self-opinion. No particular 
quality can make any man proud, that will at 
the same time put the so many weak and im- 
perfect ones he has in him in the other scale, 
and the nothingness of human condition to 
balance the weight. Because Socrates had 
alone digested to purpose the precept of his 
s God, "To know himself;" and 

was^eckoned by that study was arrived to the 
the only wise perfection of setting himself at 
,nan ' nought, he only was reputed wor- 

thy the title of a sage. Whoever shall so know 
himself, let him boldly speak out and make 
himself known. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR. 

Those who wrote the life of Augustus Csesar 1 

observe this in his military disci- 

wanisTugntto pline— that he was wonderfully 

be dispensed liberal of gifts to men of merit; 

mscretfon great but that as to the P ure recom- 
penses of honour he was altoge- 
ther as sparing : he himself had been gratified 
by his uncle with all the military recompenses 
before he had ever been in the field. It was a 
pretty invention, and received into most govern- 
ments of the world, to institute certain vain and 
in themselves valuelessdistinctions, to honour and 
recompense valour or virtue ; such as crowns of 
laurel, oak, and myrtle; the particular fashion 
of some garment; the privilege to ride in a 
coach in the city, or to have a torch by night; 
some peculiar place assigned in public assem- 
blies; the prerogative of certain additional 
names and titles; certain distinctions in their 
bearing of coats of arms, and the like : the use 
of which, according to the several humours of 
nations, has been variously received, and does 
yet continue. 

We in France, as also several of our neigh- 
bours, have the orders of knight- 
fcnighthood nooa > tnat were instituted only 

instituted to for this end. And it is, indeed, a 
Wrlne" mi " tary ver y g° od and Profitable custom 
to find out an acknowledgment 
for the worth of excellent and extraordinary 
men ; and to satisfy their ambition with re- 
wards that are not at all costly either to prince 
or people. And what has been always found 
both by ancient experience, and which we our- 
selves may also have observed in our own times, 
that men of quality have ever been more jealous 
of such recompenses than of those wherein there 
was gain and profit, is not without very good 
ground and reason. If with reward, which 



' Suetonius, in vita. 

a Instituted by an ordonnance of Louis XI. at Amboise, 
1st August, 1409. 



ought to be simply a recompense of honour, 
they should mix other emoluments, and add 
riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an 
increase of esteem, would vilify and debase it. 
The order of St. Michael, 2 which 
has been so long in repute amongst st^MicbaeL 
us, had no greater commodity 
than that it had no communication with any 
other; which produced this effect, that formerly 
there was no office or title whatever to which 
the gentry pretended with so great a desire and 
affection as they did to this order: nor quality 
that carried with it more respect and grandeur : 
virtue more willingly embracing and with 
greater ambition aspiring to a recompense truly 
her own, and rather honourable than beneficial. 
For, in truth, the other rewards have not so 
great a dignity in them, by reason they are laid 
out upon all sorts of occasions. With money a 
man pays the wages of a servant, the diligence 
of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking, and 
the vilest offices we receive ; nay, we reward 
vice with it, too, as flattery, treachery, and 
pimping: and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtue 
less desires, and less willingly receives, this 
common sort of payment, than that which is 
proper and peculiar to her, as being truly gene- 
rous and noble. Augustus was right in being 
a better husband and more sparing of this than 
the other, by how much honour is a privilege 
that extracts its principal essence from its rarity, 
and virtue the same. 

Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest ?s 
" To whom none seemeth bad, who good can seem ?" 

We do not intend it for a commendation 
when we say that such a one is careful in the 
bringing up of his children, by reason it is a com- 
monact, how just and well done soever, no more 
than we commend a great tree where the whole 
forest is the same. I do not think that any 
citizen of Sparta valued himself 
upon his valour, it being the Valour of the 

r. . ' „ . o . , citizens of 



universal virtue of the whole 



Snarta. 



nation, and as little prided him- 
self upon his fidelity and contempt of riches. 
There is no recompense to virtue, how great 
soever, that is once become a general custom ; 
and I know not withal whether we can ever 
call it great, being common. 

Seeing then that these rewards of honour 
have no other value and estimation but only 
this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be 
liberal of them to bring them down to nothing. 
And though there should be more men found 
than in former times worthy df our order, 4 the 
value of it, nevertheless, ought not to be abated, 
nor the honour made cheap : and it may easily 
happen that more may merit it now than 
formerly ; for there is no virtue that so easily 
diffuses itself as that of military valour. There 
is another true, perfect, and philosophical, of 



' Martial, xii. 82. 

' That of St. Michael. 



Q 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



201 



which I do not speak (and only make use of 
the word in the common acceptation), much 
creator than this, and more full, which is a 
strength and assurance of soul, despising equally 
all sorts of adverse accidents, equable, uniform, 
and constant, of which ours is but a little ray. 
Use, bringing up, example and custom, can do 
all in all in the establishment of that which I 
am speaking of, and with great facility render 
it common, as by the experience of our civil 
war is manifest enough ; and whoever could at 
this instant unite us all, Catholics and Hugo- 
nots, into one body, and set us upon some 
common enterprise, we should make our ancient 
military reputation flourish again. It is most 
certain that in times past the recompense of 
this order had not only a regard to valour, but 
had a farther prospect. It never was the 
reward of a valiant soldier, but of a great 
captain: the science of obeying was not reput- 
ed worthy of so honourable a guerdon. There 
was therein a more universal military expertness 
required, which comprehended the most and 
the greatest qualities of a military man: Neque 
enim exdem mililares et i/itperatorise artes 
sunt. "For the qualities of a soldier and of a 
general are not the same;" and, besides, a 
man was to be of a birth and rank suitable to 
such a dignity. But I say, though more men 
should be worthy now than formerly, yet 
ought it not to be more liberally distributed ; 
and it were better to fall short and not give it 
to all to whom it may be due, than for ever to 
lose, as we have lately done, the fruit of so 
useful an invention. No man of spirit will 
vouchsafe to advantage himself with what is in 
common with many ; and such of the present 
time as have least merited this recompense 
make the greater show of disclaiming it, intend- 
ing thereby to be ranked with those to whom 
so much wrong has been done, by the unworthy 
conferring and debasing the distinction which 
was their particular right. 

Now to expect, in obliterating and abo- 
t. • >■» ,. . lishing this, suddenly to create 

it is chlhrult to , , b . •' ,.{ ... 

bring a new a "d bring into credit a like in- 
order of knight- stitution, is not a proper attempt 
credit.""" f° r so 1'centious and sick a time 

as this in which we now are; 
and it will fall out that the last 1 will, from its 
birth, incur the same inconveniences that have 
rained the other. The rules for the dispensing 

- of this new order had need to be extremely 
clipped, and bound under great restrictions, to 
give it authority; and this tumultuous season is 
incapable of such a curb. Besides that before 

j this can be brought into reputation 'tis necessary 
that the memory of the first, and the contempt 
into which it is fallen, should be totally buried 

j in oblivion. 

This place might naturally enough admit of 



' The order of Saint Esprit (the Holy Ghost), instituted 
by Henry [II., in 1578. 

I Virtus, via. '• i,e mot de vertu vient de forco ; la force 
est la baso de toute vertu ; la vertu u'auparlicm qu'a uu 



some discourse upon the consideration of valour, 
and the difference of this virtue from others: 
but Plutarch having so often handled this sub- 
ject, I should give myself an unnecessary trouble 
to repeat what he has said. But _. th 
this, nevertheless, is worth con- chie/Virtue 
sidering, that our nation places "none the 
valour (vaillance) in the highest I ' r,: " cl '- 
degree of virtue, as the very word itself shows, 
being derived from value (valeur) ; and that, 
according to our custom, when we mean a 
worthy man, or a man of value (homme vail- 
lant), it is only in our court style to say a 
valiant man, after the Roman way; for the 
general appellation of virtue with them takes 
etymology from force. 2 The proper, sole, and 
essential occupation of the French nobility and 
gentry is the practice of arms. It is likely that 
the first virtue which discovered itself amongst 
men, and that has given some advantage over 
others, was this, by which the strongest and 
most valiant have mastered the weaker, and ac- 
quired a particular rank and reputation, whence 
this honour and name remained to them. Or 
else that these nations, being very warlike, 
have given the pre-eminence to that of the 
virtues which was most familiar to them, and 
which they thought of the most worthy cha- 
racter. Just as our passion, and the feverish 
solicitude we have of the chastity of women 
makes the saying a good woman, a woman of 
worth, a woman of honour and virtue, to 
signify no more than a chaste woman ; as if to 
oblige her to that one duty, we were indifferent 
to all the rest; and gave them the reins to all 
other faults whatever, to compound for that 
one of incontinence. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR 
CHILDREN. 

TO MADAME D'ESTISSAC. 3 

Madam, if the strangeness and novelty of my 
subject, which generally give value to things, 
do not save me, I shall never come off with 
honour from this foolish attempt: but 'tis so 
fantastic, and carries a face so unlike the com- 
mon custom, that the oddness of it may perhaps 
make it pass. 'Tis a melancholic humour, and 
consequently a humour very much opposed to 
my natural complexion, engendered by the 
pensiveness of the solitude into which for some 
years past I have retired myself, that first 
put into my head this idle fancy of writing: 
wherein, finding myself totally unprovided 
and empty of other matters, I presented myself 
to myself for argument and subject. 'Tis the 



etre foible par sa nature, et fort par sa volonte."— Rous- 
si'iill, Knli/c, V. 

9 The son of this lady accompanied Montaigne in lus 
journey to Rome. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



only book in the world of its kind, and of a 
wild and extravagant design. Indeed, there is 
nothing worth remark but the extravagancy in 
this affair : for in a subject so vain and frivolous 
the best workman in the world could not have 
given it a form fit to recommend it to any 
manner of esteem. Now, madam, being to 
draw my own picture to the life, 1 should have 
omitted an important feature, had I not repre- 
sented in it the honour I have ever paid to your 
merits ; and I have chosen to say this expressly 
at the head of this chapter, by reason that, 
among your other excellent qualities, the love 
you have shown to your children holds one of 
the chief places. Whoever shall know at what 
age Monsieur d' Estissac, your husband, left 
you a widow, the great and honourable matches 
have since been offered to you, as many and as 
great as to any lady of your condition in 
France; the firmness and steadiness wherewith 
you have sustained for so many years, through 
so many sharp difficulties, the charge and con- 
duct of their affairs, which have kept you in 
agitation in every corner of the kingdom, and 
which yet hold you, as it were, besieged, and 
the happy direction you have given all these, 
either by your prudence or good fortune, will 
easily conclude with me that we have not a 
more striking example than yours of maternal 
affection in our times. 

I praise God, madam, that it has been so 
well employed ; for the great hopes that Mon- 
sieur d' Estissac, your son, gives of himself, are 
sufficient assurances that, when he comes to age, 
you will reap from him all the obedience and 
gratitude of a very good man. But forasmuch 
as by reason of his tender years he has not been 
capable of taking notice of those numberless of- 
fices of kindness which he has received from you, 
I will take care, if these papers ever fall into his 
hands, when I shall neither have mouth nor 
speech left to deliver it to him, that he shall 
receive from me this testimony, in all truth, 
which shall be more effectually manifested to 
him by their own effects, and by which he will 
see and feel that there is not a gentleman in 
France who stands more indebted to a mother's 
care than he does; and that he cannot for the 
future give a better nor more certain proof of 
his own worth and virtue, than by acknow- 
ledging you for that excellent mother you 
are. 

If there be any law truly natural, that is to 
say, any instinct that is seen universally, and 
perpetually imprinted in both 
The affection of beasts and men (which is not 
theTr'chiidren' without controversy), I can say 
greater than that, in my opinion, next to the 

loward^ilenT Care eVer 7 animal t haS of h f 0Wn 

and why. preservation, and to avoid tnat 

which may hurt him, the affection 
that the begetter bears to his offspring holds 
the second place in rank. And seeing that 
nature seems to have recommended it to us, 
having regard to the extension and progression 
of the successive pieces of this machine of hers ; 



'tis no wonder that, on the contrary, that of 
children towards their parents is not so great. 
To which we may add this other Aristotelian 
consideration, that he who confers a benefit on 
any one loves him better than he is beloved by 
him again; and that he to whom it is due 
loves better than him from whom it is due; 
and that every artificer is fonder of his work 
than, if that work had sense, it would be of 
the artificer ; by reason that it is dear to us to 
be, and to be consists in moving and action; 
whereby every one has, in some sort, a being 
in his work. Whoever confers a benefit, exer- 
cises a fine and honest action ; he who receives 
it, exercises the utile only. Now the utile is 
much less amiable than the houeslum: the ho- 
nestum is stable and permanent, supplying him 
who has done it with a continual gratification. 
The utile loses itself, easily slides away, and the 
memory of it is neither so fresh nor so pleasing. 
Those things are dearest to us that have cost us 
most ; and giving is more chargeable than 
receiving. 

Since it has pleased God to endue us with 
some capacity of weighing and To what end 
considering things, to the end we men are ere. 
may not, like brutes, be servile- a ' ed capable 
ly subjected and enslaved by the of feasom "S' 
laws common to both, but that we should by 
judgment, and a voluntary liberty, apply our- 
selves to them; we ought, indeed, sometimes 
to yield to the simple authority of nature, but 
not suffer ourselves to be tyrannically hurried 
away, and transported by her; reason alone 
should have the conduct of our inclinations. I, 
for my part, have a strange distaste to those 
inclinations that are started in us, without the 
mediation and direction of the judgment; as, 
upon the subject I am speaking of, I cannot 
entertain that passion of dandling and caressing 
an infant scarcely born, having, as yet, neither 
motion of soul, nor shape of body distinguishable, 
by which they can render themselves loveable ; 
and have not willingly suffered them to be 
nursed near me. A true and well-regulated 
affection ought to spring up, and 
increase with the knowledge they What ought to 

/. ,, , i *i he the love ol 

give us or themselves, and then, | ;arel , ts to their 
if they are worthy of it, natural children, 
propension going hand-in-hand 
with reason, to cherish them with a truly pa- 
ternal love ; and to judge and discern also if 
they be otherwise, still submitting ourselves to 
reason, notwithstanding the force of nature. 
It is often quite the reverse; and most com- 
monly we find ourselves more taken with the 
first trotting about, and little ways and plays of 
our children, than we are afterwards with their 
formed actions; as if we had loved them for 
our sport, like monkeys, and not as men. And 
some there are who are very liberal in buying 
them playthings when they are children, who 
are very close-handed for the least necessary 
expense when they grow up. Nay, to such 



J Aristotle, Ethics, ix. 7. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



203 



degree that it looks as if the jealousy of seeing 
them appear in, and enjoy the world, when we 
are about to leave it, renders us more niggardly 
and stingy towards them : it vexes us that they 
tread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go 
out; but if this be to be feared, since the order 
of things will have it ^o, that they cannot, to | 
speak the truth, be or live but at the expense 
of our being and life, we should never meddle 
witli getting children. 

For my part, I think it cruelty and injustice 
not to receive them into the share and society 
of our goods, and not to make them partakers 
in the intelligence of our domestic affairs when 
they are capable, and not to lessen and con- 
tract our own expenses, to make the more room 
for theirs, seeing we begat them to that effect. 
Tis unjust that an old fellow, deaf, lame, and 
half-dead, should alone, in a corner of the 
chimney, enjoy the goods that were sufficient 
for the maintenance and advancement of many 
children, and suffer them in the mean time to 
lose their best years for want of means to 
put themselves forward in the public service, 
and the knowledge of men. A man by this 
means drives them to desperate courses, and to 
eeek out by any means, how unjust or dis- 
honourable soever, to provide for their own 
support: as I have, in my time, seen several 
young men of good birth so addicted to stealing 
that no correction could cure them of it. I 

know one of a very good fami.ly, 
J,v,'n",'," e " t0 whom > a t the request of a 
filching. brother of his, a very honest and 

brave gentleman, I once spoke 
on this account; who made answer, and con- 
fessed to me roundly that he had been put upon 
this dirty practice by the severity and avarice 
of his father ; but that he was now so accus- 
tomed to it he could not leave it off. At this 
very time he had been entrapped stealing a 
lady's rings, being come into her chamber as 
she was dressing, with several others. He put 
me in mind of a story I had heard of another 
gentleman so perfect and accomplished in this 
genteel trade in his youth that, after he came 
to his estate, and resolved to give it over, could 
not hold his hands, nevertheless, if he passed 
by a shop where he saw anything he liked, 
from catching it up, though it put him to the 
shame of sending afterwards to pay for it. And 
I have myself seen several so habituated to this 
laudable quality that even amongst their com- 
rades they could not forbear filching, though 
with intent to restore what they had taken. I 
am a Gascon, and yet there is no vice I so little 
understand as that; I hate it even something 
more by disposition than I condemn it by my 
reason : I do not so much as desire any thing 
„„„ of another man's. This province 

,;,n, : , i:\uwa or ours, is, in truth, a little more 
to stealing. suspected than the other parts of 



the kingdom ; and yet we have often seen, 
in our times, men of good families of other 
provinces, in the hands of justice, convicted 
of several abominable thefts. I fear this of- 
fence is, in some sort, to be attributed to the 
forementioned vice of the fathers. 

And if a man should tell me, as a lord of 
very good understanding once did, " That he 
hoarded up wealth, not to extract any other 
fruit and use from his parsimony, but to make 
himself honoured and sought after by his own 
relations; and that, age having deprived him of 
all other powers, it was the only remaining re- 
medy to maintain his authority in his family, 
and to keep him from being neglected and des- 
pised by all the world," (and, in truth, not 
only old age, hut all other imbecility, according 
to Aristotle, 1 is the promoter of avarice) this 
is something, but it is physic for a disease that a 
man should prevent altogether. A father is 
very miserable that has no other 
hold of his children's affections Xhlchafathfr 
than the need they have of his should procure 
assistance, if that can be called the respect of 
affection ; he must render himself ll,s cullUreu - 
worthy to be respected by his 
virtue and wisdom, and beloved by his bounty 
and the sweetness of his manners. Even the 
very ashes of a rich matter have their value, 
and we generally, by custom, have the bones 
and relics of worthy men in regard and re- 
verence. No old age can be so ruinous and 
offensive in a man who has passed his life in 
honour, but it must be venerable, especially to 
his children; the soul of whom he must have 
trained up to their duty by reason, not by ne- 
cessity and the need they have of him, nor by 
roughness and force : 

Et errat longe, mea quidem sententia, 
Qui imp.-riiim creilal esse gravius. ant stabilius, 
Vi quod fit, qtiain illud, quod amicitia adjungitur.a 



And he 


extremelv differs 


fr 


nm mv 


sense. 


Who tin 


iks the po^ 


v'r o 


ta 


iu'd bv 


violence 


Can eve 


prove mni 


c sol 


d 


mil sec 


ire. 


Than th 


t which fri' 


ndsh 


p's softer 


ueans procure. 



» Terence, Mclpk. i 



I condemn all violence in the education of a 
gentle soul that is designed for 
honour and liberty. There is, I Violence in the 

, , , J ., -, ■ • education ot 

know not what ot servile in n- children con- 
gour and restraint; and I am of demned. 
opinion that what is not to be done 
by reason, prudence and address, is never to be 
effected by force. I myself was brought up 
after that manner, and they tell me that in all 
my first age, I never felt the rod but twice, and 
then very slightly. I have practised the same 
method with my children, who all of them died 
at nurse, except Leonora, 3 my only daughter, 
who escaped that misfortune, and has arrived to 
the age of six years and upward, without other 
correction for her childish faults (her mother's 
indulgence easily concurring) than words only, 



204 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and those very gentle; and, though my ex- 
pectation should be frustrated, there are other 
causes enough to lay the fault on, without 
blaming my discipline, which I know to be 
natural and just. I should in this have been 
even more scrupulous towards males, as born to 
less subjection, and more free; I should have 
loved to swell their hearts with ingenuousness 
and freedom. I have never observed other ef- 
fects of whipping unless to render children more 
cowardly or more wilful and obstinate. 

Do we desire to be beloved of our children 1 

would we remove from them all 

The true way occasion of wishing our death 

for parents to ,,, , ■ e ^ • j 

gain the love of (though no occasion or so horrid 
their children, a wish can either be just or ex- 
cusable, Nullum scelus rationem 
habet: 'iNo crime can have a reason")? Let 
us reasonably accommodate their lives with 
what is in our power. In order to this, we 
should not marry so young that our age shall 
in a manner be confounded with theirs; for 
this inconvenience plunges us into many very 
great difficulties ; I speak more especially of 
the gentry who are of a condition wherein they 
have little to do, and live, as the phrase is, upon 
their income; for, in other conditions, where 
life is dedicated to making money, the plurality 
and numbers of children is an increase to good 
husbandry, and they are so many new tools and 
instruments wherewith to grow rich. 

I married at three and thirty years of age, 
and agree in the opinion for 
The most pro- thirty-five, which is said to be 
marril|e that of Aristotle.' Plato will 

have nobody marry before thirty, 
but he has reason to laugh at those who 
undertake the work of marriage after five and 
fifty, and to condemn their offspring as un- 
worthy of aliment and life. Thales gave it the 
truest limits, who when young, and being im- 
portuned by his mother to marry, answered, 
"That it was too soon;" and being grown in 
years, and urged again, " That it was too late." 2 
A man must deny opportunity to every im- 
portunate action. The ancient Gauls 3 looked 
upon it as a very great reproach 

man enervates ^ 0r a man t0 naVe t0 ^° witl1 a 

young men'. woman before he was twenty 
years of age ; and strictly re- 
commended to the men who designed them- 
selves for war the keeping their virginity till 
well grown in years, forasmuch as courage is 
abated and diverted by the use of women : 

Ma hor congiunto a giovinetta sposa, 
E lieto homai, dc' figli. era invilito 
Negli attetti di padre et di marito.* 

" But now being married to a fair young wife. 
He's quite I'all'n oil" from his old course of life: 
His mettle is crown rusty, and his care 
His wife ami i-inMr™ i!o betwixt them share." 



i At the end of the Sixth Book of the Republic; but 
Aristotle says, from thirty to thirty-five. 

2 Diogenes Laert. in vitu. 

8 What Montaigne ascribes here to the Cauls, Cresar says 
expressly of the Germans, Do Bcilo Oatlico, vi. 21, •' Qui 



Muleasses, 5 King of Tunis, he whom the 
Emperor Charles the Fifth restored to the king- 
dom, reproached the memory of his father, 
Mahomet, with the frequentation of women, 
styling him loose, effeminate, and a getter of 
children. The Greek History observes of Iccus, 
the Tarentine, of Crisso, Astyllus, Diopompus, 
and others, that, to keep their bodies in order 
for the Olympic games, and such like exercises, 
they denied themselves during that preparation 
all commerce with Venus. In a certain country 
of the Spanish Indies, men were not permitted 
to marry till after they were forty years of age, 
and yet the girls were allowed to do so at ten. 
'Tis not time for a gentleman of five-and-thirty 
years old to give place to his son who is twenty; 
he being himself in a condition to serve both 
in the camp and court of his prince, he has 
himself need of all his money ; and yet, doubt- 
less ought to allow his son a share, but not so 
great a one as wholly to disfurnish himself; 
and for such a one, the saying that fathers have 
ordinarily in their mouths, "I will not put off 
my clothes till I go to bed," is proper enough. 

But a father, worn out with age and in- 
firmities, and deprived, by his 
weakness and want of health, of A father that is 

. . . c supermini 

the common society ot men, ought to give 
wrongs himself and his, to rake up"his estate to 

rrotho," o rrrort t vnaea nf ncplpCQ PIS CilllU. 



together a great mass of 
treasure. He has lived long 
enough, if he be wise, to have a mind to strip 
himself to go to bed ; not to his very shirt, I 
confess, but to that and a good warm night- 
gown. The remaining pomps, of which he has 
no further use, he ought voluntarily to sur- 
render to those to whom by the order of nature 
they belong. 'Tis reason he should transfer the 
use of those things to them, seeing that nature 
has reduced him to such a state that he cannot 
enjoy them himself; otherwise there is, doubt- 
less, ill-nature and envy in the case. The 
greatest act of the Emperor Charles the Fifth 
was that, in imitation of some of the ancients 
of his own quality, confessing it but reason to 
strip ourselves when our clothes encumber and 
grow too heavy for us, and to lie down when 
our legs begin to fail us, he resigned his pos- 
sessions, grandeur, and power to his son, when 
he found himself beginning to lose the vigour 
and steadiness necessary to conduct his affairs, 
with the glory he had therein acquired. 



"Loose from the rapid car your aired horse, 
Lest in the race, derided, left behind, 
Jaded he drags his limbs and burst his wind." 

This fault of not perceiving betimes, and not 
being sensible of the feebleness and extreme 
alteration that age naturally brings, both upon 



diutissime impuhores permanserunt, maximam inter suos 
ferunt laudem," &c. 

* Tasso, Jerusalem, lib. X. stanza 39. 

b Muley Hassan. 

6 Horace, Epist. i. 1, 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the body and the mind (which in my opinion 
is equal, if the soul, indeed, is not more than 
the half), has lost the reputation of most of the 
great men of the world. I have known in my 
time, and have been intimately acquainted with 
some persons of very great quality whom a man 
might easily discern so manifestly fallen from 
that former sufficiency I was sure they were 
once endued with, by the reputation they had 
acquired in their former years, that I could 
heartily, for their own sakes, have wished them 
at home at their ease, discharged from those 
public and military employments which were 
now grown too heavy for their shoulders. I 
was formerly very familiar in a gentleman's 
house, a widower, and very old, though healthy 
and cheerful enough. This gentleman had se- 
veral daughters to marry, and a son, already of 
a ripe age, which brought upon him many visits, 
and a great expense, neither of which did very 
well please him, not only out of consideration 
of frugality, but yet more for having, by reason 
of his age, entered into a course of life far dif- 
fering from ours. 1 told him, one day, a little 
boldly, as I have been used to do, that he would 
do better to give us room, and to leave his prin- 
cipal house (for he had but that well situated 
and furnished,) to his son, and retire himself to 
an estate he had hard by, where nobody would 
trouble his repose, seeing he could not otherwise 
avoid being importuned by us, the condition of 
his children considered. He took my advice 
afterwards, and found an advantage by so 
-' doinjr. 

I do not mean that a man should so instate 
• them as not to reserve to himself a liberty to 
recant : I, who am now arrived to the age 
wherein such things are nigh fit to be done, 
I would resign to them the enjoyment of my 
house and goods, but with a power of revocation, 
if they should give me cause to alter my mind. 
1 would leave to them the use, that being no 
| longer proper for me ; but of the general au- 
thority and power over all, I would reserve as 
I much as I thought good to myself; having 
always thought that it must needs be a great 
i satisfaction to an aged father, to put his chil 
j dren himself in the way of governing his 
affairs, and to have power, during his life, to 
■ superintend their behaviour, supplying them 
with instruction and advice from his own ex- 
perience, and himself to transfer the ancient 
honour and order of his house into the hands 
of those who are to succeed him, and by that 
means to be responsible to himself (by the 
hopes he may conceive) for their future con- 
duct. And in order to this, I would not avoid 
their company ; 1 would observe them near at 
hand, and partake, according to the condition 
of my age, of their feasts and amusements. If 
I did not live amongst them (which I could not 
do without being a disturbance to them, by 



reason of the touchiness of my age, and the 
restlessness of my infirmities, and without vio- 
lating also the rules and order of living 1 should 
then have set down to myself), I would at least 
live near them in some part of my house, not 
the best in show, but the most commodious. 
Not as I saw, some years ago, a Dean of St. 
Hilaire, of Poictiers, by his melancholy given 
up to such a solitude that, at the time I came 
into his chamber, it had been two-and-twenty 
years that he had not stepped one foot out of 
it, and yet had all his motions free, and ate, 
and was in perfect health, saving a little rheurn 
that fell upon his lungs. He would hardly once 
in a week suffer any one to come to see him ; 
he always kept himself shut up in his chamber, 
alone, except a servant that brought him some- 
thing to eat, and did then but just come in and 
go out again. His employment was to walk 
up and down, and read some book, for he was 
a bit of a scholar: but as to the rest, obstinately 
bent to die in his retirement, as he soon after 
did. I would endeavour, by a sweet and 
obliging conversation, to create in my children 
a lively and unfeigned friendship and good 
will, which, in well-descended natures, is not 
hard to do; for if they be brutes, of which 
this age of ours produces thousands, we must 
hate and avoid them as such. 

I am angry at the custom of forbidding 
children to call their father by 
the name of father, and to enjoin Il0t ' [ be fd^a 
them another, as more full of to call their 
respectand reverence, as if nature J^'Jy/oither. 
had not sufficiently provided for 
our authority. We call God father, and disdain 
to have our children call us so. I have reformed 
this error in my family. 1 It is also folly and 
injustice to deprive children, when 
grown up, of a familiarity with ^e'siw Tup 
their father, and to carry an a.us- ought to be 
tere countenance toward them, ailmi " el ! loa . . 
thinking by that to keep them in their fathers.'' 
awe and obedience ; for it is but 
a very idle farce that, instead of producing the 
effect designed, renders fathers distasteful and, 
which is worse, ridiculous, to their own children. 
They have youth and vigour in possession, and 
consequently the breath and favour of the 
world, and therefore receive these fierce and 
tyrannical looks (mere scare-crows) of a man 
without blood, either in his heart or veins, with 
mockery and contempt. Though I could make 
myself feared, I had yet much rather make 
myself beloved. There are so many sorts of 
defects in old age, so much impotency, and it 
is so liable to contempt, that the best purchase 
a man can make is the kindness and affection 
of his own family: command and fear are no 
longer his weapons. Such a one 1 have known, 
who, having been very imperious in his youth, 
when he came to be old, though he might have 






' Tln-eiMitl Kin': Henry IV. reformed it also in his family; and the children stranecrs, and which is a mark of fmbjec- 

for IVnti.xr says lie would not have his children call him tion and slavery: but that thav should call linn papa, or 

monsieur, an appellation which seems to make tile father father, an appellation of love and tenderness. 
18 






206 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



lived at his full ease and had his judgment as 
entire as ever, would yet torment himself and 
others ; strike, rant, swear, and curse ; the most 
tempestuous master in France ; fretting himself 
with unnecessary suspicion and vigilance. And 
all this rumble and clutter but makes his family 
cheat him the sooner and the more ; of his barn, 
his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his very purse too, 
others have the greatest use and share, whilst 
he keeps his keys in his bosom much more care- 
fully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs himself 
with the frugality of the pitiful pittance of a 
wretched niggardly table, everything goes to 
wrack and ruin in every corner of his house, in 
play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sports 
in their junkettings with his vain anger and 
fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel 
against him ; and if by accident any wretched 
fellow that serves him is of another humour, 
and will not join with the rest, he is presently 
rendered suspected to him, a bait which old age 
very easily bites at of itself. How often has 
this gentleman boasted to me in how great awe 
he kept his family, and how exact an obedience 
and reverence they paid him! How clearly 
he saw into his own affairs ! 

Ille solus nescit omnia.* 
" He alone knows nothing of the matter." 

I do not know any one that can muster more 
parts, both natural and acquired, proper to 
maintain such a dominion, than he ; yet he is 
fallen from it like a child. For this reason it 
is that I have picked him out amongst several 
others that I know of the same humour, for the 
greatest example. It were matter for a question 
in the schools, "Whether he is better thus 
or otherwise]" In his presence all submit to 
and bow before him, and give so much way to 
his vanity that nobody ever resists him; he 
has his belly-full of cringe, and all postures of 
fear, submission, and respect. Does he turn 
away a servant? he packs up his bundle, and 
is gone, — but 'tis no further than just out of 
his sight: the pace of old age is so slow, and 
the senses so weak and troubled, that he will 
live and do his old office in the same house a 
year together without being perceived. And 
after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended 
to come from a great way off, very pitiful, 
suppliant, and full of promises of amendment, 
by virtue of which he is again received into 
favour. Does monsieur make any bargain, or 
send away any dispatch that does not please 1 
'Tis suppressed, and causes afterwards forged 
to excuse the want of execution in the one or 
answer in the other. No strange letters are 
first brought to him; he never sees any but 
those that seem fit for his knowledge. If by 



accident they fall first into his own hand, being 
used to trust somebody to read them to him, he 
reads extempore what he thinks fit, and very 
often makes such a one ask him pardon, who 
abuses and rails at him in his letter. In short, 
he sees nothing but by an image prepared and 
designed before-hand, and the most satisfactory 
they can invent not to rouse and awake his 
ill-humour and choler. I have, under different 
forms, seen enough of long and enduring ma- 
nagement to just the same effect. 

Women have a sort of natural tendency to 
cross their husbands : 2 they lay hold with both 
hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose 
them, and the first excuse serves for a plenary 
justification. I have seen a wife who grossly 
purloined from her husband, that, as she told 
her confessor, she might distribute more liberal 
alms. As if anybody would believe a word of 
this religious dispensation. No authority seems 
to them of sufficient dignity, if proceeding from 
the husband's assent ; they must usurp it either 
by insolence or cunning, and always injuriously, 
or else it has not the grace of that authority 
they desire. When, as in the case I am speak- 
ing of, 'tis against a poor old man, and for the 
children, they make use of this title to serve 
their passion with glory ; and, as in a common 
servitude, easily monopolize against his govern- 
ment and dominion. If they be men, strong, 
and flourishing in health and manhood, they 
presently corrupt, either by force or favour, 
both steward, receivers, and all the rest. Such 
as have neither wife nor son do not so easily fall 
into this misfortune ; when they do, it is more 
cruelly and undeservedly. Cato the Elder, in 
his time, said, "So many servants so many 
enemies." 3 Consider, then, whether, according 
to the vast difference betwixt the purity of the 
age he lived in and the corruption of this of 
ours, he does not seem to advertise us that wife, 
son, and servant, are so many enemies to us] 
'Tis well for old age that it is always accom- 
panied with stupidity, ignorance, and a facility 
of being deceived ; for, should we see how we 
are used, and would not acquiesce, what would 
become of us ] — especially in such an age as 
this, where the very judges who are to deter- 
mine are usually partial to the young in any 
cause that comes before them. 4 In case that 
the discovery of this cheat escape me, 1 cannot 
at least fail to discern that I am very fit to be 
cheated ; and can a man ever enough speak 
the value of a friend, in comparison with these 
civil ties] The very image of it which I see 
so pure and uncorrupted in beasts, how reli- 
giously do I respect it ! If others deceive me, 
yet I do not at least deceive myself in thinking 
I am able to defend myself from them, or in 



■ Terence, Adelp. iv. 2. 9. 

2 Mr. Cotton's gallantry, or his desire to save the credit 
"t Montaigne Willi the ladies, induced him todiminish the 
"fleet ill' this shameful caliiniuv upon our belter halves, hy 
this addition— "Women, especially the perverse and elder 
tort," — a. modification which I cannot refrain from pre- 



s Seneca, Epist. 47. Macrobius, Saturnal. i. 11. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



207 



wearing out my brains to make myself so? I ; 
protect myself from such treasons in my own ! 
bosom, not by an unquiet and tumultuary j 
curiosity, but rather by diversion and resolution. 
When I hear talk of any one's condition I 
never trouble me to think of him, I presently 
turn my eyes upon myself, to see in what con- 
dition I am. Whatever concerns another relates 
to me ; the accident that has befallen him gives 
me caution and rouses me to turn my defence 
that way. We every day and every hour say 
things of another that we might more properly 
say of ourselves, could we hut revert our obser- 
vation to our own concerns as well as extend 
it to others. And several authors have in this 
manner prejudiced their own cause by running 
headlong upon those they attack, and darting 
those shafts against their enemies that are more 
properly, and with greater advantage, to be 
returned upon them. 

The late Marshal de Montluc, having lost his 
son, who died in the Island of Madeira, in truth 
a very brave gentleman, and of great expecta- 
tion, did to me, amongst his other regrets, very 
much insist upon what a sorrow and heart- 
breaking it was to him that he had never made 
himself familiarly acquainted with him; and, 
by that humour of fatherly gravity and grimace, 
had lost the opportunity of having an insight 
into, and of well knowing, his son ; as also of 
letting him know the extreme affection he had 
for him, and the worthy opinion he had of his 
virtue. "The poor boy," said he, "never saw 
in me other than a stern and disdainful counte- 
nance ; and is gone in a belief that I neither 
knew how to love or esteem him according to 
his desert. For whom did I reserve the disco- 
very of that singular affection -I had for him in 
my soul ? Was it not he himself who ought to 
have had all the pleasure of it, and all the obli- 
gation? I forced and wracked myself to put 
on and maintain this vain disguise, and have by 
that means deprived myself of the pleasure of 
his conversation, and, I doubt, in some measure 
of his affection ; which could not but be very 
cold towards me, having never other from me 
than austerity ; nor felt other than a tyrannical 
manner of proceeding." ' I find this complaint 
to be rational and rightly apprehended ; tor as 
I myself know, by too certain experience, there 
is not so sweet a consolation in the loss of 
friends as the consciousness of having had no 
reserve with them, to have had with them a 
perfect and entire communication. Oh, my 
friend ! 2 am I the better for being sensible of 
this; or am 1 the worse? 1 am doubtless much 
the better. I am comforted and honoured in 
the sorrow for his death. Is it not a pious, a 
pleasing office of my life to be always upon my 
friend's obsequies? Can there be any joy equal 
to this privation 1 



1 " Jo no puis 
Efesalsde Monti 
tin rezrfll qu'il a 
iii- lit, avoir laif 
lui. Cost a Ma 



I open myself to my family as much as I can, 
and very willingly let them know in what state 
they are in my opinion and good will, as I do 
to every body else. I make haste to bring out 
and produce myself to them; for I will not 
have them mistaken in me in any thing. 
Amongst other particular customs of our an- 
cient Gauls, this, as Caesar reports, was one, — 
that the sons never presented themselves before 
their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their 
company in public, till they began to bear 
arms ; 3 as if they would intimate, by that, that 
then was also time for the fathers to receive 
them into their familiarity and acquaintance. 

I have observed yet another sort of indiscre- 
tion in fathers of my time, that, not contented 
with having deprived their children, during 
their own long lives, of the share they naturally 
ought to have had in their fortunes, they after 
leave to their wives the same authority over 
their estates, and liberty to dispose of them 
according to their own fancy : and I have 
known a certain lord, one of the principal 
officers of the crown, who having in his pros- 
pect, by right of succession, above fifty thousand 
crowns yearly revenue, died necessitous and 
overwhelmed with debt, at above fifty years of 
age; his mother, in an extreme decrepitude, 
being yet in possession of all his estates by the 
will of his father, who had, for his part, lived 
till near eighty years old. This appears by no 
means reasonable to me. And therefore I think 
it of very little advantage to a man, whose affairs 
are well enough, to seek a wife that will charge 
his estate with too great a jointure : there being 
no sort of foreign debt or incumbrance that 
brings greater and more frequent ruin to estates 
and families than that. My predecessors have 
ever been aware of that danger, and provided 
against it, and so have I. But those who dis- 
suade us from rich wives, for fear they should 
be less tractable and kind, are out in their ad- 
vice to make a man lose a real convenience for 
so frivolous a conjecture. It costs an unreason- 
able woman no more to pass over one reason 
than another. The more she is in the wrong the 
better. Injustice allures such, as the honour of 
their virtuous actions does the good ; the more 
riches women bring with them, the more likely 
they are to be so much the more gentle and 
sweet-natured ; as women, the fairer they are, 
are the more inclined to be proudly chaste. 

'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of 
affairs to the mothers during the minority of 
the children : but the father has brought them 
up very ill if he cannot hope that, when they 
come to maturity, they will have more wisdom 
and dexterity in the management of their affairs 
than his wife, considering the ordinary weak- 
ness of the sex. It were, notwithstanding, to 
say the truth, more against nature to make the 



vrrs Imrs rufanls. Mori Dion, quo Co livrc est ] 
sous."— Mad. dc Scvignc, Icllrc a .<u fills. 

2 This apostrophe is addressed to la Bofc'Ue. 

a De Bella Gall. vi. Id. 



209 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



mothers depend upon the discretion of their 
children. They ought to be plentifully provided 
for, to maintain themselves according to their 
quality and age, by reason that necessity is 
much more unbecoming and insupportable to 
them than to men ; and therefore the son is 
rather to be cut short than the mother. 

In general, the most judicious distribution of 
our goods, when we come to die, 
J,! ie "?. 0St .P ru " is, in my opinion, to let them be 
tion of estates, distributed according to the cus- 
tom of the country. The laws 
have considered it better than we, and 'tis better 
to let them fail in their election than rashly to 
run the hazard of miscarrying in ours. Nei- 
ther are they properly ours, since, by a civil 
prescription, and without us, they are all judged 
to certain successors. And although we have 
some liberty beyond that, yet I think that we 
ought not, without great and manifest cause, 
to take away that from one which his fortune 
has allotted him, and to which the public equity 
gives him title ; and that it is against reason to 
abuse this liberty, in making it serve our own 
frivolous and private fancies. My destiny has 
been kind to me, in not furnishing me with 
occasions to tempt and dfvert my affection from 
the common and legitimate institution. I see 
some with whom 'tis time lost to employ a long 
diligence of good offices: a word ill taken 
obliterates ten years' merit; he is the happy 
man who is in a condition to oil their good will 
at the last passage. The last action carries it : 
not the best and most frequent offices, but the 
most recent and present, do the work. These 
are people that play with their wills, as with 
apples and rods, to gratify or chastise every 
action of those that pretend to an interest in 
them. 'Tis a thing of too great weight and 
consequence to be so tumbled and tossed and 
altered every moment : and wherein wise men 
determine once for all, having therein, above all 
things, a regard to reason, and to what is pub- 
licly observed. We lay male inheritance too 
much to heart, proposing a ridiculous eternity 
to our names. We are, moreover, too supersti- 
tious in the vain conjectures of futurity, which 
we derive from those little observations we make 
of the words and actions of children. Perhaps 
they might have done me an injustice in dis- 
possessing me of my rank, for having been the 
most dull and heavy, the most slow and unwil- 
ling at my book, not of all my brothers only, 
but of all the boys in the whole province ; 
whether at my lesson or at any bodily exercise. 
'Tis a folly to make an extraordinary election 
upon the credit of these divinations, wherein 
we are so often deceived. If the rule of primo- 
geniture were to be violated, and the destinies 
corrected in the choice they have made of our 
heirs, one might more plausibly do it upon the 
account of some enormous personal deformity ; 
a constant and incorrigible vice, and, in the 
opinion of us French, who are great admirers 
of beauty, of important prejudice. 



The pleasant dialogue betwixt Plato's legis- 
lator and his citizens will be an 
ornament to this place. " What," f > ,!^ 'l„ op J nion 

r > that the dispo- 

said they, feeling themselves sition of estates 
about to die, " may we not dis- should be re S u- 

c \. u lated by the 

pose or our own to whom we lavvs . ' 
please? Gods, what cruelty, that 
it shall not be lawful for us, according as we 
have been served and attended in our sickness, 
in old age, and other affairs, to give more or 
less to those whom we have found most diligent 
about us, at our own fancy and discretion !*' 
To which the legislator answers thus: "My 
friends, who are now, without question, very 
soon to die, it is hard for you either to know 
yourselves, or what is yours, according to the 
Delphic inscription. I, who make the laws, am 
of opinion that you neither are yourselves your 
own, neither is that yours of which you are 
possessed. Both your goods and you belong 
to your families, as well those past as those to 
come ; but yet, both your family and goods do 
much more appertain to the public. Wherefore, 
lest any flatterers in your age, or in your sick- 
ness, or any passion of your own, should un- 
seasonably prevail with you to make an unjust 
will, I shall take care to prevent that impro- 
priety. But, having respect both to the universal 
interest of the city, and that of your particular 
family, I shall establish laws, and make it 
appear that a particular convenience ought to 
give place to the common benefit. Go then 
cheerfully where human necessity calls you. It 
belongs to me, who have no more respect to 
one thing than another, and who, as much as 
in me lies, am careful of the public concern, to 
take care of what you leave behind you." ' 

To return to my subject: it appears to me 
that such women are very rarely 
born to whom the prerogative 'Tis dangerous 



tural excepted, 
due, unless it bi 



s in any sort the widows to 
for the punish- shar . e th V,T 

. - . . i ..*• i cession of the 

ment of such as in some lustful fathers among 
humour have voluntarily sub- thoir children, 
mitted themselves to them: but 
that does nothing concern the old ones, of 
whom we are now speaking. This considera- 
tion it is which has made us so willing to forge 
and give force to that law, which was never 
yet seen by any one, by which women are 
excluded the succession to this crown; and 
there is hardly a government in the world 
where it is not pleaded as 'tis here, by mere 
reason of the thing that gives it authority, 
though fortune has given it more credit in some 
places than in others. 'Tis dangerous to leave 
the disposal of our succession to their judgment, 
according to the choice they shall make of 
children, which is often fantastic and unjust; 
for the irregular appetite and depraved taste 
they have during the time of their being with 
child, they have at all other times in the mind. 



i Plato, Laics, li. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



We commonly see them fond of the most weak, 
ricketty, and deformed children, or of those, 
if they have such, as are at the breast. For, 
not having sufficient force of reason to choose 
and embrace that which is most worthy, they 
the more willingly suffer themselves to be 
carried away, where the impressions of nature 
are most alone ; like animals that know their 
young no longer than they give them suck. 
As to the rest, it is easy by experience to be 
discerned that this natural affection, to which 
we give so great authority, has 

Saffian but a ™ r y weak and sha11 ™ 

the natural root, lor a very little profit 
affection of we every day ravish their own 
tiieircmidren. children out of their mother's 
arms, and make them take ours 
in their room. We make them abandon their 

! own to some pitiful nurse, to which we disdain 
to commit ours, or to some she-goat: forbid- 
ding them not only to give them suck, what 

i danger soever they run thereby, but moreover 
to take any manner of care of them, that they 
may wholly be taken up with the care of, and 
attendance upon, ours. And we see in most of 
them an adulterate affection, begot by custom 
toward the foster-children, more vehement than 
the natural, and greater solicitude for the pre- 
servation of those they have taken charge of 
than their own. And that which I was saying 
of goats was upon this account; that it is ordi- 
nary, all about where I live, to see the country- 
women, when they want suck of their own, to 
call goats to their assistance. And I have at 
this hour two footmen that never sucked women's 
milk more than eight days after they were 
born. These goats are imme- 
u»°givesut n k e to diate 'y taught to come to suckle 
children. the little children, well knowing 

their voices when they cry, and 
come running to them ; when, if any other 
than that they are acquainted with be pre- 
sented to them, they refuse to lei it suck ; and 
the child will do the same to any other goat. 
I saw one the other day from whom they had 
taken away the goat that used to nourish it, 
by reason the father had only borrowed it of a 
neighbour, that would not touch any other they 
could bring, and died doubtless of hunger. 
Beasts do as easily alter and corrupt their 
I natural affections as we. I believe that in 
what Herodotus' relates of a certain district of 
Libya there are many mistakes. He says, — 

1 1 "That the women are there in common; but 

that the child, so soon as it can go, finds him 

I out in the crowd fur his father, to whom he is 

first led by his natural inclination." 

Now, in considering this simple reason 
loving ourchildren and calling them oursecond- 
selves, only because we begot them, it appears 



1 What Herodotus says, however, is that each child 
< :\x belonging to the man whom he most rese 
blea: Tijf u'r o'/yo, rj.r ai'6,iiif. The o'.Iit reading, i/vv, is 
001 receded. 

*h\ I he Ph.rdo. 

lb* 



methinks, that there is another kind of pro- 
d uction proceeding from us that 
should no less recommend itself Books immor- 
to our love : for that which we tal children. 
engender by the soul, the issue 
of our understanding, courage, and abilities, 
springs from nobler parts than those of the 
body, and that are much more our own; we 
are both father and mother together in this 
generation. These cost us a great deal more, 
and bring us more honour, if they have any 
thing of good in them. For the value of other 
children is much more theirs than ours ; the share 
we have in them is very little; but of these, 
all the beauty, all the grace and value, is ours. 
Thus 'tis that they more livelily represent and 
resemble us than the rest. Plato 2 adds that 
those are immortal children that immortalise 
their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon, Minos. Now, 
histories being full of examples of the common 
affection of fathers to their children, it seems 
not altogether improper to introduce some few 
also of this other kind. Heliodorus, that good 
Bishop of Tricca, rather chose to lose the dignity, 
profit, and devotion, of so venerable a prelacy, 
than to lose his daughter; 3 a daughter that 
continues to this day very graceful and comely, 
though, peradventure, a little too curiously 
and wantonly set off, and too amorous, for an 
ecclesiastic and sacerdotal daughter. There 
was one Labienus at Rome, a man of great 
worth and authority, and, amongst other good 
qualities, excellent in all sorts of literature, who 
was, as I take it, the son of that great Labie- 
nus, the chief of Csesar's captains in the wars 
of Gaul, and who, afterwards siding with 
Pompey the Great, so valiantly maintained his 
cause, till he was by Ceesar defeated in Spain. 
This Labienus of whom I am now speaking 
had several enemies, jealous of his virtue, and, 
'tis likely, courtiers and minions of the emperor 
of his time, who were very angry at, and dis- 
pleased with, his freedom and the paternal 
humour which he yet retained against tyranny, 
with which, it is to be supposed, he had tinc- 
tured his books and writings. His adversaries, 
before the magistracy of Rome, prosecuted 
several pieces he had published, and prevailed 
so far against him as to have them condemned 
to the names. 4 It was in him that this new 
example of punishment was begun, which was 
afterwards continued against several others at 
Rome, to punish even writing and studies with 
death. There would not be means and matter 
enough of cruelty did we not mix with them 
things that nature has exempted from all sense 
and suffering, as reputation and the products 
of mind, and if we did not communicate cor- 
poreal punishments to the learning and monu- 
ments of the muses. Now Labienus could not 



3 Viz., his Amnrmls Ilistorv of Tlira?ilic.< mid Cliurirlci, 
or Ethio'iiiin tihiarii. See Ninyliorus, xii. M. liayl" in 
verba, disputes the tradition. 

* S sneca, Rhetor, Conine, v. It is doubtful whether this 
Labienus was the son uf C:rsar's lijulenaiit. svo Vossius, 
Uc Hist. LiU. i. 85. 



210 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



suffer this loss, nor survive these his so dear 
issue, and therefore caused himself to be con- 
veyed and shut up alive in the monument of 
his ancestors, where he made shift to kill and 
bury himself at once. 'Tis hard to show a 
more violent paternal affection than this. Cas- 
sius Severus, a man of great eloquence, and his 
very intimate friend, seeing his books burn, 
cried out, "That by the same sentence they 
should also condemn him to the fire too, seeing 
that he carried in his memory all that they 
contained." The like misfortune befel Cremu- 
tius Cord us, who being accused 

im-s'cn mle'imi- *" 0r navul g m ms books com- 

ed"to tiie fire. mended Brutus and Cassius, the 
dirty, servile, and degenerate 
senate, worthy a worse master than Tiberius, 
condemned his writings to the flames. He 
was willing to bear them company, and killed 
himself with fasting. 1 The good Lucan, being 
condemned by that rascal Nero, at the last gasp 
of his life, when the greater part of his biood 
was already gone by the veins of his arms, 
which he had caused his physician to open to 
make him die, and that the cold had seized on 
all his extremities, and began to approach his 
vital parts; the last thing he had in his memory 
was some of the verses of his battle of Pharsa- 
lia, which he repeated, and died with them in 
his mouth. 2 What was this but taking a tender 
and paternal leave of his children, in imitation 
of the farewell blessings and embraces where- 
with we part with ours when we come to die; 
and an effect of that natural inclination that 
suggests to our remembrance, in this extremity, 
those things which were dearest to us during life'! 
Can we believe that Epicurus, 3 who, as he 
says himself, dying of intolerable pains of the 
cholic, had all his consolation in the beauty of 
the doctrine he left behind him, could have re- 
ceived the same satisfaction from many children, 
though never so well brought up, had he had 
them, as he did from the issue of so many rich 
and admirable writings'! Or that, had it been in 
his choice to have left behind him a deformed 
and untoward child, or a foolish and ridiculous 
book, he, or any other man of his understand- 
ing, would not rather have chosen to have run 
the first misfortune than the other'? It had 
been, perhaps, an impiety in St. Austin, for ex- 
ample, if, on the one hand, it had been proposed 
to him to bury his writings, from which our 
religion has received so great advantage; or, 
on the other, to bury his children, had he had 
any, had he not rather chosen to bury his chil- 
dren? And I know not whether I had not 
much rather have begot a very beautiful one, 
through my society with the 
Of the affection muses, than by lying with my 
tlignehadfor wife. To this, such as it is, 
liis book. what I give it I give it abso- 

lutely, and irrevocably, as men do 



to their bodily children. That little I have 
done for it is no more at my own disposal. It 
may know many things that I have furgotten, 
and retain from me that which I have not re- 
tained myself; and that, as a stranger, I must 
borrow thence, should I stand in need. If I 
am wiser than my book, it is richer than I. 

There are few men addicted to poetry who 
would not be much prouder to be father to the 
iEneid than to the handsomest and best made 
youth of Rome, and that would not much better 
bear the loss of the one than the other. For, 
according to Aristotle, 4 the poet, of all sorts of 
artificers, is fondest of his work. 'Tis hard to be- 
lieve thatEpaminondas, who boasted that for all 
his posterity, he left two daughters behind him 
which would one day do their father honour, 
(meaning the two noble victories he obtained 
over the Lacedaemonians) 5 would willingly 
have consented to exchange these for the most 
beautiful creatures of all Greece: or that Alex- . 
ander, or Caesar, ever wished to be deprived of 
the grandeur of their glorious exploits in war, 
for the convenience of having children and 
heirs, how perfect and accomplished soever. 
Nay, I make great question whether Phidias, 
or any other excellent statuary, would be so 
solicitous of the preservation and continuance 
of his natural children as he would be of a 
rare statue, which with long labour and study 
he had perfected according to art. And to 
those furious and irregular passions that have 
sometimes flamed in fathers towards their own 
daughters, and in mothers towards their own 
sons; the like is also found in this other sort 
of parentage. Witness what is related of 
Pygmalion, who, having made the statue of a 
woman of singular beauty, fell so passionately 
in love with this work of his that the Gods, in 
pity of his passion, were fain to inspire it 
with life : 

Tentatiim mollescit ebur, positoque rigore 
Sdbsidit digitis.a 
" Hard though it was, beginning to relent, 
The iv'ry breast beneath his fingers bent." 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS. 

'Tis an ill custom, and a little unmanly, which 

the gentlemen of our time have 

got, not to put on their armour, The ill custom 

but just upon the point of the J^^X 

most extreme necessity ; and to enemy is at the 

lay it by again as soon as ever gates. 

there is any show of the danger 

being a little over; whence many disorders 

arise; for every one bustling and running 

to his arms, just when he should go to the 



1 Taritnp, Jlnnal. iv. 34. 

2 Id. ib. xv. 70. 

s Laertius, in vita, ix. 22. Cicero, dc Finib. ii. 30. 
4 Ethics, ix. 7. 



5 Diod. Sic. xv. 87. Nepos, in his life of this srnv.t cap- 
tain, makes him speak but of one daughter, the battle of 
Lei ict ra. 

« Ovid, Met. X. 28i 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



211 



charge, had his cuirass to buckle on when his 
companions are already put to the rout. Our 
ancestors were wont to give their head-piece, 
lance, and gauntlets to carry, but never put off' 
their other pieces so long as there was any 
work to be done. Our troops are now cum- 
bered and rendered unsightly with the clutter 
of baggage and servants, that cannot be from 
their "masters, by reason they carry their arms. 
Livy, speaking of our nation, Intolerantissima 
labor is corpora vix arma hvmeris gerebant} 
"Their bodies were so impatient of labour that 
they could scarcely endure to wear their ar- 
mour." Many nations do yet, as anciently, 
go to war without defensive arms ; or such, at 
least, as were of very little proof. 



Teen 



quris capitum, rapt us <le subere cortex.' 



The armour of 
the French too 
cumbersome, 
by its weight, 
to be proper 



Alexander, the most adventurous captain that 
ever was, very seldom wore armour ; and such 
amongst us as slight it do not by that much 
harm the main concern; for if we see some 
killed for want of it, there are few less whom 
the lumber of armour helps to destroy, either 
by being over-burdened, crushed, and cramped 
with its weight, by a rude shock, or otherwise. 
For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and 
thickness of that which we have 
now in use, it seems as if we 
only sought to defend ourselves ; 
we are ra ther loaded, than secured, 
by it. We have enough to do to 
support its weight, manacled and 
immured, as if we were only to contend with 
the shock of our armour; and as if we had not 
the same obligation to defend it as it has to de- 
fend us. Tacitus 3 gives a pleasant description 
of the men-at-arms of our ancient Gauls, so 
armed as to be only able to move, without 
power to offend, or possibility to be offended, 
or to rise again when once beaten down. Lu- 
cullus, seeing certain soldiers of the Medes that 
made the front of Tigranes's army, heavily 
armed, and very uneasy, as if in prisons of 
iron, thence conceived hopes with great ease 
to defeat them ; and by them began his 
charge and victory. 4 And now that our mus- 
queteers are come into credit, I believe some in- 
vention will be found out to immure us for our 
safety, and draw us to the war in castles, such 
as those the ancients loaded their elephants 
withal. 

This humour is far differing from that of the 
younger Scipio, who sharply reprehended his 
soldiers tor having planted caltraps 5 under 
water, in a part of the fosse by which those of 



the town he held besieged might sally out upon 
him; saying that those who assaulted should 
think of attacking, and not of fearing ; 6 sus- 
pecting, with good reason, that this stop they 
had put to the enemy would make them less 
vigilant upon their duty. He said, also, to a 
j young man showing hirn a fine buckler he had 
that he was very proud of; " It is a very fine 
buckler, indeed ; but a Roman soldier ought 
to repose greater confidence in his right hand 
than in his left." 

Now 'tis nothing but the not being used to 
wear them that makes the weight of our arms 
so intolerable : 

L'usbergo in dosso haveano. ct I'elnio in testa 
Duo di ijiit^sii guerrier, riej <|uali io canto 
Ne notte o di, dopo cli' entraro in questa 
Stanza, gl' haveano cnai mussi da canto; 
Ch'-' facile a portar come la vesta 
Era lor, percue in uso 1'avcan tanto. 7 

" Two of these heroes whom I sing, had on 
Each his bright helm, and strong habergeon; 
And night nor day, nor one poor minute's space, 
Once laid them by whilst they were in this place; 
go long accustomed this weight to hear, 
Their clothes to them not lighter did appear." 

The Emperor Caracalla was wont continually 

to march on foot, completely , 

, t .1 i i r i_ ■ a Anns of Re- 

armed, at the head of his army." man Gantry, 
The Roman infantry always car- and their miii- 
ried not only their helmet, sword tar * d ' s e>Pi>'"-'- 
and shield (for as to arms, says 
Cicero, they were so accustomed to have them 
always on that they were no more trouble to 
them than their own limbs; Arma enim mem- 
bra militis esse dicunl ; 9 ) but moreover, fifteen 
days' provision, together with a certain number 
of piles, or stakes, wherewith to fortify their 
camp, to sixty pounds' weight. And Marios'a 
soldiers, 10 laden at the same rate, were inured to 
march in battalia five leagues in five hours; 
and sometimes, upon an urgent occasion, six. 
Their military discipline was much ruder than 
ours, and accordingly produced much greater 
effects. The younger Scipio, reforming his 
army in Spain, ordered his soldiers to eat 
standing, and nothing that was dressed." The 
jeer that was given a Lacedaemonian soldier is 
marvellously put to the matter, who, in an ex- 
pedition of war, was reproached to have been 
seen under the roof of a house. They were so 
inured to hardship that, let the weather be 
what it would, it was a shame to be seen under 
any other cover than the roof of Heaven. We 
should not march our people very far at that 
rate. 

As to what remains, Marcellinus, a man bred 
up in the Roman wars, curiously observes the 
manner of the Parthians arming themselves; 
and the rather for its being so different from 



' JEneid, vii. 742. 

3 Jinval. iii. 43. 

4 Plutarch, in vita. 

& A sort of clicnuiix defrise. 

o Val. Max. iii. 7, 2. The Latin text merely says that 
this stratagem was proposed to Scipio, who refused to 



' Ariosto, xii. 30. 

e Xiphilin. in vita. 

9 Tuscul. Quces. ii. 1G. Hence, in Latin, the analogy 
between arma, arms, with annus, the shoulder, and armilla, 
bracelets. 

i" Plutarch, in vita. 

ii Plutarch, Apothegms. 



212 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



that of the Romans. " They 
FaTihians had," says he, "armour arti- 

ficially woven, like so many little 
feathers, which did nothing hinder the motion 
of the body, and yet so hard that our darts 
hitting upon it would rebound." ' (These were 
the coats of mail our forefathers were so con- 
stantly wont to use.) And in another place: 
" They had," says he, " strong and able horses, 
covered with thick tanned hides of leather, and 
were themselves armed cap-a-pie, with great 
plates of iron so artificially ordered that, in all 
parts of the limbs which required bending, they 
assisted motion. One would have said that they 
were men of iron ; having armour for the head 
so neatly fitted, and so naturally representing 
the form of a face, that they were no where 
vulnerable, save at two little round holes that 
gave them a little light; and certain small 
chinks about their mouth and nostrils, through 
which they did, with great difficulty, breathe." 

Flexilis iniiuctis animatur lamina membris, 
Horribilis visu ; credas simulacra inoveri 
Ferrea, cognatoque vims spirare metallo. 
Par vestitus eqiiis: ferrata fronte minantur, 
Ferratosque movent, securi vulneris, anuos.* 

" Stiff plates of steel over the body laid. 
By armorer's skill so flexible were made 
That, dreadful to be seen, you would them guess 
Not to be men, but moving images: 
The horse, like arm'd, spikes bore in fronts above, 
And fearless they their iron shoulders move." 

A description very near resembling the equi- 
page of the men-at-arms in France, with their 
barbed horses. Plutarch says that Demetrius 
caused two complete suits of armour to be made 
for himself and for Alcimus, the first warrior 
about him, of six-score pounds weight each ; 
whereas the ordinary suits weighed but half 
so much. 3 



CHAPTER X. 

OF BOOKS. 

I make no doubt but that I often happen to 
speak of things that are much better, and more 
truly, handled by those who are masters of the 
trade. You have here purely an essay of my 
natural, and not acquired, parts ; and whoever 
shall take me tripping in my ignorance, will 
not in any sort displease me; for I should be 
very unwilling to become responsible to another 
for my writings, who am not so to myself, nor 
satisfied with them. Whoever goes in quest 
of knowledge, let him fish for it where it is to 
be found; there is nothing I so little profess. 



i Ainmianus Marcellinus, a Latin historian, though, by 
birth, a Greek, who bore arms under the emperors Con- 
Stantius, Julian, &(\ lib. wiv. cap. 7. 

2 Claudian in Ruf. ii. 358. 

a Plutarch, in vita, who tells the story somewhat 
differently. 

1 It was not till after Montaigne's death that his editor 



These are fancies of my own, by which I do 
not pretend to discover things, but to lay open 
myself. They may, perhaps, one day be known 
to me, or have formerly been, according as for- 
tune has put me upon a place where they 
have been explained; but I have forgotten 
them ; and if I am a man of some reading, I 
am a man of no retention ; so that I can pro- 
mise no certainty, if not to make known to 
what point the knowledge I now have rises. 
Therefore let nobody insist upon the matter I 
write, but my method in writing it : let them 
observe in what I borrow, if I have known how 
to choose what is proper to raise or help the 
invention, which is always my own ; for I 
make others say for me what, either for want 
of language, or want of sense, I cannot so well 
myself express. I do not number my bor- 
rowings, I weigh them. And had I designed 
to raise their value by their number, I had 
made them twice as many. They are all, or 
within a very few, so famed and ancient au- 
thors that they seem, methinks, themselves 
sufficiently to tell who they are, without giving 
me the trouble. 4 In reasons, com- 
parisons, and arguments, if I tni J n g Jjjri not 
transplant any into my own soil, choose to name 
and confound them amongst my &£«5™ he 
own, 1 purposely conceal the au- quoted, 
thor to awe the temerity of those 
forward censurers that fall upon all sorts of 
writings, particularly the late ones, of men yet 
living, and in the vulgar tongue, forsooth, 
which puts, it would seem, every one into a ca- 
pacity of judging, and which seems to convict 
the authors themselves of vulgar conception 
and design. I would have them give Plutarch 
a fillip on my nose, and put themselves in a 
heat with railing against Seneca, when they 
think they rail at me. I must shelter my own 
weakness under these great reputations. I shall 
love any one that can unplume me, that is, by 
clearness of understanding and judgment, and 
by the sole distinction of the force and beauty 
of reason: for I, who, for want of memory, 
am at every turn at a loss to pick them out by 
their national livery, am yet wise enough to 
know, by the measure of my own abilities, that 
my soil is incapable of producing any of those 
rich flowers that I there find set and growing; 
and that all the fruits of my own growth are 
not worth any one of them. For this, indeed, 
I hold myself responsible, though the confession 
make against me ; if there be any vanity and 
vice in my writings, which I do not of myself 
perceive, nor can discern, when pointed out to 
me by another ; for many faults escape the eye, 
but the infirmity of judgment consists in not 
being able to discern them, when, by another, 



undertook to name the authors whom he had quoted. And 
this was rather attempted than executed up to the edition 
of M. Buchon (whence the present translation is corrected 
and enlarged), which not only shows the places where 
Montaigne quoted those- passages, but also many others, 
which he had only referred to in a very loose manner, 
though he had inserted the sense of them in his work. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



213 



laid open to us. Knowledge and truth may be 
in us without judgment, and judgment also 
without them ; but the confession of ignorance 
is one of the fairest and surest testimonies of 
judgment that I know. I have no other officer 
to put my writings in rank and file, but for- 
tune. As things come into my head I heap 
them in; sometimes they advance in whole 
bodies, sometimes in single files. I am content 
that every one should see my natural and or- 
dinary pace, ill as it is. - 1 let myself jog on 
at my own rate and ease. Neither are these 
subjects which a man is not permitted to be 
ignorant in, or casually, and at a venture, to 
discourse of. I could wish to have a more per- 
fect knowledge of things, but I will not buy it 
so dear as it will cost. My design is to pass 
over easily, and not laboriously, the remainder 
of my life. There is nothing that I will break 
my brain about; no, not knowledge, of what 
price soever. 

I seek, in the reading of books, only to 

please myself by an irreproach- 
Sin books' able diversion; or if I study, it 

is for no other science than what 
treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs 
me how to live and die well : 

Has mens ad metas sudet oportet equus.i 

" I to tliis only course 
Train up, and in it only breathe my horse." 

I do not bite my nails about the difficulties I 
meet with in my reading; after a charge or 
two I give them over. Should I insist upon 
them, I should both lose myself and time ; for 
I have an impatient understanding that must be 
satisfied at once ; what I do not discern at first, 
by persisting becomes still more obscure. I do 
nothing without gaiety ; continuation, and a too 
obstinate endeavour, darkens, stupifies and tires 
my judgment. My sight is confounded and 
dissipated with poring; I must withdraw it, and 
refer the discovery to new attempts ; just as, to 
judge rightly of the lustre of scarlet, we are 
taught to pass it lightly over with the eye, in 
running it over at several sudden and reiterated 
views and glances. If one book does not 
please me, 1 take another, and never meddle 
with any but at such times as I am weary of 
doing nothing. I care not much for new ones, 

because the old seem fuller, and 
Montaigne pro- of stronger reason; neither do I 
ii-mid tiu! writ- m ucli tamper with Greek authors, 
rag* ol the ,. .^. . . . ' 

ancients to the ' or m y judgment loves not to 
moderns. occupy itself on matters which I 

know but superficially. 2 Amongst 
those that are simply pleasant of the moderns, 
Boccaccio's Decameron, Rabelais, and the Basia 
of Johannes Secundus, if those may be ranged 



] ' Properties, iv. 1, 70. 

a Mnntaiiini- takes oilier occasions to declare, more dis- 
tinctly, his ignorance ol" Greek; vet we find him often 
minim" passages from that 1 : 1 1 1 1; 1 1 .- 1 - 1 - . 

' Tlic AiiocUus is not by Plato, and Laertius had already 



under that title, are worth reading. As to the 
Amadises, and such kind of stuff; they had not 
the credit to take me, so much as in my child- 
hood. And I will moreover say (whether 
boldly or rashly), that this old, heavy soul of 
mine is now no longer delighted with Ariosto, 
no, nor with the good fellow Ovid ; his facility 
and invention, with which I was 
formerly so ravished, are now of Wlmt he 
no relish, and I can hardly have ffSSaSST* 
the patience to read him. 1 ofhislife. 
speak my opinion freely of all 
things, even of those that, perhaps, exceed my 
capacity, and that I do not conceive to be in 
anywise under my jurisdiction. The judgment 
I deliver is to show the measure of my own 
sight, and not that of the tilings. When I 
find myself disgusted with Plato's Axiochus, 
as with a work, considering who the author 
was, without force, my judgment does not be- 
lieve itself: 3 it is not so arrogant as to oppose 
the authority of so many other famous judg- 
ments of antiquity, which it considers as its 
directors and masters, and with whom it is ra- 
ther content to err ; in such a case it condemns 
itself, either for stopping at the outer bark, not 
being able to penetrate to the heart, or for con- 
sidering it by some false light, and is content 
with securing itself from trouble and error only ; 
and, as to its own weakness, does frankly ac- 
knowledge and confess it. It thinks it gives a 
just interpretation, according to the appearance 
that its conceptions present to it; but they are 
weak and imperfect. Most of the Fables of 
Msop have several meanings; those who my- 
thologised them chose some aspect that quadrates 
well to the Fable ; but for the most part, 'tis 
but the first face that presents itself, and but 
superficial ; there yet remain others more lively, 
essential, and protbund, into which they have 
not been able to penetrate ; and just so do I. 

But to proceed. I have always thought that, 
in poetry, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Ho- 
race, do many degrees excel the rest, and sig- 
nally, Virgil in his Georgics, which I look upon 
as the most finished work in poetry; in compa- 
rison of which a man may easily discern that 
there are some places in his JEneids to which 
the author would have given a little more of the 
file, had he had leisure : the fifth 
book of his JEneids seems to me viyi P ; ,n, ° n 
the most perfect. I also love 
Lucan, and willingly read him ; not so much 
for his style as for his own worth, of Lutan . 
and the truth and solidity of his 
opinions and judgments. As for my good Te- 
rence, the standard of all that is of Terence: 
charming and eloquent in the La- 
tin tongue, I find in him so admirable and 
lively a representation of our manners and the 



admitted this. It was for a lorn.' time attributed to 
/Eschines, the Sn<r.-iti< km (see the cuitiim by .Iran I.eChrc, 
Amsterdam. 17 1 1) ; others have fiivuu it to Xcnocrales. the 

Clialcedonian. lie this as it may, the dialogue is one of very 
great antiquity. 



214 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



movements of the soul, that our actions throw 
me at every turn upon him ; and I cannot read 
him so oft that I do not still discover some new 
grace and beauty. Such as lived near Virgil's 
time were scandalized that some should corn- 
er Lucretius. P" e him w , lth Lucretius. I am 
of opinion that the comparison is, 
in truth, very unequal ; a belief that, neverthe- 
less, I have much ado to assure myself in, when 
1 meet with some excellent passages in Lucre- 
tius. But, if they were so angry at this com- 
parison, what would they have said of the bru- 
tish and barbarous stupidity of those who, at 
this hour, compare Ariosto with him 1 and what 
would Ariosto himself say? 

O sfficulum insipiens, et infacetumli 

" O foolish, tasteless age !" 

I think the ancients had more reason to be 

angry with those who compared Plautus to 

Terence (though he smacks more 

of piautus as of hig ) th Lucretius to 

compared with 1T . .. _ ■" , , „ 

Terence. Virgil. It makes much lor the 

honour and preference of Terence 
that the father of Roman eloquence had him 
alone so often in his mouth, and the sentence 
that the best judge of Roman poets has passed 
upon the other. 2 I have often observed that 
those of our times who take upon them to write 
comedies (as well as the Italians, who are happy 
enough in that way of writing,) take in three or 
four arguments of those of Plautus or Terence 
to make one of theirs, and crowd five or six of 
Boccaccio's novels into one single comedy. That 
which makes them so load themselves with 
matter is the diffidence they have of being able 
to support themselves with their own strength. 
They must find out something to lean on ; and, 
having not of their own wherewith to entertain 
the audience, bring in the story to supply the 
defect of language. It is quite otherwise" with 
my author ; 3 the beauty, the perfection of his 
way of speaking, makes us lose the appetite for 
his plot. His fine expression, elegance, and 
quaintness, is every where taking: he is so 
pleasant throughout, 

Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni ; < 
" Liquid, and like a crystal running stream ;" 

and does so possess the soul with his graces 
that we forget those of his fable. This very 
consideration carries me further : I observe that 
the best and most ancient poets have avoided 
the affectation and hunting after, not only of 
fantastic Spanish and l'etrarchic elevations, but 
even the softest and most gentle touches, which 
are the ornaments of the poetry of succeeding 
times. And yet there is no good judgment that 



will condemn this in the ancients, and that does 
not incomparably more admire the equal polish 
and the perpetual sweetness and flourishing 
beauty of Catullus's Epigrams than all the stings 
with which Martial arms the tails of his. This is 
by the same reason that I gave before, as Martial 
says of himself: Minus illi ingenio laborandum 
fuit, in cvjus locum materia suc- 



for the exercise of his wit." The 
first, without being moved or putting them- 
selves out at all, make themselves sufficiently 
felt; they have matter enough of laughter 
throughout, they need not tickle themselves. 
The others have need of foreign assistance ; as 
they have the less wit, they must have the 
more body ; they mount on horseback, because 
they are not able to stand on their own legs. 
As in our balls, those mean fellows that teach 
to dance not being able to represent the port and 
dignity of our gentry, are fain to supply it with 
dangerous jumpings, and other strange motions 
and fantastic tricks. And the ladies are less put 
to it in dances where there are several coupees, 
changes, and quick motions of body, than in 
some others of a more quiet kind, where they 
are only to move a naturalpace, and to repre- 
sent their ordinary grace aria port: and as I have 
often seen good merry-andrews, who, in their 
own every-day clothes, and with their ordinary 
face, give us all the pleasure of their art, when 
their apprentices, not yet arrived to such per- 
fection, are fain to meal their faces, put them- 
selves into a ridiculous disguise, and make a 
hundred faces, to get us to laugh. This con- 
ception of mine is no where more demonstrable 
than in comparing the JEneid 

. , .-. , , r n • Comparison b"- 

with Orlando Furioso ; we see twoen the 
the first on outspread wing, with JEneid and the 
lofty and sustained flight, always °^So. 
following his point; the latter, 
fluttering and hopping from tale to tale, as from 
branch to branch, not daring to trust his wings 
but in very short flights, and perching at every 
turn lest his breath and force should fail. 

Excursusque breves tentat. 
" He tries short flights." 

These, then, as to this sort of subjects, are the 
authors that best please me. 

As to what concerns my other reading, that 
mixes a little more profit with the pleasure, and 
whence I learn how to marshal my opinions 
and qualities; the books that serve me to 
this purpose are Plutarch (since 
he has been translated into J f h |f**™5f! 
French) and Seneca. Both of and Seneca, 
them have this great convenience 



1 Catullus, xliii. 8. 

' Horace, who says iu his Jlrlc Poetu 

At nostri proavi Plautinos ( 

Laudavere sales, niiuiuin patieuter, utrosque, 

Non dicam stulte, inirati. 
" And yet our sires with joy could Plautus hear ; 
Gay were his jests, his numbers charm'd their eo 



Let me not say too lavishly they prais'd, 

But sure their judgment was full cheaply pleas'd.' 

1 Terence. 

' Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 129. 
> Martial, Prof. lib. viii. 
1 Virg. Qeorg. iv. 194. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



215 



suited to my humour, that the knowledge I 
there seek is discoursed in some pieces that do 
not require any great trouble of reading long, 
of whicli I am incapable. Such are the minor 
works of the first, and the Epistles of the latter, 
which are the best and most profitable of all 
their writings. 'Tis no great undertaking to j 
take one of them in hand, and I give over at | 
pleasure ; for they have no chain or dependence 
upon one another. These authors, for the most 
part, concur in all useful and true opinions:! 
and there is this further parallel betwixt them, 
that fortune brought them into the world about 
the same age: they were both tutors to the 
Roman emperors: both sought out from fo- 
reign countries: both rich, and both powerful. 
Their instructions are the cream of philosophy, 
and delivered after a plain and pertinent man- 
ner. Plutarch is more uniform and constant; 
Seneca more various and undulating. The last 
toiled, set himself, and bent his whole force to 
fortify virtue against frailty, fear, and vicious 
appetites. The other seems more to slight their 
power; he disdains to alter his pace, or stand 
upon his guard. Plutarch's opinions are 
Platonic, gentle, and accommodated to civil 
society : those of the other are Stoical and 
Epicurean, more remote from common use, but, 
in my opinion, more proper for private sanction 
and more firm. Seneca would seem to lean a 
little to the tyranny of the emperors of his 
time, but only seems ; for I hold it for certain 
that he spake against his judgment when he 
condemns the generous action of those who 
assassinated Caesar. Plutarch is frank through- 
out ; Seneca abounds with brisk touches and 
sallies: Plutarch with things that heat and 
move you more ; this contents and pays you 
better; he guides us, the other pushes us on. 

As to Cicero, those of his works that are 
x . .„. most useful to my design are they 
opinion of c thaUreat of philosophy, especially 
moral. But, boldly to confess the 
truth (for since one lias stepped over the bar- 
riers of impudence there is no checking one's- 
self), his way of writing, and that of all other 
long-winded authors, appears to me very te- 
dious : for his prefaces, definitions, divisions, 
and etymologies, take up the greatest part of 
his work: whatever there is of life and marrow 
is smothered and lost in the preparation. When 
I have spent an hour in reading him (which is a 
great deal for me), and try to recollect what I 
have thence extracted of juice and substance, 
for the most part I find nothing but wind ; for 
he is not yet come to the arguments that serve 
to his purpose, and the reasons that should pro- 
perly help to loose the knot I would untie. For 
me, who only desire to become more wise, not 
more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aris- 
totelian dispositions of parts are of no use. I 
would have a man begin with the main propo- 
sition, and that wherein the force of the argu- 
ment lies ; I know well enough what death and 
pleasure are ; let no man give himself the trouble 



to anatomize them to me; I look for good and 
solid reasons at the first dash to instruct me how 
to stand the shock, and resist them; to which 
purpose neither grammatical subtleties, nor the 
ingenious contexture of words and arguments, 
are of any use at all. I am for discourses that 
give the first charge into the heart of the doubt; 
his languish about his subjects, and deluy our 
expectation. Tiiey are proper for the schools, 
for the bar, and for the pulpit, where we have 
leisure to nod, and may awake a quarter of an 
hour after, time enough to find again the thread 
of the discourse. It is necessary to speak after 
tli is manner to judges, whom a man has a de- 
sign, right or wrong, to incline to favour his 
cause ; to children and common-people, to whom 
a man must say all he can, and try what effects 
his eloquence can produce. I would not have 
an author make it his business to render me 
attentive ; or that he should cry out fifty times 
O yes, as the clerks and heralds do. The Ro- 
mans, in their religious exercises, began with 
Hoc age ; as we in ours do with Sursum corda, 
which are so many words lost to me ; I come 
thither already fully prepared from my cham- 
ber. I need no allurement, no invitation, no 
sauce ; I eat the meat raw, and, instead of whet- 
ting my appetite by these preparatives, they 
tire and pall it. Will the license of the time 
excuse the sacrilegious boldness 
of my holding the dialoguisms dialogues*' S 
of Plato himself to be also 
heavy, and too much stifling his matter; and my 
lamenting so much time lost by a man who had 
so many better things to say, in so many long 
and needless preliminary interlocutions'! My 
ignorance will better excuse me in this, that I see 
nothing in the beauty of his language. I would 
generally choose books that use sciences, not 
such as only lead to them. The two first, 1 and 
Pliny, and their like, have nothing of this Hoc 
age; they will have to do with men already 
instructed ; or if they have, 'tis a substantial 
Hoc age, and that has a body by itself. I also 
delight in reading the Epistles to Atticus ; not 
only because they contain a great deal of his- 
tory and the affairs of his time; but much more 
because I therein discover much of his own 
private humour : for I have a singular curiosity 
(as I have said elsewhere) to pry into the souls, 
and the natural and true judgments, of the 
authors with whom I converse. A man may 
indeed judge of their parts, but not of their 
manners nor of themselves, by the writings they 
expose upon the theatre of the world. I have 
a thousand times lamented the loss of the trea- 
tise that Brutus writ upon virtue ; for it is 
best learning the theory of those who best know 
the practice. But seeing the thing preached, 
and the preacher, are different things, I would 
as willingly see Brutus in Plutarch as in a book 
of his own. I would ratlier choose to be cer- 
tainly informed of the conference he had in his 






Plutarch and Seneca. 



216 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



tent, with some particular friends of his, the 
night before a battle, than of the harangue he 
made the next day to his army ; and of what 
he did in his closet and his chamber, than what 
he did in the public place and in 

Character of ., ci . « : * /-i- t p 

Cicero. tae Senate. As to Cicero, I am ol 

the common opinion that (learn- 
ing excepted), he had no great natural parts. 
He was a good citizen, of an affable nature, as 
all fat, heavy men, such as he was, usually are: 
but given to ease, and had a mighty share of 
vanity and ambition. Neither do I know how 
to excuse him for thinking his poetry fit to be 
published. "Pis no great imperfection to make 
ill verses; but it is an imperfection not to be 
able to judge how unworthy his verses were of 
the glory of his name. For what concerns his 
eloquence, that is totally out of comparison : I 
believe it will never be equalled. The younger 
Cicero, who resembled his father in nothing but 
in name, whilst commanding in Asia had several 
strangers one day at his table, and among the 
rest Cestius, seated at the lower end, as men 
often intrude to the open tables of the great. 
Cicero asked one of his people who that man 
was] who presently told him his name. But 
he, as one who had his thoughts taken up with 
something else, and had forgot the answer made 
him, asking three or four times over and over 
again the same question, the fellow, to deliver 
himself from so many questions, and to make 
him know him by some particular circumstance : 
" 'Tis that Cestius," said he, " of whom it was 
told you that he makes no great account of your 
father's eloquence in comparison of his own." 
At which Cicero, being suddenly nettled, com- 
manded poor Cestius presently to be seized, and 
caused him to be very well whipped in his own 
presence: 1 — a very discourteous entertainer! 
Yet, even amongst those who, all things consi- 
dered, have reputed his eloquence incomparable, 
there have been some, however, who have not 
stuck to observe some faults: as that great 
Brutus, his friend, for example, who said 'twas 
a broken and feeble eloquence : frnctam el 
elumbem. 2 The orators, also, nearest to the age 
wherein he lived, reprehended in him the care 
he had of a certain long cadence in his periods, 
and particularly took notice of these words, 
esse videatur, which he there so oft makes use 
of. 3 For my part I better approve of a shorter 
cadence, that comes more roundly off; yet he 
sometimes shuffles his parts more briskly toge- 
ther, but 'tis very seldom. I have myself taken 
notice of this one passage, Ego verb me minus diu 
senem mallem,quam esse senem anlequam essem.* 
" For my own part, I had rather be old only a 
short time, than be old before I really am so." 
The historians, however, are my true men 



i Seneca, Suasor viii. 

» See the Dialogue dc Oratoribus, c. 

» lb. c. 23. 



for they are pleasant and easy; Wh Mon . 
where immediately man in gene- taigne was best 
ral, the knowledge of whom I pleased with 
hunt after, appears more lively lslor > r - 
and entire than any where besides : the variety 
and truth of his internal qualities, in gross and 
piece-meal, the diversity of means by which he 
is united and knit, and the accidents that 
threaten him. Now those that write lives, by 
reason they insist more upon counsels than 
events, more upon what sallies from within 
than upon that which happens without, are the 
most proper for my reading; and, therefore, 
above all others, Plutarch is the man for me. 
I am very sorry we have not a dozen Laertiuses, 
or that he was not further extended, or better 
understood. For I am equally curious to know 
the lives and fortunes of the great instructors of 
the world, as to know the diversities of their 
doctrines and opinions. In this class of study, 
the reading of histories, a man must tumble over, 
without distinction, all sorts of authors, ancient 
and modern, vulgar and classical, there to know 
the things of which they variously treat. But 
Cffisar, in my opinion, particularly deserves to 
be studied, not for the knowledge 
of the history only, but for him- m ^ r s ie c B 7 om . 
self, so great an excellence and mended, 
perfection he has above all the 
rest, though Sallust be one of the number. In 
truth, I read this author with somewhat more 
reverence and respect than is usually allowed to 
human writings ; one while considering him in 
his person, by his actions and miraculous great- 
ness, and another in the purity and inimitable 
polish of his language arid style, wherein he not 
only excels all other historians, as Cicero con- 
fesses, 5 but peradventure even Cicero himself: 
speaking of his enemies with so much sincerit; 
in his judgment that, the false colours wit] 
which he strives to palliate his ill cause, and 
the pollution of his pestilent ambition, excepted, 
I think there is no fault to be objected against 
him, saving this, that he speaks too sparingly of 
himself, seeing so many great things could not 
have been performed under his conduct, but 
that he himself must necessarily have had a 
greater share in the execution than he makes 
mention of. 

I love historians who are either very unsophis- 
ticated or very excellent. The former, who have 
nothing of their own to mix with it, and who only 
make it their business to make a faithful collec- 
tion of all that comes to their knowledge, and 
faithfully to record all things without choice or 
prejudice, leave to us the entire judgment of 
discerning the truth of things. Such, for exam- 
ple, amongst others, is honest Froissart, who 
has proceeded in his undertaking with so frank 



1 Cicero, Dc Senectute, c. 10. See some observations on 
is criticism in the (Entires completes dc Ciciron, vol. 



If: 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



217 



Froissart. a P' a ' nlless that, having commit- 

ted an error, he is not ashamed 
to confess and correct it in the place where the 
finger has been hud, and who represents to us 
even the variety of rumours that were then 
spread abroad, and the different reports that 
were made to him; which is the naked and 
unformed matter of history, and of which every 
one may make his profit, according to his pro- 
portion of understanding. The more excellent 
sort of historians have judgment to pick out 
what is most worthy to be known ; and, of two 
reports, to examine which is the most likely to 
be true. From the condition of princes and 
their humours they conclude the counsels, and 
attribute to them words proper for the occasion ; 
and such have title to assume the authority of 
regulating our belief to what they themselves 
believe; but certainly this privilege belongs to 
very tew. The middle sort of historians (of 
which the most part are) spoil all: they will 
chew our meat for us; they take upon them- 
selves to judge of, and consequently to bias 
history to their own fancy: for, if the judgment 
partially lean to one side, a man cannot avoid 
wresting and writhing his narrative to that 
bias. 1 They undertake to choose things worthy 
to be known, and yet very often conceal from us 
such a word, such a private action, as would 
much better instruct us; omit, as incredible, 
such things as they do not understand; and 
others, perhaps, because they cannot express 
them in good French or Latin. Let them, in 
God's name, display their eloquence, and judge 
according to their own fancy; but let them, 
withal, leave us something to judge of after 
them, and neither alter nor disguise, by their 
abridgments and selections, any thing of the 
substance of the matter; but deliver it to us 
pure and entire in all its dimensions. 

For the most part, and especially in these 
latter ages, persons are culled out for this work 
from amongst the common people, upon the 
sole consideration of well-speaking, as if we 
were to learn grammar thence ; and the men 
so chosen are in the right, being hired for 
no other end, and pretending to nothing but 
babble, not to be very solicitous of any part 
but that, and so, with a fine jingle of words, 
prepare us a pretty contexture of reports they 
pick up in the corners of the streets. The only 
good histories are those that have 
on^Kood the been written by the persons them- 
hiatoiiea. selves who commanded in the 

affairs whereof they write, or who 
have participated in the conduct of them, or, at 
least, who have had the conduct of others of the 
same nature. Such almost are all the Greek 
and Roman historians: for several eye-witnesses 
having writ of the same subject (as happened 
in those times, when grandeur and learning 



_ i "Lee (hits chnngentde forme dans la tetedel'h 

I""' 'ii . ,>.,,„i, ,hs; ilsprennentlateintedesea 
pwtfllges."— KmissKu', r.mi/e. iv. 
a In Suetoniuas Life of Julius Cicsar, sect. 5fi, where the 



frequently met in the same person), if there was 
an error it must of necessity be a very slight 
one, and upon a very doubtful accident. What 
can a man expect from a physician who will 
undertake to write of war; or from a mere 
scholar treating upon the designs of princes] 
If we would take notice how religious the 
Romans were in this, there needs 
but this example : Asinius Pollio The mistakes 
found in the history of Ccesar "?at have been 

. . ,- . t , J ■ , discovered in 

himself some mistake occasioned eaesar'e com . 
either by reason he could not mentaries. 
have his eye in all parts of his 
army at once, and had given credit to some 
particular persons, who had not delivered hirn 
a very true account; or else for not having 
had too perfect notice given him by his lieu- 
tenants of what they had done in his absence. 2 
By which we may see whether the inquisition 
after truth be not very delicate, when a man 
cannot believe the report of a battle from the 
knowledge of him who there commanded, nor 
from the soldiers who were engaged in it, unless, 
after the method of judicatory information, the 
witnesses be confronted, and the challenges 
received upon the proof of the least details of 
every point. The knowledge we have of our 
own private affairs is indeed still much weaker 
and more obscure : but that has been sufficiently 
handled by Bodin, 3 and according to my own 
sentiment. 

A little to guard against the treachery and 
defect of my memory (a defect so extreme that 
it has happened to me more than once to take 
books again into my hand for new and unseen, 
which I had carefully read over a few years 
before, and scribbled with my notes), I have 
taken a custom of late to fix at the end of 
every book (that is, of those I never intended 
to read again), the time when I made an end of 
it, and the judgment I had made of it on the 
whole, to the end that that might, at least, 
represent to me the air and general idea I had 
conceived of the author in reading it. And I 
will here transcribe some of these annotations. 

I writ this some ten years ago in my Guic- 
ciardini (in what language soever 
my books speak, I ahv 
of them in my own) : — " He 
diligent historiographer, and from whom, in my 
opinion, a man may learn the truth of the affairs 
of his time as exactly as from any other, or 
more; in the most of which he was himself also 
a personal actor, and in honourable command. 
There is no appearance that he disguised any- 
thing, either upon the account of hatred, favour, 
or vanity; of which the free opinion he passes 
upon great men, and particularly those by 
whom he was advanced and employed in com- 
mands of trust and honour, as Pope Clement 
the Seventh, give ample testimony. As to that 



render will find Pollid's nit icism mnrc severe than in iVInn- 

taifjne. wliii, however, must h ive taken it I'nmi Sin-ton i list. 

J A celebrated jurisconsult, hi a wink published hy him in 

.1560, entitled Melhodus adfacitcm hiatoriorum co^niilioncm. 



218 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



part which he seems to think himself the best 
at, namely, his digressions and discourses, he 
has indeed very good ones, and enriched with 
fine expressions; but he is too fond of them: 
for to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject 
so full, ample, and almost infinite, he degene- 
rates into pedantry, and relishes a little of the 
scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in 
him; that of so many persons, and so many 
effects, so many motives and so many counsels 
as he judges of, he never attributes any one of 
them to virtue, religion, or conscience ; as if all 
those were utterly extinct in the world. And 
of all the actions, how brave and fair jxn out- 
ward show soever they make of themselves, he 
always throws the cause and motive upon some 
vicious occasion or some prospect of profit. It 
is impossible to imagine but that, amongst such 
an infinite number of actions a£ he makes men- 
tion of, there must be some one produced by 
the way of reason. No corruption could so 
universally have affected men that some of 
them would not have escaped the contagion: 
which makes me suspect that his own taste was 
vicious; whence it might happen that he judged 
other men by himself." 

In my Philip de Comines there is this 

written : — " You will here find 
Coniiic's ; tho language soft, delightful, and 

full of simplicity; the narration 
pure, in which the veracity of the author evi- 
dently shines ; free from vanity when speaking 
of himself, and from affection or envy when 
speaking of others. His discourses and ex- 
hortations more accompanied with zeal and 
truth than with any exquisite self-sufficiency ; 
and throughout authority and gravity, which 
speak him a man of extraction and bred up in 
great affairs." 

Upon the Memoirs of Monsieur du Bellay 1 
I find this: — "Tis always pleasant to read 

things writ by those that have 
of du Bellay. experienced how they ought to 

be carried on ; but withal it can- 
not be denied but there is a manifest falling off 
in these two lords from the freedom and liberty 
of writing that shines in the older historians of 
their class, such as the Sire de Jouinville, a 
domestic to St. Louis; Eginhard, chancellor to 
Charlemagne ; and of later date in Philip de 
Comines. We have here rather an apology 
for King Francis against the Emperor Charles 
the Fifth than a history. I will not believe 
that they have falsified anything as to matter 
of fact; but they make a common practice of 
wresting the judgment of events (very often 
contrary to reason) to our advantage, and of 
omitting every thing that is ticklish to be handled 
in the life of their master; witness the 



of Messieurs de Montmorency and de Biron, 
which are here omitted : nay, so much as the 
very name of Madame d'Estampes is not here 
to be found. Secret actions an historian may 
conceal ; but to pass over in silence what all 
the world knows, and things that have drawn 
after them important public consequences, is an 
inexcusable defect. In fine, whoever has a 
mind to have a perfect knowledge of King 
Francis, and what happened in his reign, let 
him seek it elsewhere, if my advice may prevail. 
The only profit a man can reap here is from 
the particular narrative of battles and other 
exploits of war wherein those gentlemen were 
personally engaged ; some words and private 
actions of the princes of their time, and the 
practices and negociations carried on by the 
Seigneur de Langey ; where, indeed, there are 
everywhere things worthy to be known, and 
discourses above the vulgar strain." 



CHAPTER XI. 

OF CRUELTY. 

I ta.ke virtue to be distinct from, and some- 
thing more noble than, those in- 
clinations to generosity and good thaT^odneas! 
nature which we are born with. 
Well disposed and well descended souls pursue, 
indeed, the same methods, and represent the 
same face that virtue itself does ; r^ut the word 
virtue imports something, I know not what, 
more great and active than merely for a man 
to suffer himself, by a happy dispensation, to 
be gently and quietly drawn into the train of 
reason. He who, from a natural sweetness 
and facility of temper, should despise injuries 
received, would doubtless do a very great and 
a very laudable thing; but he who, provoked 
and nettled to the quick by an offence, should 
fortify himself with the arms of reason against 
the furious appetite of revenge, and, after a 
great conflict, master his own passion, would 
doubtless do a very great deal more. The first 
would do well; the latter virtuously. One 
action might be called goodness, and the other 
virtue; for methinks the very name of virtue 
pre-supposes difficulty and con- 
tention, and that it cannot be Virtue cannot 
exercised without opposition. 'Tis wiSt'soiue 
for this reason, perhaps, that we difficulty. 
call God good, mighty, liberal, 
and just; but we do not call him virtuous, 2 
being that all his operations are natural and 
without endeavour. Many philosophers, not 



i These Memoirs, published liy Martin du Bellay, consist 
often hooks, of which the lour lost ami three last are Martin 
du Bellay s. and the others his brother William de Langey's, 
and were taken from his filth (j^ihiade, from the years J536 
to 1540. They are entitled Memoirs of Martin du Bellay, 
iccouuts of scocrul tilings t/tat happened in 



-Rousseau, £mitc, 



s DiiMi /«)«, n ous ne 1'appellou- 
pus ficsuiii d'cilbrt pour bien 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



219 



only Stoics, but Epicureans,' (and this distinc- 
tion I borrow from the common opinion, which 
is a wrong one, notwithstanding that subtle 
quip of Arcesilaus to him who reproached him, 
"That many persons went from his school to 
the Epicurean, but never from the Epicurean 
to his ;" — " It may well be so," said he ; 
"cocks make many capons, but capons never 
make cocks." For, in truth, in firmness and 
austerity of opinions and precepts the Epicurean 
sect yields in no degree to the Stoic; and a 
Stoic, exhibiting better faith than those dis- 
putants who, to combat Epicurus and give 
themselves an advantage, make him say things 
he never thought of, twisting his words awry, 
and making use of the laws of grammar to 
deduce another sense from his way of speak- 
ing, and another doctrine than what, they well 
knew, he had in his heart and manifested in 
his manners, tells us that he declined to become 
an Epicurean for this consideration, among 
others, that he thought their ways too high 
and rugged : Et ii qui rpa-^Soroi vocantur sunt 
^aoxato, omnes virtutes et colunt et retinent) : 2 
of the philosophers, Stoic and Epicurean, I 
say, there are several who were of opinion that 
it is not enough to have the soul seated in a 
good place, of a good temper, and well disposed 
to virtue; — it is not enough to have our reso- 
lution and our reason fixed above all the power 
of fortune, but we are, moreover, to seek occa- 
sions wherein to put them to the proof. We 
are to covet pain, necessity, and contempt, to 
contend with them, and to keep the soul in 
breath: Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita? 
" Virtue perfectionates herself by resisting as- 
saults." 'Tis one of the reasons why Epami- 
nondas, who was yet of a third sect, 4 refused 
the riches which fortune presented to him 
by very lawful means, " Tn order," said he, 
" to contend with poverty ;" in the extreme 
of which he maintained himself to the last. 
Socrates, methinks, put himself upon a still 
harder trial, keeping for his exercise a ter- 
magant scolding wife, which was fighting at 
sharps. Metellus having, of all the Roman 
senators, alone attempted, by the power of 
virtue, to withstand the violence of Saturninus, 
tribune of the people at Rome, who sought 
forcibly to cause an unjust law to pass in favour 
of the commons, and by so doing having in- 
curred the capital penalties that Saturninus 
had established against dissentients, entertained 
those who in this extremity led him to execu- 
tion, with words to this effect: "That it was 



1 Montaigne stops here to make his excuse for thus 
naming the Epicureans with the t^tdiis, in conformity to 
tlic general opinion that liie Epicureans were not so rigid 
in their morals as the Stoics, which is not true in the main, 
a he rc'iieinsirales at one view. This involved Montaigne 
in a long parenthesis, during which il is proper that the 

reader i,r ai i eui a e,i hai he may not entirely lose the thread 

of the argu nt. In some hitler editions ol'lhis author it 

vain and unauthorised lepi 

that Montaigne's arg n 

and obscure by these, it is 



nit, without observing 
ered somewhat feeble 
that ought not to bo 



a thing too easy and too base to do ill ; and 
that to do well where there was no danger was 
a common thing; but that to do well where 
there was danger was the proper office of a 
man of virtue." 5 These words of Metellus very 
clearly represent to us what I would make out, 
that virtue refuses facility for a companion; 
and that- that easy, smooth, and descending 
way, by which the regular steps of a sweet 
disposition of nature are conducted, is not that 
of a true virtue. She requires a rough and 
stormy passage ; she will have either outward 
difficulties to wrestle with, like that of Metellus, 
by means of which fortune delights to interrupt 
the speed of her career; or internal difficulties, 
which our inordinate appetites and imperfec- 
tions introduce to disturb her. 

I am come thus far at my ease ; but here it 
comes into my head that the soul of Socrates, 
the most perfect that ever came to my know- 
ledge, should, by this rule, be of very little 
account; for I cannot conceive in that person 
any the least motion of a vicious inclination : I 
cannot imagine there could be any difficulty or 
constraint in the course of his virtue: I know 
liis reason to be so powerful and sovereign over 
him that she would never have suffered a vicious 
appetite so much as to spring in him. To a 
virtue so elevated as his I have nothing to 
oppose. Methinks I see him march, with a 
victorious and triumphant pace, in pomp, and 
at his ease, without opposition or disturbance. 
If virtue cannot shine brightly but by the conflict 
of contrary appetites, shall we then say that 
she cannot subsist without the assistance of 
vice, and that it is from her that she derives 
her reputation and honour 1 What then also 
would become of that brave and generous Epi- 
curean pleasure which assumes to nourish virtue 
tenderly in her lap, and there make it play and 
wanton, giving it for toys to play withal shame, 
fevers, poverty, death, and torments ? If I 
presuppose that a perfect virtue manifests itself 
in contending, in patiently enduring pain, and 
undergoing the utmost extremity of the gout, 
without being moved in her seat ; if I give her 
austerity and difficulty for her necessary objects, 
what will become of a virtue elevated to such a 
degree as not only to despise pain, but more- 
over to rejoice in it, and to be tickled with the 
stabs of a sharp colic, such a virtue as the Epi- 
cureans have established, and of which many 
of them, by their actions, have given most 
sufficient proofs? 6 As have likewise several 
others, who I take to have surpassed, in effect, 



taken, because he,\vho publishes the work of another ought 
to give it us the other composed it. Mr. Cotton was so 
puzzled with the enormous parenthesis that follows in the 
text that he quite left it out. 

a Cicero, Epist. Fam. xv. 19. 

s Seneca, Epist. 13. 

« The Pythagorean. See Cicero, de Offic. i. 44. 

6 Plutarch, Ltfc of Marius. 

e Cicero, de Finibus, ii. 30. 



220 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



even the rules of their own discipline ; witness 

the younger Cato. When I see him die, and 

tear his own bowels, I am not 

The noble satisfied simply to believe that he 

death of Cato , , ., , . r ■> , ... 

accompanied "ad then his soul totally exempt 
with pleasure, from all troubles and fear, I can- 
not think that he only maintained 
himself in the steadiness that the stoical rules 
prescribed him ; temperate, without emotion, 
and undisturbed; there was, methinks, some- 
thing in the virtue of this man too sprightly 
and active to stop there ; I believe that, with- 
out doubt, he felt a pleasure and delight in so 
noble an action, and was more pleased in it 
than in any other of his life : Sic abiit e vita 
ul causum moriendi naclum se esse gauderet. 1 
"He quitted life rejoicing that he had found 
occasion to seek death." I believe this 'so 
entirely that I question indeed Whether he would 
have been content to have been deprived of the 
occasion of so brave an exploit. And if the 
goodness that made him embrace the public 
concern more than his own withheld me not, 
I should easily fall into an opinion that he 
thought himself obliged to fortune for having 
put his virtue upon so brave a trial, and for 
having favoured that thief 2 in treading under 
foot the ancient liberty of his country. Me- 
thinks I read in this action 1 know not what 
exultation in his soul, and an extraordinary 
and manly emotion of pleasure, when he looked 
upon the generosity and height of his enter- 
prize : 

Deliberata morte ferocior:3 



Made 1 



! haughty by his resolution to die : 



not stimulated with any hope of glory, as the 
popular and effeminate judgments of some have 
concluded (for that consideration had been too 
mean and low to possess so generous, so haughty, 
and so unbending a heart as his), but for the 
very beauty of the thing in itself, which he, 
who had the handling of the springs, discerned 
more clearly and in its perfection than we are 
able to do. Philosophy has obliged me in 
determining that so brave an action had been 
indecently placed in any other life than that of 
Cato, and that it only belonged to his to end so. 
Therefore it was that, according to reason, he 
commanded his son and the senators that accom- 
panied him, to take another course in their 
affairs : Catoni quum incredibilem natura tri- 
buisset, gravitalem, eamque ipse pp.rpetua con- 
stantia roboravisset, semperque in proposilo 
consilio permansisset, moriendum jpotius quam 
tyranni vultus aspiciendus erat. i "Nature 
having endued Cato with a surprising inflex- 
ibility, which he himself had fortified with 
perpetual exercise, never having deviated from 
his resolutions, he chose rather to die than to 
see the face of the tyrant." Every death ought 



i Cicero, Tu.sc. Quasi, i. 30. 

2 Caisar, who, notwithstanding his great qualities, which 

Montaigne setoff with such luslre in the precedingohnpier, 
is here treated as he deserves, for having committed the 



to hold proportion with the life before it. We 
do not become others for dying. I always 
interpret the death by the life preceding ; and 
if any one tells me of a death strong and firm 
in appearance, annexed to a feeble life, I con- 
clude it produced by some feeble cause, and 
suitable to the life before. The easiness then 
of this death, and the facility of dying, he had 
acquired by the vigour of his soul, shall we 
say that it ought to abate anything of the 
lustre of his virtue? And who that has his 
brain never so little tinctured with the true 
philosophy, can be content to imagine Socrate3 
merely free from fear and passion in the acci- 
dent of his prison, fetters, and condemnation ? 
and that will not discover in him not only 
stability and firmness, (which was his ordinary 
composure,) but moreover I know not what 
new satisfaction and frolic cheerfulness in his 
last words and actions? at the start he gave, 
with the pleasure of scratching his leg, when 
his irons were taken off; does he not discover 
an equal serenity and joy in his soul for being 
freed from past inconveniences, and at the 
same time to enter into the knowledge of things 
to come? Cato will pardon me if he please; 
his death, indeed, is more tragical and more 
taken notice of, but yet this, I know not how, 
finer. Aristippus said to those who were pity- 
ing him, " The gods grant me such a death." 
A man discerns in the souls of 
these two great men and their y irt <f «" rned 

• •,. . ,? r u j i* into habit in 

imitators (for I very much doubt Cat0 and So . 

whether there were ever their crates. 

equals) so perfect a habit of 

virtue that it was turned to a complexion. It 

is no more a laborious virtue, nor the precepts 

of reason, to maintain which the soul is racked ; 

but the very essence of their souls, its natural 

and ordinary condition. They have rendered 

it such by a long practice of philosophical 

precepts, having lit upon a rich and ingenuous 

nature. The vicious passions that spring in 

us can find no entrance into them. The force 

and vigour of their souls stifle and extinguish 

irregular desires so soon as they begin to move. 

Now, that it is not more noble, by a high 

and divine resolution, to hinder . 

, , . , „ . ... , . Different 

the birth of temptations, and to degrees of 

be so formed to virtue that the" virtue, 

very seeds of vice be rooted out, 
than to hinder, by main force, their progress ; 
and having suffered one's-self to be surprised 
with the first motions of the passions, to arm 
one's-self, and to stand firm to oppose their 
progress, and overcome them : and that this 
second effect, itself, is not also much more 
noble than to be simply endowed with a facile 
and affable nature, of itself disaffected to de- 
bauchery and vice, I do not think can be 
doubted ; for this third and last sort seems to 



most heinous of all crimes. Cicero, too, calls him pcrditus 
lal.ro (Ad Attic, vii. 18). 

a Horace, Oil. i. 37, 29. 

■> Cic. dc 0£ic. i. 31. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



221 



render a man innocent, but not virtuous ; free 
from doing ill, but not apt enough to do well: 
added, that this condition is so near neighbour 
to imperfection and weakness that I know not 
very well how to separate the confines and dis- 
tinguish them; the very name of goodness, and 
good nature, and innocence are, for this reason, 
in some sort grown into contempt. I know 
that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety, and 
temperance, may come to a man through per- 
sonal defects. Firmness in danger (if firmness 
it must be called), the contempt of death and 
patience in misfortunes, may oft-times be found 
in men for want of well judging of such 
matters and not apprehending them for such as 
they are. Want of apprehension and sottish- 
ness do sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects: 
as I have often observed it happen that men 
have been comme\ded for what really deserved 
blame. An Italian lord once said this in my 
presence, to the disadvantage of his own nation ; 
that the subtlety of the Italians 
Italians subtle alK ] t ] le vivacity of their concep- 

iiuit quirk ui . ' . , r 

apiiroiitinsion. tions were so great that they 
foresaw the dangers and acci- 
dents that might befal them so far off that it 
must not be thought strange if they were often, 
in war, observed to provide for their safety, 
even before they had discovered the peril: that 
we French and Spaniards, who are not so cun- 
ning, went on further; and that we must be 
made to see and feel the danger before we could 
take the alarm ; but the Germans 
tariSffoeefX' &n ^ Swiss, more heavy and thick- 
heads. °° skulled, had not the sense to look 
about them even then, when the 
blows were falling about their ears. Perhaps, 
he only said so for mirth's sake. And yet it is 
most certain that, in war, raw soldiers rush into 
danger with more precipitation than after they 
have been well beaten. 

Hand ignarus * * * quantum nova gloria in armis, 
Kt pra'dulce decus, primo certainine, possit. 1 



For this reason it is that when we judge of a 
particular action, we are to consider the several 
circumstances and the whole of the man by 
whom it is performed, before we give it a 
name. 
To instance in myself; I have sometimes 

known my friends call that pru- 
JhtedMon"" dence in me which was merely 
taigne's virtue, fortune, and repute that courage 

and patience which was judg- 
ment and opinion : and to attribute to me one 
title for another, sometimes to my advantage:, 
and sometimes otherwise. As to the rest I am 
so far from being arrived at the first and most 
perfect degree of excellence, where virtue is 
turned into habit, that even of the second I 



<>ia<v, s„t. i. 6, Co. 



have made no great trial. I have not been 
very solicitous to curb the desires by which I 
have been importuned. My virtue is a virtue, 
or rather an innocence, casual and accidental. 
If I had been born of a more irregular com- 
plexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy 
work on't; for 1 never observed any great 
stability in my soul to resist passions, if they 
were never so little vehement. I have not the 
knack of nourishing quarrels and debates in my 
own bosom, and consequently owe myself no 
great thanks that I am free from several vices: 

Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis 
Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta; velut si 
Egregio inspersos repreliendas corpore nsvos:' 

"If of small crimes, and few, my nature be 
To be accused, and from the great ones free, 
Those venial faults will no more spot my soul 
Than a fair body's blemished with a mole: 

I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason. 
She has made me to be descended of a race 
famous for conduct, and of a very good father; 
I know not whether or no he has infused into 
me part of his humour; or whether domestic 
examples and the good education of my infancy 
have insensibly assisted in the work, or if I 
was otherwise born so : 

Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius aspicit 
Formidolosus, pars violentior 
Natalis bora>, seu tyrannus 
Hesperia: Capricornus undae.a 

" If Libra, or dead Scorpio's sign, 
Or Capricorn with stormy ravs 
Prevailed, the tyrant of the Hesperian seas. 

But so it is that I have naturally a horror for 
most vices. The answer of Antisthenes to him 
who asked him which was the best apprentice- 
ship ; " To unlearn evil," 4 seems to point at 
this. I have them in horror, I say, with a 
detestation so natural and so much my own 
that the same instinct and impression I brought 
with me from my nurse I yet retain, no tempta- 
tions whatever having had the power to make 
me alter it; not so much as my own discourses, 
which, in some things, dashing out of the com- 
mon road, might easily license me to actions 
that my natural inclination makes me hate. I 
will say a prodigious thing, but 
I will say it however; I find Montaigne's 
myself, in many things, more "^"j!," 1 as^u/ 
curbed and retained by my man- manners, 
ners than my opinion, and my 
concupiscence is less debauched than by reason. 
Aristippus instituted opinions so bold, in favour 
of pleasure and riches, as made all the philoso- 
phers set at him ; but, as to his manners, 
Dionysius, the tyrant, having presented three 
beautiful women before him to take his choice, 
he made answer that he would choose them 
all, and that it had happened ill to Paris in 
having preferred one before the other two : but 



222 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



having taken them home to his house, he sent 
them back untouched. 1 His servant finding 
himself overloaded upon the way, with the 
money he carried after him, he ordered him to 
pour out and throw away that which troubled 
him. 2 And Epicurus, whose doctrines are so 
irreligious and effeminate, was, in his life, very 
laborious and devout: he wrote to a friend of 
his that lie lived only upon biscuit and water, 
intreating him to send him a little cheese to lie 
by him against he had a mind to make a feast. 3 
Can it be true, that to be a perfect good man 
we must be so by an occult, natural and uni- 
versal propriety, without law, reason, or ex- 
ample? The debauches wherein I have been 
engaged have not been, I thank God, of the 
worst sort; and I have thoroughly condemned 
them myself; for my judgment was never in- 
fected by them. On the contrary, 1 accuse 
them more severely in myself than in another. 
But that is all ; for, as to the rest, I oppose too 
little resistance, and suffer myself to incline too 
much to the other side of the balance, except- 
ing that I moderate them, and prevent them 
from mixing with other vices which, for the 
most part, will cling together if a man have 
not a care. I have contracted and curtailed 
mine to make them as single as I can : 



" Nor ever beyond this my faults indulge." 

For, as to the opinion of the Stoics, who say 
that the wise man, when he works, works by 
all the virtues together, though one be most 
apparent, according to the nature of the action; 
(and of this the similitude of a human body 
might serve them to some instance; for the 
action of anger cannot work but that all the 
humours must assist, though choler predomi- 
nate:) if thence they will draw a like con- 
sequence, that when the wicked man does 
wickedly, he does it by all the vices together, 
I do not believe it to be simply so, or else I un- 
derstand them not; for I, by effect, find the 
contrary. These are witty, unsubstantial sub- 
tilties, which philosophy sometimes insists upon. 
I follow some vices, but I fly others as much as 
a saint would do. The Peripatetics also dis- 
own this indissoluble connection; and Aristotle 
is of opinion that a prudent and just man may 
be intemperate and lascivious. Socrates con- 
fessed to some who had discovered a certain 
inclination to vice in his physiognomy, that it 
was, in truth, his natural propensity, but that 
he had, by discipline, corrected it. 5 And such 
as were familiar with the philosopher Stilpo 
said that, being born subject to wine and 
women, he had, by study, rendered himself 
very abstinent both from the one and the other. 6 



Juvenal, viii. 164. 



What I have in me of good, I have, on the 
contrary, by the chance of my 
birth ; and hold it not either by What Mon- 
law, precept, or other apprentice- nesi" 6 consisted 
ship. The innocence that is in me in. 
is quite simple; little vigour and 
no art. Amongst other vices I mortally hate 
cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the 
extreme of all vices; and this to such a degree 
of tender-heartedness that I cannot see a 
chicken's neck pulled oft" without trouble, and 
cannot without impatience, endure the cry of a 
hare in my dog's teeth, though the chase be an 
exciting pleasure. Such as are combatting 
sensuality willingly make use of this argument, 
to show that it is altogether vicious and unrea- 
sonable that, when it is at the height, it masters 
us to that degree that a man's reason can have 
no access, 7 and they allege our own experience 
in the act of love 

Quum jam prcesagit corpus, 
Atque in eo est Venua, ut muliebria conserat arva;e 

wherein they conceive that the pleasure doth so 
transport us that our reason cannot perform its 
office whilst we are so benumbed and ravished 
with delight. I know very well it may be 
otherwise, and that a man may sometimes, if 
he will, gain this point over himself to sway his 
soul, even in the critical moment, to think of 
something else: but then he must firmly in- 
cline and ply it to that bent. I 
know that a man may triumph He couid^ resist 
over the utmost effort of this plea- impressions' of 
sure : I have experienced it my- pleasure, 
self, and have not found Venus 
so imperious a goddess as many, and some more 
correct than I, declare. I do not consider it as 
a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does, in one 
of the tales of her Hcptameron (which is a 
pretty book of its kind), nor for a thing of ex- 
treme difficulty, to pass over whole nights, 
where a man has all the convenience and liberty 
he can desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and 
yet be just to his faith before given, to content 
himself with kisses and innocent embraces, 
without pressing any further. I 
conceive that the example of the S^g^"" of 
pleasure of the chase would be what, 
more proper: wherein, though 
the pleasure be less, yet the ravishment and the 
surprise are more, by which the reason, being 
astonished, has not so much leisure to prepare 
itself for the encounter ; when after a long quest 
the game starts up on a sudden in a place where 
perhaps, we least expected : which sudden mo- 
tion, with the ardour of the shouts and cries of 
the hunters, so strike us that it would be hard, 
for such as are lovers of the chase, to turn their 
thoughts another way: and the poets make 



i Cicero, Tunc. Quas. iv. 37. 

i de falo, c. 5. 

' de Senect. c. 12. 

i Lucretius, iv. 1039 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



223 



Diana triumph over the torch and shafts of 
Cupid : 

Quia non malarum, quas amor etnas habet, 



To return to my subject. I am tenderly com- 
passionate of other aiilictions, and should readily 
cry for company if, upon any occasion whatever, 
I could cry at all. Nothing tempts my tears 
but tears, and not only those that are real and 
true, but whatever they are, feigned or real. I 
do not much pity the dead, and should envy 
them rather ; but I very much pity the dying. 
The savages do not so much offend me in roast- 
ing and eating the bodies of the dead as they 
do who torment and persecute the living. Nay, 
I cannot so much as look upon the ordinary 
executions of justice, how reasonable soever, 
with a steady eye. Some one having to give 
testimony of Julius Caesar's cle- 
; , ;;' i ;^,^ sar ' s mency: "He was," says he, 
"mild and moderate in his ven- 
geance ; for, having compelled the pirates to 
yield, by whom he had before been taken pri- 
soner and put to ransom, forasmuch as they had 
threatened him with the cross, he indeed con- 
demned them to it, but it was after they were 
first strangled. He punished his secretary, 
Philemon, who had attempted to poison him, 
with no greater severity than simple death." 
Without naming that Latin author 2 that dares 
allege for a testimony of clemency the only 
killing those by whom we have been offended ; 
it is easy to guess that he was struck with the 
horrid and inhuman examples of cruelty prac- 
tised by the Roman tyrants. 
For my part, even in justice itself, all that 
exceeds mere death appears to me 
Jf h J C ll st'ice Uti0nS P ure cruelt y; especially in us, 
ought w be who ought to have that regard to 
simple, and to souls to dismiss them in a good 
pfBeverity! * an( l calm condition : which can- 
not be when we have discomposed 
them by insufferable torments. Not long since 
a soldier, who was a prisoner, perceiving from 
a tower where he was shut up that the people 
began to assemble in the place of execution, and 
that the carpenters were busy erecting a scaf- 
fold, he presently concluded that the preparation 
was for him ; and therefore entered into a reso- 
lution to kill himself, but could find no instru- 
ment to assist him in his design, except an old 
rusty cart-nail, that fortune presented to him: 
with this he first gave himself two great wounds 
about his throat; but rinding these would not 
do, he presently after gave himself a third in 
the belly, where he left the nail sticking up to 
the head. The first of his keepers that came in 



' Horace, Epod. ii. 37. In the first editions of tlie .Essays, 
Montaigne added, alter I his quotation, " What a set of odds 
and curls have we here ; I went clear out of my way to lug 
in this hit of prattle about the chase." 

> Suetonius, in the Life of Cx'sar. 

3 St. Luke, xii. 40. 



found him in this condition alive, but sunk 
down and exhausted by his wounds. There- 
fore, to make use of time before he should die 
and defeat the law, they made haste to read his 
sentence, which having done, and he hearing 
that he was only condemned to be beheaded, he 
seemed to take new courage, accepted of wine, 
which he had before refused, and thanked his 
judges for the unhoped-for mildness of their 
sentence ; saying, " That indeed he had taken 
a resolution to dispatch himself, for fear of a 
more severe and insupportable death; having 
entertained an opinion, by the preparations he 
had seen in the place, that they were resolved 
to torment him with some horrible execution :" 
and seemed to be delivered from death by hav- 
ing it changed from what he apprehended. 

I should advise that these examples of severity, 
by which 'tis designed to retain the people in 
their duty, might be exercised upon the dead 
bodies of criminals; for to see them deprived of 
sepulture, to see them boiled and divided into 
quarters, would almost work as much upon the 
vulgar as the pain they make the living endure : 
though that, in effect, be little or nothing, as 
God himself says, " Who kill the body, and 
after that have no more that they can do." 3 
And the poets represent the horror of such a 
sight as far above that of death itself: 



I happened to come by one day accidentally, at 
Rome, just as they were upon executing Catena, 
a notorious robber. He was strangled, without 
any emotion on the part of the spectators ; but 
when they came to cut him in quarters, the 
hangman gave not a blow that was not followed 
by a doleful cry from the people, and an excla- 
mation as if every one had lent his feeling to 
the miserable carcase. Those inhuman excesses 
ought to be exercised upon the bark, and not 
upon the quick. Twas thus that TnesevereIaws 
Artaxerxes moderated the seve- of Persia mo- 
rity of the ancient laws of Persia, derated by 
ordering "That the nobility who Arlaxerxes - 
had failed in their charge, instead of being 
whipped, as they used to be, should be stripped 
only, and their clothes whipped for them ; and 
that, whereas they had formerly their hair torn 
off, they should only take off their high- 
crowned tiara. 5 The so devout 
Egyptians thought they sum- !^ s ffig s y ac t r o *j£ 
ciently satisfied the divine justice divine justice 
in sacrificing hogs in effigy and j'^,^ 16 Egyp ' 
representation: 6 a bold inven- 
tion to pay God, so essential a substance, in 
picture only, and in show. 

I live in a time wherein we abound in incre- 



4 "Let not the blood-stained relics of the half-burnt 
king be dragged over the plains."— Cicero, 'J'u.irul. i. 44. 

s Plutarch, in his .'l/wl/ir^ms of the ancient Kings. 

o Herodotus, ii. 47, says this was only done by the poorer 
sort , who made swine iii dough, \\ nich they baked, and then 
ofl'ered the sacrifice. 



224 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



dible examples of this vice, through the license 
of our civil wars ; and we see nothing in ancient 
histories more extreme than what we have proof 
of every day. I could hardly persuade myself, 
before I saw it with my eyes, that 

Jxxrcised'in 3 there Coul,i be found 0Ut men S0 
civil wars. cruel and fell who, for the sole 

pleasure of murder, would hack 
and lop off the limbs of others; sharpen their 
wits to invent unusual torments and new kinds 
of deaths, without hatred, without profit, and 
for no other end but only to enjoy the pleasant 
spectacle of the gestures and motions, the la- 
mentable groans and cries of a man dying in 
anguish. For this is the utmost point to which 
cruelty can arrive. Ut homo hominem, non 
iratus, non timens, tantum spectaturus, occidat. 1 
" That a man should kill a man without being 
angry, or without fear, only for the pleasure of 
Montaigne's the spectacle." For my own part 
humanity with I cannot, without pain, see so 
regard to much as an innocent beast pur- 

sued and killed that has no defence, 
and from whom we have received no offence at 
all. And that which frequently happens, that 
the stag we hunt, finding himself weak and out 
of breath, seeing no other remedy, surrenders 
himself to us who pursue him, imploring mercy 
by his tears, 

Questuque, cruentus, 
Atque imploranti sirnilis,* 

" With bleeding tears doth mercy seem to crave," 

has ever been to me a very melancholy sight. 
I hardly ever take any beast or bird alive that 
I do not presently turn loose. Pythagoras 
bought them of huntsmen and fowlers, and 
fishes of fishermen, to do the same : 

Primoque a caede ferarum 
Incaluisse puto muculatum sanguine fcrrum.a 

"I think 'twas slaughter of wild beasts that made 
Too docile man first learn the killing trade." 

Those natures that are sanguinary towards 
beasts discover a natural propensity to cruelty. 
After they had accustomed themselves, at Rome, 
to the spectacle of the slaughter of animals, 
they proceeded to those of the slaughter of 
men, of the gladiators. Nature has herself, I 
fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to 
inhumanity ; no body takes pleasure in seeing 
beasts play and caress one another, but every 
one is delighted with seeing them dismember 
and tear one another to pieces. And that I 
may not be laughed at for the sympathy I have 
with them, theology itself enjoins us some 
favour in their behalf: and, considering that 
one and the same Master has lodged us together 
in this palace for his service, and that they, as 
well as we, are of his family, it has reason to 



enjoin us some affection and re- 
gard to them. Pythagoras bor- Pythagoras's 
rowed the Metempsycosis from transmutation" 
the Egyptians, but it has since of souls, 
been received by several nations, 
and, particularly, by our druids : 



"Souls never die, but, havi ng left one seat, 
Into new mansions they admittance get." 

The religion of our ancient Gauls maintained 
that souls, being eternal, never ceased to remove 
and shift their places from one body to another ; 
mixing, moreover, with this fancy some con- 
sideration of divine justice. For, according to 
the behaviour of the soul, whilst it had been 
in Alexander, they said that God ordered it 
another body to inhabit, more or less painful, 
and proper for its condition: 

Muta ferarum 
Cogit vincla pati : truculentos ingerit ursis, 
Pradonesque lupis; fallaces vulpibus addit. 



Atque ubi per varios annos, per mille figuras 
Egit, LiEtheo purgatos flumine, tandem 
Rursus ad humanse revocat primordia formre.-s 

" The yoke of speechless brutes he made them wear 
Blood-thirsty souls he (lid inclose in bears; 
Those that rapacious were in wolves he shut; 
The sly and cunning he in foxes put ; 
Where after having, in a course of years, 
In num'rous forms, quite hnish'd their careers. 
In Lethe's flood he purged them, and at last 
In human bodies he the souls replac'd:" 

if it had been valiant, he lodged it in the body 
of a lion; if voluptuous, in that of a hog; if 
timorous, in that of a hart or hare ; if subtle, 
in that of a fox ; and so of the rest, till, having 
purified it by this chastisement, it again entered 
into the body of some other man; 



" For I, myself, remember, in the days 
O' th' Trojan war, that I Euphorbus was." 

As to the relation betwixt us and beasts, I 
do not much admit of it, nor allow 
what several nations, and those Beas, s revered 
some of the most ancient and souf°oft'L 
most noble, have practised, who 
have not only received brutes 
into their society, but have given them a rank 
infinitely above them; esteeming them one 
while familiars and favourites of the gods, and 
having them in more than human reverence 
and respect; others knowing no other God or 
Divinity but they. BelliHB a Barburis propter 
benejicium consecrata. 7 " The Barbarians con- 
secrated beasts out of opinion of some benefit 
received by them :" 



e It is Pythagoras who speaks thus of himself, in Ovid, 
Mctam. xv. 3, 8. Would you know by what means Pytha- 
goras coulil remember what he had been in the time of the 
Trojan war ? fcve Diogeups l,aert. in vita. 

1 Cicero, Dc Nat. Dcor. i. 110. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



225 



Crocodilon adorat 
Pars h»c; ilia pavet saturam serpentibus Ibin : 
lOliigirs sacri hie nitet auren Orcopilheci, 
* * * * hie piscem fluminis, illic 
Oppida tota canem ' 



"The serpent-eating ibis these inshrine, 
Those think the crocodile alone divine ; 
There, in another place, you may behold 
The statue of a monkey shine with gold; 
Here men some monstrous fish's aid implore, 
And there whole towns a grinning dog adore." 

And the very interpretation that Plutarch gives 
to this error, 2 which is very well put, is advan- 
tageous to thern : for, he says, that it was not 
the cat, or the ox, for example, that the Egypt- 
ians adored : but that they, in those beasts, 
adored some image of the divine faculties; 
in this patience and utility, in that vivacity, or, 
like our neighbours, the Burgundians, with the 
whole of Germany, impatience to see itself 
shut up; by which they represented the liberty 
they loved and adored above all other divine 
faculties, and so of the rest. But when, 
amongst the more moderate opinions, I meet 
with arguments that endeavour to demon- 
strate the near resemblance betwixt us and 
animals, how much they share in our greatest 
privileges, and with how great probability they 
compare us together, in faith, I abate a great 
deal of our presumption, and willingly resign 
the title of that imaginary sovereignty that 
some attribute to us over other creatures. 
But supposing all this were not so, there is, 
nevertheless^ certain respect, and 
We ought to a general duty of humanity, that 

Jard fo'r' the"" \™ U ,% " ot ^ t0 K beaStS that 

brute beasts. have hie and sense, but even to 
trees and plants. We owe justice 
to men, and graciousness and benignity to 
other creatures that are capable of it. There 
is a certain natural commerce and mutual obli- 
gation betwixt them and us; neither shall I be 
afraid to discover the tenderness of my nature 
so childish that I cannot well refuse to play 
witli my dog when he, the most unseasonably, 
importunes me so to do. The Turks have alms 
and hospitals for beasts. The Romans had 
public care to the nourishment of geese, 3 by 
whose vigilancy their Capitol had been pre- 
served. The Athenians made a decree that the 
mules, which served at the building of the 
temple, called Hecatompedon, should be free, 
and suffered to pasture where they would with- 
out hindrance. 4 The Agrigentines had a com- 
mon custom solemnly to inter the beasts they 
had a kindness for; as horses of some extraor- 
dinary qualities, dogs and birds of whom they 
had had profit, and even those that had only 



i Jiiv. xv 2. 

2 lii bis Treatise on Isis and Osiris. 

■ Cicero, pro Rose. Am. c 20. T.ivy, v. 47. l'liny, x. 22. 
« Plutarch, Life of Cato the Censor. 

« Diod.Sir.. Mil. 17. 
« Herod, ii. 65. 

■ II. \ i- KKI. .i:iian, /[. of Animals, xii. 40. 

I Cjvnofei ma. I'lniarrh s Life of Cato the Censor. 

>o Called also Sebon, Sebeyde, Sabonde, de Seboudc ; born 



been kept to divert their children: and the 
magnificency that was common with them in 
all other things did also particularly appear in 
the sumptuousness and number of monuments 
erected to this end, that remained a show for 
several ages after. 5 The Egyptians buried 
wolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs, and cats, in 
sacred places, embalmed their bodies, and put 
on mourning at their death. 8 Cimon gave an 
honourable sepulture to the mares with which 
he had three times gained the prize of the 
course at the Olympic games. 7 The ancient 
Xantippus caused his dog to be interred on an 
eminence near the sea, which has ever since 
retained the name. 3 And Plutarch says 9 that 
he made conscience of selling to the slaughter, 
for a paltry profit, an ox that had been long 
in his service. 



CHAPTER XII 

APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND. 10 

Learning is, indeed, a very great and a very 
material accomplishment; and those who de- 
spise it sufficiently discover their 
own want of understanding; but Naming! ? ° 
yet I do not prize it at the 
excessive rate that some others do, as Herillus, 
the philosopher, for one, who therein places the 
sovereign good, and maintained "That it was 
only in her to render us wise and contented," " 
which I do not believe ; no more than I do 
what others have said, that learning is the 
mother of all virtue, and that all vice proceeds 
from ignorance, which, if it be true, requires a 
very long interpretation. My house has long 
been open to men of knowledge, and is very 
well known to them; for my father, who 
governed it fifty years and upwards, inflamed 
with the new ardour with which Francis the 
First embraced letters, and brought them into 
esteem, with great diligence and expense hunted 
after the acquaintance of learned men, receiving 
them into his house as persons sacred, and that 
had some particular inspiration of divine wis- 
dom ; collecting their sayings and sentences as 
so many oracles, and with so much the greater 
reverence and religion as he was the less able 
to judge of them ; for he had no knowledge of 
letters any more than his predecessors. For my 
part I love them well, but I do not adore them. 
Amongst others, Peter Bunel, 12 a man of great 
reputation for knowledge in his time, having, 
with some others of his sort, staid some days at 
Montaigne in my father's company, he pre- 



nt Barcelona in the fourteenth century; died in 1432, al 
Toulouse, where he had lived as professor of m ■• .Ip ■im- and 
theology. Joseph Scaliger said of this apology for S lioml 
" Eo omnia faciunt, lit magnificat a matines."— Scalig. ii. 

ii Laertius, in vita. 

i» A native of Toulouse, one of the most nbleCiceronians 
of the sixteenth renturv, in the opinion of Henri Sleph n ; 
born 1499, died at Turin 154U. He v. as preceptor of l'ibrac. 
See Basle, in vtrba. 



226 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sented him at his departure with a book, entitled 
Theologia nuturalis ; sive Liber Creaturarum, 
magistri Raimondi de Sebonde.' 
"translated And aS the ^ lian ^nd Spanish 
hy Montaigne, tongues were familiar to my fa- 
ther, and as this book was written 
in a sort of jargon of Spanish with Latin termi- 
nations, he hoped that, with a little help, he 
might be able to understand it, and therefore 
recommended it to him for a very useful book, 
and proper for the time wherein he gave it to 
him ; which was when the novel doctrines of 
Luther began to be in vogue, and in many places 
to stagger our ancient belief: wherein he was very 
well advised, wisely, in his own reason, foresee- 
ing that the beginning of this distemper would 
easily run into an execrable atheism, for the 
vulgar, not having the faculty of judging of 
things, suffering themselves to be carried away 
by chance and appearance, after having once 
been inspired with the boldness to despise and 
control those opinions which they had before 
had in extreme reverence, such as those wherein 
their salvation is concerned, and that some of 
the articles of their religion are brought into 
doubt and dispute, they afterwards throw all 
other parts of their belief into the isame uncer- 
tainty, they having with them no other authority 
or foundation than the others they had already 
discomposed ; and shake off all the impressions 
they had received from the authority of the laws, 
or the reverence of the ancient customs, as a 
tyrannical yoke: 

Nam cupide conculcatur nimis ante metutum; 2 

" For with most eagerness they spurn the law, 
By which they were before most kept in awe ;" 

resolving to admit nothing for the future to 
which they had not first interposed their own 
decrees, and given their particular consent. 

It happened that my father, a little before his 
death, having accidentally found this book 
under a heap of other neglected papers, com- 
manded me to translate it for him 
are^ro^efto into Fr ench. It is good to trans- 
translate, late such authors as this, where 
there is little but the matter itself 
to express ; but such wherein grace of language 
and elegance of style are aimed at, are dangerous 
to attempt, especially when a man' is to turn 
them into a weaker idiom. It was a strange 
and a new undertaking for me ; but having by 
chance at that time nothing else to do, and not 
being able to resist the command of the best 
father that ever was, I did it as well as I could ; 
and he was so well pleased with it as to order it 
to be printed, which after his death was done. 3 



i In the first edition of the Essays, and in that of 1588, it 
is simply called La Tluul u <;ir Miim-dlc <lc Huimond Sebond. 
The original Latin work was first printed at Deventer, in 
1487, and was often printed in France during the ICth and 
ITthc-nturies. 

2 Lucret. v. 1130. 

3 " A Pans, chez Gabriel Buon," in 1569. Montaigne, in 
his first edition of (In; Essays, also slates that the first edi- 
tion of his translation was full of errors of the press, owing 



I found the ideas of this author exceeding fine, 
the contexture of his work well followed, and 
his design full of piety; and because many 
people take a delight to read it, and particu- 
larly the ladies, to whom we owe the most ser- 
vice, I have often thought to assist them to 
clear the book of two principal objections made 
to it. His design is bold and daring, for he 
undertakes, by human and natural reasons, to 
establish and make good, against the atheists, 
all the articles of the Christian religion : 
wherein, to speak the truth, he is so firm and so 
successful that I do not think it possible to do 
better upon that subject ; nay, I believe he has 
been equalled by none. This work seeming to 
me to be too beautiful and too rich for an author 
whose name is so little known, and of whom all 
that we know is that he was a Spaniard, prac- 
tising physic at Toulouse about two hundred 
years ago; I enquired of Adrian Turnebus, who 
knew all things, what he thought of that book ; 
who made answer, "That he thought it was 
some abstract drawn from St. Thomas d'Aquin ; 
for that, in truth, his mind, so full of infinite 
erudition and admirable subtlety, was alone 
capable of such thoughts." Be this as it may, 
whoever was the author and inventor (and 'tis 
not reasonable, without greater certainty, to 
deprive Sebond of that title), he was a man of 
great judgment and most admirable parts. 

The first thing they reprehend in his work is 
"That Christians are to blame to 
repose their belief upon human The objection 
reason, which is only conceived jj^ e . 'j^ 1 e 
by faith and the particular in- Montaigne's 
spiration of divine grace." In answer, 
which objection there appears to 
be something of zeal to piety, and therefore 
we are to endeavour to satisfy those who put 
it forth with the greater mildness and respect. 
This were a task more proper for a man well read 
in divinity than for me, who know nothing of 
it; nevertheless, I conceive that in a thing so 
divine, so high, and so far transcending all 
human intelligence, as is that truth, with which 
it has pleased the bounty of God to enlighten 
us, it is very necessary that he should moreover 
lend us his assistance, as a very extraordinary 
favour and privilege, to conceive and imprint it 
in our understanding. And I do not believe 
that means purely human are in any sort capable 
of doing it : for, if they were, so many rare and 
excellent souls, and so abundantly furnished 
with natural force, in former ages, could not 
have failed, by their reason, to arrive at this 
knowledge. "Pis faith alone that livelily and 
certainly comprehends the deep mysteries of 



to the carelessness of the printer, who had the sole care of 
it. This translation was reprinted, in 1588, more correctly, 
Montaigne himself having purged it of the printer's errors. 
The best edition is thai printed al I'aris in Kill. There is 
such a perspicuity, spirit, and natural vivacity 
translation, that it has all the air of an original, 
taigne has added nothing of his own to it hut a short 
cation of it to his father, which the reader will find ; 
end of the present volume. 



i , 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



227 



our religion ; but, withal, I do not say that it 
is not a worthy and very laudable attempt to 
accommodate those natural and human utensils 
with which God has endowed us to the service 
of our faith: it is not to be doubted but that it 
is the most noble use we can put them to ; and 
that there is not a design in a Christian man 
more noble than to make it the aim and end of 
all his studies to extend and amplify the truth 
of his belief. We do not satisfy ourselves with 
serving God with our souls and understandings 
only, we moreover owe and render him a cor- 
poral reverence, and apply our limbs and mo- 
tions, and external things to do him honour ; 
we must here do the same, and accompany our 
faith with all the reason we have, but always 
with this reservation, not to fancy that it is 
upon us that it depends, nor that our arguments 
and endeavours can arrive at so supernatural 
and divine a knowledge. If it enters not into 
us by an extraordinary infusion; if it enters 
not only by reason, but, moreover, by human 
ways, it is not in us in its true dignity and 
splendour: and yet, I am afraid, we only have 
it by this way. If we hold upon God by the 
„,,. „ mediation of a lively faith; if we 

The marvellous , , , n j l 1 • l 

effects of lively nolcl "P 011 « oc ' by him, and not 
faith. by us; if we had a divine basis 

and foundation, human occasions would not 
have the power to shake us as they do ; our 
fortress would not surrender to so weak a 
battery ; the love of novelty, the constraint of 
princes, the success of one party, and the rash 
and fortuitous change of our opinions, would 
not have the power to stagger and alter our 
belief: we should not then leave it to the mercy 
of every new argument, nor abandon it to all 
the rhetoric in the world ; we should withstand 
the fury of these waves with an immovable and 
unyielding constancy : 

Illisos fluctus rupps ut vasta refundit 

Et varias circum latraintes dissipat undas 

Mole sua.' 
" As a great rock repels the rolling tides, 

That foam anil bark about her marble sides, 

From its strong bulk." 

If we were but touched with this ray of divi- 
nity, it would appear throughout ; not only our 
words, but our works also, would carry its 
brightness and lustre ; whatever proceeded from 
us would be seen illuminated with this noble 
light. We ought to be ashamed that, in all 
the human sects, there never was any of the 
faction, what difficulty and strange novelty 
soever his doctrine imposed upon him, that did 
not, in some measure, conform his lite and 
behaviour to it, whereas so divine and heavenly 
an institution docs only distinguish Christians 
by the name! Will you see the proof of this? 
Compare our manners to those of a Mahometan 
or Pagan, you will still find that we fall very 



» These Latin verses were written in praise of Konsard 
by an anonymous modern poet, who burrowed the senti- 
ment, and most of the words, from those lines of Virgil's,— 
Ille velut pclarji rapes iiiiiuota resistit : 
Vl pelntri rapes mngno veniente fragore, 
Uu»' .-rsr, niultis circuinliitraiitibtis undis, 
Mole tenet . &ncid. vii. 587. 



short ; there, where, out of regard to the re- 
putation and advantage of our religion, we 
ought to shine in excellency at a vast distance 
beyond all others: and that it should be said of 
us, " Are they so just, so charitable, so good ? 
Then they are Christians." All other signs are 
common to all religions ; hope, 
trust, events, ceremonies, pen- Virtue the par- 
ance, martyrs. The peculiar t T<Saa 
mark of our truth ought to be religion. 
our virtue, as it is also the most 
heavenly and difficult, and the most worthy 
product of truth. For this our good St. Louis 
was in the right, who, when the Tartar king, 
who was become Christian, designed to come 
to Lyons to kiss the Pope's feet, and there to 
be an eye-witness of the sanctity he hoped to 
find in our manner, immediately diverted him 
from his purpose ; for fear lest our disorderly 
way of living should, on the contrary, put him 
out of conceit with so holy a belief. 2 And yet 
it happened quite otherwise since to that other, 
who, going to Rome, to the same end, and 
there seeing the dissoluteness of the prelates 
and people of that time, settled himself so much 
the more firmly in our religion, considering how 
great the force and divinity of it must neces- 
sarily be that could maintain its dignity and 
splendour among so much corruption, and in so 
vicious hands. If we had but one single grain 
of faith, we should remove mountains from their 
places, 3 saith the sacred Word ; our actions, 
that would then be directed and accompanied 
by the divinity, would not be merely human, 
they would have in them something of mira- 
culous, as well as our belief: Brevis est insti- 
tutio vilse hovestae lealseque, si credos.* " Be- 
lieve, and the way to happiness and virtue is a 
short one." Some impose upon the world that 
they believe, that which they do not; others, 
more in number, make themselves believe that 
they believe, not being able to penetrate into 
what it is to believe. We think it strange if, 
in the civil war which, at this time, disorders 
our state, we see events float and vary after a 
common and ordinary manner ; which is because 
we bring nothing to it but our own. Justice, 
which is in one party, is only there for orna- 
ment and palliation ; it, is, indeed, pretended, 
but 'tis not there received, settled and espoused : 
it is there, as in the mouth of an advocate, not 
as in the heart and affection of the party. God 
owes his extraordinary assistance 
to faith and religion ; not to our God assists our 

.„ => ., ' ., faith and reli- 

passions. Men there are the g j ()n , n „t our 
conductors, and therein serve passions, 
themselves with religion, whereas 
it ought to be quite contrary. Observe, if it 
be not by our own hands that we guide and 
train it, and draw it like wax into so many con- 



* Mem. dc Joinvillc, c. 19. 
' St. Matthew, xvii. 19. 

♦ Quintilian, xii. 11. It is hardly necessary to remark 
that Montaigne uses this quotation in a different sense 
from its author. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Whether it be 
lawful to take 
arms against 
the king in 
defence of 
religion ? 



trary figures, from a rule in itself so direct and 
firm. When and where was this more manifest 
than in France in our days? They who have 
taken it on the left hand, they who have taken it 
on the right; they who call it black, they who 
call it white, alike employ it to their violent 
and ambitious designs, conduct it with a pro- 
gress, so conform in riot and injustice that they 
render the diversity they pretended in their 
opinions, in a thing whereon the conduct and 
rule of our life depends, doubtful and hard to 
believe. Did one ever see, come from the 
same school and discipline, manners more 
united, and more the same? Do but observe 
with what horrid impudence we toss divine 
arguments to and fro, and how 
irreligiously we have both re- 
jected and retaken them, accord- 
ing as fortune has shifted our 
places in these intestine storms. 
This so solemn proposition, 
"Whether it be lawful for a subject to rebel 
and take up arms against his prince for the 
defence of his religion," do you remember 
in whose mouths, the last year, the affirmative 
of it was the prop of one party, and the nega- 
tive the pillar of another? And hearken now 
from what quarter comes the voice and instruc- 
tion of the one and the other, and if arms 
make less noise and rattle for this cause than 
for that. We condemn those to the fire who 
say that truth must be made to bear the yoke 
of our necessity ; and how much worse does 
France than say it? 1 Let us confess the truth; 
whoever should draw out from the army, even 
that raised by the king, those who take up 
arms out of pure zeal to religion, and also 
those who only do it to protect the laws of 
their country, or for the service of their prince, 
could hardly, out of both these put together, 
make one complete company of gens-d'armes. 
Whence does this proceed, that there are so few 
to be found who have maintained the same will 
and the same progress in our civil commotions, 
and that we see them one while move but a 
foot-pace, and another run full speed ? and the 
same men one while damage our affairs by their 
violent heat and fierceness, and another by 
their coldness, gentleness, and slowness; but 
that they are pushed on by particular and 
casual considerations, according to the variety 
wherein they move ? 

I evidently perceive that we do not willingly 
afford devotion any other offices but those that 
best suit with our own passions. There is no 
hostility so admirable as the Christian. Our 
zeal performs wonders, when it 
The zeal of the seconds our inclinations to hatred, 
of injustice and cruelty, ambition, avarice, de- 
fury, traction, and rebellion : but when 
it moves, against the hair, towards 



i Bayle quotes and comments 
article Hotman. 
8 Laertius, in Vila. 
» Id. ib 



this passage in the 



bounty, benignity, and temperance, unless, by 
miracle, some rare and virtuous disposition 
prompts us to it, we stir neither hand nor foot. 
Our religion is intended to extirpate vices, 
whereas it screens, nourishes, and incites them. 
We must not mock God. If we believed in 
him, I do not say by faith, but with a simple 
belief, that is to say (and I speak it to our 
great shame) if we believed in him and recog- 
nised him as we do any other history, or as we 
would do one of our companions, we should 
love him above all other things for the infinite 
bounty and beauty that shines in him ; — at 
least, he would go equal in our affection with 
riches, pleasure, glory, and our friends. The 
best of us is not so much afraid to outrage 
him as he is afraid to injure his neighbour, his 
kinsman, or his master. Is there any under- 
standing so weak that, having on one side the 
object of one of our vicious pleasures, and on 
the other (in equal knowledge and persuasion) 
the state of an immortal glory, would change 
the first for the other? and yet we often re- 
nounce this out of mere contempt: for what lust 
tempts us to blaspheme, if not, perhaps, the 
very desire to offend. The philosopher Antis- 
thenes, as he was being initiated in the mysteries 
of Orpheus, the priest telling him, " That those 
who professed themselves of that religion were 
certain to receive perfect and eternal felicity 
after death," — "If thou believest that," an- 
swered he, "why dost thou not die thyself?" 2 
Diogenes, more rudely, according to his man- 
ner, and more remote from our purpose, to the 
priest that in like manner preached to him, 
"To become of his religion, that he might 
obtain the happiness of the other world;" — 
" What !" said he, " thou wouldest have me 
to believe that Agesilaus and Epaminondas, 
who were so great men, shall be miserable, 
and that thou, who art but a calf, and canst 
do nothing to purpose, shalt be happy, because 
thou art a priest?" 3 Did we receive these 
great promises of eternal beatitude with the 
same reverence and respect that we do a phi- 
losophical discourse, we should not have death 
in so great horror : 

Non jam se moriens dissolvi conquereretur; 
Sed niagis jre foras, vestemque relinquere, ut anguis, 
Gauderet, prrclonga senex aut cornua cervus.-i 
"We should not on a death-bed grieve to be 
Dissolved, but rather launch out cheerfully 
From our old hut, and, with the snake, be glad 
To cast off the corrupted slough we had ; 
Or with th' old stag rejoice to be now clear 
From the large horns, too ponderous grown to bear." 

"I desire to be dissolved," we should say, 
" and to be with Jesus Christ." 5 The force of 
Plato's arguments concerning the immortality 
of the soul set some of his disciples to seek a 
premature grave, that they might the sooner 
enjoy the things he had made them hope for. 8 



* Lucret. iii.612. 

» St. Paul, Epist. to Philipp. i. 23. 

« Cicero, Tusc. Qu<zs. i. 34. Callimachus, Epig. 24, &c. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



229 



All this is a most evident sign that we only 
receive our religion after our own 
Jf h theTrofes- n fashion, by our own hands, and 
sion of the no otherwise than as other reli- 
C '/on St ' an rel ' g' ons are received. Either we 
are happened in the country 
where it is in practice, or we reverence the an- 
tiquity of it, or the authority of the men who 
have maintained it, or fear the menaces it ful- 
minates against misbelievers, or are allured by 
its promises. These considerations ought, 'tis 
true, to be applied to our belief but as sub- 
sidiaries only, for they are human obligations. 
Another religion, other witnesses, the like pro- 
mises and threats, might, by the same way, 
imprint a quite contrary belief. We are Chris- 
tians by the same title that we are Perigordians 
or Germans. And what Plato says, 1 "That 
there are few men so obstinate in their atheism 
whom a pressing danger will not reduce to an 
acknowledgment of the divine power," does 
not concern a true Christian : 'tis for mortal 
and human religions to be received by human 
recommendation. What kind of faith can that 
be that cowardice and want of courage esta- 
blish in us] A pleasant faith, that does not 
believe what it believes but for want of cou- 
rage to disbelieve it! Can a vicious passion, 
such as inconstancy and astonishment, cause 
any regular product in our souls 1 " They are 
confident in their judgment," says he, 2 " that 
what is said of hell and future torments is all 
feigned: but an occasion of making the experi- 
ment presenting itself, when old age or diseases 
bring them to the brink of the grave, the terror 
of death, by the horror of that future con- 
dition, inspires them with a new belief." And 
by reason that such impressions render them 
timorous, he forbids in his Laws 3 all such 
threatening doctrines, and all persuasion that 
anything of ill can befall a man from the gods, 
excepting for his great good when they happen 
to him, and for a medicinal effect. They say 
of Bion that, infected with the atheism of 
Theodorus, he had long had religious men in 
great scorn and contempt, but that death sur- 
prising him, he gave himself up to the most 
extreme superstition; as if the gods withdrew 
and returned according to the necessities of 
Bion. 4 Plato and these examples would con- 
clude that we are brought to a belief of God 
either by reason or by force. 
Atheism being a proposition as 
unnatural as monstrous, difficult 
also and hard to establish in the human under- 
standing, how arrogant soever, there are men 
enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the 
authors of extraordinary and reforming opi- 
nions, and outwardly to affect the profession of 
them; who, if they are such fools, have, never- 
theless, not the power to plant them in their 
own conscience. Yet will they not fail to lift 



What atheism 



1 Laxs, hook 
a Republic, i. 

20 



up their hands towards heaven if yon give 
them a good thrust with a sword in the breast; 
and when fear or sickness has abated and 
dulled the licentious fury of this giddy humour, 
they will easily re-unite, and very discreetly 
suffer themselves to be reconciled to the public 
faith and examples. A doctrine seriously di- 
gested is one thing, and those superficial impres- 
sions another; which springing from the disorder 
of an unhinged understanding, float at random 
and great uncertainty in the fancy. Miserable 
and senseless men, who strive to be worse than 
they can ! 

The error of paganism and the ignorance of 
our sacred truth, let this great soul of Plato, 
but great only in human greatness, fall also 
into this other mistake, "That children and 
old men were most susceptible of religion," as 
if it sprung and derived its credit from our 
weakness. The knot that ought to bind the 
judgment and the will, that ought to restrain 
the soul and join it to our creator, should be a 
knot that derives its foldings and strength not 
from our considerations, from our reasons and 
passions, but from a divine and supernatural 
constraint, having but one form, one face, and 
one lustre, which is the authority of God and 
his divine grace. Now the heart and soul 
being governed and commanded by faith, 'tis 
but reason that they should muster all our 
other faculties, according as they are able to 
perform to the service and assistance of their 
design. Neither is it to be imagined that all 
this machine has not some marks imprinted 
upon it by the hand of the mighty architect, 
and that there is not in the things of this world 
some image that in some measure resembles the 
workman who has built and formed them. He 
has, in his stupendous works, left 
the character of his divinity, and Divinity im- 
'tis our own weakness only that Sutwardfabrfc 
hinders us from discerning it. of the world. 
'Tis what he himself is pleased 
to tell us, "That he manifests his invisible 
operations to us by those that are visible." 
Sebond applied himself to this laudable and 
noble study, and demonstrates to us that there 
is not any part or member of the world that 
disclaims or derogates from its maker. It 
were to do wrong to the divine goodness, did 
not the universe consent to our belief. The 
heavens, the earth, the elements, our bodies 
and our souls, — all tilings concur to this; we 
have but to find out the way to use them; they 
instruct us, if we are capable of „ 

T-i ^i • ii- The world a 

instruction, for this world is a SUC red temple, 
sacred temple, into which man is 
introduced, there to contemplate statues, not 
the works of a mortal hand, but such as the 
divine purpose has made the objects of sense; 
the sun, the stars, the water, and the earth, to 
represent those that are intelligible to us. "The 



230 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



invisible things of God," says St. Paul, 1 "ap- 
pear by the creation of the world, his eternal 
wisdom and divinity being considered by his 
works." 

Atque adeo faciem cceli non invidet orbi 
Ipse Deus, vultusque suos, corpusque recludit 
Semper volvendo ; seque ipsum inculcat, et offert: 
Ut bone cognosci possit, doceatque videndo 
Qualis erat, doceatque suas attendere legist 
" And God himself envies not men the grace 
Of seeiiiL' and admiring heaven's face; 
But, rolling it about, he still anew 
Presents its varied splendour to our view, 
And on our minds himself inculcates, so 
That we til' Almighty mover well may know : 
Instructing us, by seeing him the cause 
Of all, to reverence and'obey his laws." 

Now our prayers and human discourses are but 
as sterile and undigested matter. The grace of 
God is the form ; 'tis that which gives fashion 
and value to it. As the virtuous actions of 
Socrates and Cato remain vain and fruitless, 
for not having had the love and obedience of 
the true creator of all things for their end and 
object, and for not having known God, so is 
it with our imaginations and discourses; they 
have a kind of body, but it is an inform mass, 
without fashion and without light, if faith and 
grace be not added thereto. Faith coming to 
tinct and illustrate Sebond's arguments renders 
them firm and solid; and to that degree that 
they are capable of serving for directions, and 
of being the first guides to an elementary 
Christian to put him into the way of this know- 
ledge. They in some measure form him to, 
and render him capable of, the grace of God, 
by which means he afterwards completes and 
perfects himself in the true belief. I know a 
man of authority, bred up to letters, who has 
confessed to me to have been brought back 
from the errors of unbelief by Sebond's argu- 
ments. And should they be stripped of this 
ornament, and of the assistance and approbation 
of the faith, and be looked upon as mere fancies 
only, to contend with those who are precipi- 
tated into the dreadful and horrible darkness 
of irreligion, they will even there find them as 
solid and firm as any others of the same quality 
that can be opposed against them ; so that we 
shall be ready to say to our opponents : 



, melius quid ha 



imperium fer;3 



let them admit the force of our reasons, or 
let them show us others, and upon some other 
subject, better woven and of finer thread. I am, 
unawares, half engaged in the second objection, 
to which I proposed to make answer in the 

behalf of Sebond. Some say that 
charge er against ms arguments are weak, and 
Sebond's "book, unable to make good what he 
me'ntsarew'efk. intends ' and undertake with great 

ease to confute them, iheseare 



1 Romans, i. 20. 

> Horace, Epist. i. 5, 6. 

1 Herod, vii. 10. 



to be a little more roughly handled, for they 
are more dangerous and malicious than the 
first. Men willingly wrest the sayings of 
others to favour their own prejudicate opinions. 
To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he 
corrupts the most innocent matter with his own 
venom. These have their judgments so pre- 
possessed that they cannot relish Sebond's 
reasons. As to the rest, they think we give 
them very fair play in putting them into the 
liberty of combatting our religion with weapons 
merely human, whom, in her majesty, full of 
authority and command, they durst not attack. 
The means that I shall use, and that I think 
most proper to subdue this frenzy, is to crush 
and spurn under foot pride and human arro- 
gance; to make them sensible of the inanity, 
vanity, and vileness of man; to wrest the 
wretched arms of their reason out of their 
hands ; to make them bow down and bite the 
ground under the authority and reverence of 
the Divine Majesty. 'Tis to that 
alone that knowledge and wisdom JS n °f t ™}f e 
appertain; that aione that can Divinity, 
make a true estimate of itself, 
and from which we purloin whatever we value 
ourselves upon: Ov yap sa <ppovctw 6 ©e6$ piya 
aTAov, jj iavtov. 4 "God permits not any being 
but himself to be truly wise." Let us subdue 
this presumption, the first foundation of the 
tyranny of the evil spirit. Deus superbis re- 
sistit, humilibus autem dat graliam? " God 
resists the proud, but gives grace to the 
humble." "Understanding is in the gods," 
says Plate, 3 " and not at all, or very little, in 
men." Now it is in the mean time a great 
consolation to a Christian man to see our frail 
and mortal parts so fitly suited to our holy 
and divine faith that, when we employ them 
to the subjects of their own mortal and frail 
nature they are not even there more unitedly 
or more firmly adjusted. Let us see, then, if 
man has in his power other more forcible and 
convincing reasons than those of Sebond ; that 
is to say, if it be in him to arrive at any 
certainty by argument and reason. For St. 
Augustin, 7 disputing against these people, has 
good cause to reproach them with injustice, 
" In that they maintain the part of our belief 
to be false that our reason cannot establish." 
And to show that a great many things may be, 
and have been, of which our nature could not 
sound the reason and causes, he proposes to 
them certain known and undoubted experi- 
ments, wherein men confess they see nothing ; 
and this he does, as all other things, with a 
curious and ingenious inquisition. We must 
do more than this, and make them know that, 
to convince the weakness of their reason, there 
is no necessity of culling out uncommon exam- 
ples: and that it is so defective and so blind 
that there is no faculty clear enough for it; 



5 Epist St. Peter 
8 In the Timceus. 
' De Civit. Dei, ; 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



231 



that to it the easy and the hard are all one ; 
that all suhjects equally, and nature in general, 
disclaim its authority and reject its mediation. 

What does truth mean when she preaches to 

us to fly worldly philosophy, 1 when she so often 

inculcates to us, 2 " That our wis- 

The wisdom of dom is but fo]ly in the si „ ht f j 

the world folly _ _, , . ' . „=> 

with God. «od : that the vainest or all va- | 

■ nities is man : that the man who 

presumes upon his wisdom does not yet know 
what wisdom is; and that man, who is nothing, 
if he thinks himself to be anything-, does seduce 
and deceive himself!" These sentences of the 
Holy Spirit do so clearly and vividly express 
that winch 1 would maintain that I should 
need no other proof against men who would 
with all humility and obedience submit to his 
authority: but these will be whipped at their 
own expense, and will not suffer a man to op- 
pose their reason but by itself! 

Let us then, for once, consider a man alone, 
without foreign assistance, armed only with his 
own proper arms, and unfurnished of the divine 
grace and wisdom, which is all his honour, 
strength, and the foundation of his being. Let 
us see how he stands in this fine equipage. Let 
him make me understand, by the force of his 
reason, upon what foundations he has built 
those great advantages he thinks he has over 
other creatures. Who has made him believe 
that this admirable motion of the celestial arch, 
the eternal light of those luminaries that roll so 
high over his head, the wondrous and fearful 
motions of that infinite ocean, should be estab- 
lished and continue so many ages for his service 
and convenience] Can any thing be imagined 
so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched 
creature, who is not so much as master of him- 
self, but subject to the injuries of all things, 
should call himself master and emperor of the 
world, of which he has not power to know the 
least part, much less to command the whole ! 
And the privilege which he attributes to himself 
of being the only creature in this vast fabric 
who has the understanding to discover the 
beauty and the parts of it; the only one who 
can return thanks to the architect, and keep 
account of the revenues and disbursements of 
the world; who, I wonder, sealed him this 
patent! Let us see his commission for this 
great employment. Was it granted in favour 
of the wise only! Few people will be con- 
cerned in it. Are fools and wicked persons 
worthy so extraordinary a favour, and, being 
the worst part of the world, 3 to be preferred be- 
fore the rest? Shall we believe this man? — 
Quorum igitur causa quis dixeril effectum esse 
viundum? Eorum scilicet animantium, qux 
ratione utuntur ; hi sunt dii el homines, quibus 
profecto nihil est melius: "For whose sake 



shall we, therefore, conclude that the world was 
made ! For theirs who have the use of reason : 
these are gods and men, than whom certainly 
nothing can be better :" we can never suffi- 
ciently decry the impudence of this conjunction. 
But, wretched creature, what has he in himself 
worthy of such an advantage"! Considering 
the incorruptible existence of the celestial 
bodies, their beauty, magnitude, and continual 
revolution by so exact aiule; 



» St. Paul, Epis. to the Colossians, ii. 8. 
» Id. Corinthians, i. 3, 19. 
> Ball/us, apud Cicero, de Nat. Deor. ii. 54. 
« Lucret. v. 1203. 



Cum suspicimus niau'iii cadestia mundi 
Templa super, stellisque inicaniibu.-. s-th.-ia ti.vum, 
Et veuit in nientem lunae solisque viaruin ; * 

" When we the heavenly arch above behold, 
And the vast sky adorned Willi stars of gold. 
And mark the reg'lar courses that the sum 
And moon in their alternate progress run ;" 

considering the dominion and influence those 
bodies have, not only over our lives and for- 
tunes ; 

Facta etenim et vitas hominum suspendit ab astris;' 
"Men's lives and actions on the stars depend;" 

but even over our inclinations, our thoughts 
and wills, which they govern, incite and agitate 
at the mercy of their influences, as our reason 
teaches us; 

Speculataque longe 
Deprendit tacitis dominautia legibus astra, 
Et totum alterna mundum raiione inoveri, 
Fatorumque vices cerlis discurrere signis ; 

" Contemplating the stars he finds that they 
Eule by a secret and a silent sway; 
And that the enamell'd spheres which roll above 
Do ever by alternate causes move. 
And, studying these, he can also foresee, 
By certain signs, the turns of destiny ;" 

seeing that not only a man, not only kings, 
but that monarchies, empires, and all this lower 
world follow the influence of the celestial mo- 
tions, 



if our virtue, our vices, our knowledge, and 
this very discourse we are upon of the power 
of the stars, and the comparison we are making 
betwixt them and us, proceed, as our reason 
supposes, from their favour ; 

Furit alter amore, 
Et pontum tranare potest, et vertere Trojam: 
Alterius sors est scribendis Iol-iIhis apta. 
Ecce patrem nati perimunt, natosque parentes; 
IWutuarpie annati coeunt in vulnere fratres. 
Non nostrum hoc helium est ; coguntur tanta movere, 
Inque suas ferri prenns, lacerandaque membra. 

Hoc quoque futale est, sic ipsum expendere fatum; 

"One mad in love may cross the raging main, 
To bvel lofty Ilium with the plain ; 
Another's fate inclines him more by far 
To study laws and statutes for the bar. 



I Manilus, iii. 53. The original has/ato quoqut 



' Id. i. 55, iv. 93. 
e Id. iv. 79, 118. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Sons kill their fathers, fathers kill their sons, 
And one arm'd brother 'gainst another runs. 
This war's not their's, but fate's, that spurs them on 
To shed the blood which, shed, they must bemoan ; 
And 1 ascribe it to the will of fate 
That on this theme I now expatiate : 

if we derive this little portion of reason we 
have from the bounty of heaven, how is it pos- 
sible that reason should ever make us equal to 
it? How subject its essence and condition to 
our knowledge? Whatever we see in those 
bodies astonishes us : Quae molitio, quae, ferra- 
menta, qui vectes, quas machinae, qui ministri 
tanti operis fuerunt ? l " What contrivance, 
what tools, what materials, what engines, were 
employed about so stupendous a work?" Why 
do we deprive them of soul, of life, and dis- 
course? Have we discovered in them any im- 
moveable or insensible stupidity, we who have 
no commerce with them but by obedience? 
Shall we say that we have discovered in no 
other creature but man the use of a reasonable 
soul? What! have we seen any thing like the 
sun ? Does he cease to be, because we have seen 
nothing like him ? And do his motions cease, 
because there are no other like them? If what 
we have not seen is not, our knowledge is mar- 
vellously contracted: Quae sunt tantas animi 
angustise ! 2 " How narrow are our understand- 
ings !" Are they not dreams of human vanity, 
to make the moon a celestial earth ? there to 
fancy mountains and vales, as Anaxagoras did ? 
there to fix habitations and human abodes, and 
plant colonies for our convenience, as Plato and 
Plutarch have done? And of our earth to make 
a luminous and resplendent star? Inter castera 
mortalitalis incommoda, et hoc est, caligo men- 
tium ; nee tantum necessilas errandi, sed erro- 
rum amor? — Corruptible corpus aggravat 
animam, et deprimit terrena inhabitatio sen- 
sum multa cogitantem* " Amongst the other 
inconveniences of mortality this is one, that 
darkness of the understanding which leads men 
astray, not so much from a necessity of erring, 
but from a love of error. The corruptible body 
stupifies the soul, and the earthly habitation 
dulls the faculties of the imagination." 

Presumption is our natural and original 
disease. The most wretched and 
antXmity frail of a11 creatures is man, and 
natural to man. withal the proudest. He feels 
and sees himself lodged here in 
the dirt and filth of the world, nailed and 
rivetted to the worst and deadest part of the 
universe, in the lowest story of the house, the 
most remote from the heavenly arch, with ani- 
mals of the worst condition of the three ; and 
yet in his imagination will be placing himself 
above the circle of the moon, and bringing the 
heavens under his feet. 'Tis by the same 



vanity of imagination that he 
equals himself to God, attributes By what right 
to himself divine qualities, with- S up C erYoritywer 
draws and separates himself from the animals, 
the crowd of other creatures, cuts 
out the shares of the animals, his fellows and 
companions, and distributes to them portions of 
faculties and force, as himself thinks fit. How 
does he know, by the strength of his under- 
standing, the secret and internal motions of 
animals? — from what comparison betwixt them 
and us does he conclude the stupidity he attri- 
butes to them? When I play with my cat 
who knows whether I do not make her more 
sport than she makes me ? We mutually divert 
one another with our play. If I have my 
hour to begin or to refuse, she also has hers. 
Plato, in his picture of the golden age under 
Saturn, 6 reckons, among the chief advantages 
that a man then had, his communication with 
beasts, of whom, inquiring and informing him- 
self, he knew the true qualities and differences 
of them all, by which he acquired a very perfect 
intelligence and prudence, and led his life more 
happily than we could do. Need we a better 
proof to condemn human impudence in the 
concern of beasts? This great author was of 
opinion that nature, for the most part, in the 
corporal form she gave them, had only regard 
to the use of prognostics that were derived 
thence in his time. The defect that hinders 
communication betwixt them and us, why may 
it not be in our part as well as theirs? 'Tis 
yet to determine where the fault lies that we 
understand not one another, — for we under- 
stand them no more than they do us; and by 
the same reason they may think us to be beasts 
as we think them. 'Tis no great wonder if we 
understand not them, when we do not under- 
stand a Basque or a Troglodyte. 6 And yet 
some have boasted that they understood them, 
as Apollonius Tyanasus, 7 Melampus, Tiresias, 
Thales, and others. And seeing, as cosmo- 
graphers report, that there are nations that 
have a dog for their king, 8 they must of neces- 
sity be able to interpret his voice and motions. 
We must observe the parity betwixt us: we 
have some tolerable apprehension of their mean- 
ing, and so have beasts of ours, — much about 
the same. They caress us, threaten us, and beg 
of us, and we do the same to them. 
As to the rest, we manifestly dis- fj°™™ f n ||j, c a a s ' tg 
cover that they have a full and amom rst them- 
absolute communication amongst selves, 
themselves, and that they per- 
fectly understand one another, not only those 
of the same, but of divers kinds: 

Et muttR pecudes, et denique sccla ferarum 

Dissimiles soleant. voces variasque ciere, 

Cum metusaut dolor est, autcunijauigaudia gliscunt. 



' Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 8. 

» Cicero, ib. i. 31. 

a Seneca, dc Ira, ii. 9. 

* Book of Wisdom; quoted by 
Dei, xii. 15. 

* In his Politics. 



Augustine, De Civ 



Philostratus, in vita. 
1 Pliny, Nat Hist. vi. 30. 
' Lucret. v. 1058. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



233 



"The tamer herds, and wilder sort of brutes, 
Though we of higher race conclude them mutes, 
Yet utter dissonant and various notes, 
From gentler lungs or more distended throats, 
As fear, or grief, or anger, do them move, 
Or as they do approach the joys of love." 

In one kind of barking- of a dog the horse 
knows there is anger, of another sort of bark 
he is not afraid. Even in the very beasts 
that have no voice at all, we easily conclude, 
from the society of offices we observe amongst 
them, some other sort of communication : their 
very motions discover it : 



"As infants who, for want of words, devise 
Expressive motions with their hands and eyes." 

And why not, as well as our dumb people, 
dispute, argue, and tell stories by signs'! Of 
whom I have seen some, by practice, so clever 
and active that way that, in fact, they wanted 
nothing of the perfection of making themselves 
understood. Lovers are angry, reconciled, 
intreat, thank, appoint, and, in short, speak all 
things by their eyes: 



"Ev>n silence in a lover 
Love and passion can discover." 

What with the hands ? We require, promise, 
call, dismiss, threaten, pray, supplicate, deny, 
refuse, interrogate, admire, number, confess, 
repent, fear, express confusion, doubt, instruct, 
command, incite, encourage, swear, testify, 
accuse, condemn, absolve, abuse, despise, defy, 
provoke, flatter, applaud, bless, submit, mock, 
reconcile, recommend, exalt, entertain, con- 
gratulate, complain, grieve, despair, wonder, 
exclaim, and what not! And all this with a 
variety and multiplication, even emulating 
speech. With the head we invite, remand, 
confess, deny, give the lie, welcome, honour, 
reverence, disdain, demand, rejoice, lament, 
reject, caress, rebuke, submit, huff, encourage, 
threaten, assure, and inquire. What with the 
eyebrows? — what with the shoulders] There 
is not a motion that does not speak, and in an 
intelligible language without discipline, and a 
public language that every one understands: 
whence it should follow, the variety and use 
distinguished from others considered, that these 
should rather be judged the property of human 
nature. I omit what necessity particularly 
does suddenly suggest to those who are in 
need; — the alphabets upon the fingers, gram- 
mars in gesture, and the sciences which are 
only by them exercised and expressed ; and the 
nations that Pliny reports have no other lan- 
guage. 3 An ambassador of the city of Abdera, 
after a long conference with Agis, King of 
Sparta, demanded of him, "Well, sir, what 



answer must I return to my fellow-citizens'!" 
" That I have given thee leave," said he, " to 
say what thou wouldest, and as much as thou 
wouldest, without ever speaking a word." 4 Is 
not this a silent speaking, and very easy to be 
understood 1 

As to the rest, what is there in us that we 
do not see in the operations of 
animals'! Is there a polity better ^cnT^E 
ordered, the offices better distri- served in the 
buted, and more inviolably ob- behaviour of 
served and maintained, than that o/thecreatton. 
of bees ? Can we imagine that 
such, and so regular, a distribution of employ- 
ments can be carried on without reasoning and 
deliberation'? 

His quidam signis atmie hiec cxempla sequuti. 
Esse apibus partem divime mentis, et haustus 
yEthereos, dixere. 6 



The swallows that we see at the return of the 
spring, searching all the corners of our houses 
for the most commodious places wherein to build 
their nest ; do they seek without judgment, and 
amongst a thousand choose out the most proper 
for their purpose, without discretion? And in 
that elegant and admirable contexture of their 
buildings, can birds rather make choice of a 
square figure than a round, of an obtuse than of 
a right angle, without knowing their properties 
and effects? Do they bring water, and then 
clay, without knowing that the hardness of the 
latter grows softer by being wetted ? Do they 
mat their palace with moss or down without 
foreseeing that their tender young will lie more 
safe and easy ? Do they secure themselves from 
the wet and rainy winds, and place their lodg- 
ings against the east, without knowing the dif- 
ferent qualities of the winds, and considering 
that one is more wholesome than another ? 
Why does the spider make her web tighter in 
one place, and slacker in another ; why now 
make one sort of knot, and then another, if she 
has not deliberation, thought, and conclusion ? 
We sufficiently discover in most 
of their works how much animals The superiority 
excel us, and how unable our art of nature to art, 

• . - -. ^ .1 *xt an nilerence 

is to imitate them. We see, ne- „| liL . h m«m. 
vertheless, in our rougher per- taigne draws 
formances, that we employ all our £°™ f*\g*£ 
faculties, and apply the utmost of the beasts 
power of our souls; why do we against men. 
not conclude the same of them? 
Why should we attribute to I know not what 
natural and servile inclination the works that 
excel all we can do by nature and art ? wherein, 
without being aware, we give them a mighty 
advantage over us in making nature, with ma- 
ternal gentleness and love, accompany and lead 
them, as it were, by the hand to all the actions 



> Lucretius, v. 1029. 
« Pliny, JVo(. Hist. vi. 30. 
20* 



i Tasso, rfmintas, ii. 



Plutarch, Jlpoth. of the Laced. 
I Virg. Georg. iv. 29. 



234 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and commodities of their life, whilst she leaves 
us to chance and fortune, and to seek out by art 
the things that are necessary to our conserva- 
tion, at the same time denying us the means of 
ijeing able, by any instruction or effort of un- 
derstanding, to arrive at the natural sufficiency 
of beasts; so that their brutish stupidity sur- 
passes, in all conveniences, all that our divine 
intelligence can do. Really, at this rate, we 
might with great reason call her an unjust step- 
mother: but it is nothing so, our polity is not 
so irregular and unformed. 

Nature has universally cared for all her 
creatures, and there is not one she has not 
amply furnished with all means necessary for 
the conservation of its being. For the common 
complaints I hear men make (as the license of 
their opinions one while lifts them up above the 
clouds, and then again depresses them to the 
antipodes), that we are the only animal aban- 
doned naked upon the bare earth, tied and 
bound, not having wherewithal to arm and 
clothe us but by the spoil of others ; whereas 
nature has covered all other creatures either 
with shells, husks, bark, hair, wool, prickles, 
leather, down, feathers, scales, or silk, accord- 
ing to the necessities of their being; has armed 
them with talons, teeth, or horns, wherewith 
to assault and defend, and has herself taught 
them that which is most proper for them, to 
swim, to run, to fly, ana 1 sing, whereas man 
neither knows how to walk, speak, eat, or do 
any thing but weep, without teaching; 

Turn porro puer, ut sffivis projectus ah undis, 
Navita, nuilus Iiumi jacet, ini'ans, indignus omni 
Vitali auxilio, dim primiim in luminis oras 
Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit, 
Vagituquc locum lugubri coiuplet; ut squum est, 
Cui tantum in vita reslet transire maloruin. 
ant pecudes, armenta, fertequ 
c cuiquam ad] 
lfracta loquela ; 
Nee varias quaerunt vestes pro tempore cceli ; 
Denique non armis opus est, non mcenibus altis, 
Clueis sua tutcntur, quando omnibus omnia large 
Tellus ipsa parit, naturaque diedala rerum : 

"Like to the wretched mariner, when toss'd 
By raging seas upon the desert coast, 
The tender babe lies naked on the earth, 
Of all supports of life stript by his birth; 
When nature first presents hii'n to the day, 
Freed from the cell wherein before lie lay, 
He fills the ambient air with doleful cries, 
Foretelling thus life's future miseries; 
But beasts, both wild and tame, creator and less, 
Wo of themselves in strength and bulk increase; 
They need no rattle, nor the broken chat, 
By which the nurse first teaches boys to prate 
They look not out for different robes to wear, 
According to the seasons of the year ; 
And need no arms nor walls their goods to save, 
Since earth and liberal nature ever have, 
And will, in all abundance, still produce 
All things whereof they can have need or use:" 

these complaints are false ; there is in the polity 
of the world a greater equality and more uni- 
form relation. Our skins are as sufficient to 
defend us from the injuries of the weather as 



Lucret. v. 223. 
I Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus. 



theirs are ; witness several nations 
that yet know not the use of TIle skin of a 
clothes. Our ancient Gauls were ^f agalns?' 
but slenderly clad, any more than weather, 
the Irish, our neighbours, though 
in so cold a climate ; but we may better judge of 
this by ourselves: for all those parts that we 
are pleased to expose to the air are found very 
able to endure it : the face, the feet, the hands, 
the arms, the head, according to the various 
habit ; if there be a tender part about us, and 
that would seem to be in danger from cold, it 
should be the stomach where the digestion is; 
and yet our forefathers were there always open, 
and our ladies, as tender and delicate as they 
are, go sometimes half-bare as low as the navel. 
Neither is the binding or swathing of infants 
any more necessary ; and the La- 
cedemonian mothers brought up T J ,e " va 'hmg 

. . . .. .. ~>. I of infants not 

theirs in all liberty of motion of necessary, 
members, without any ligature at 
all. 2 Our crying is common with the greatest 
part of other animals, and there are but few 
creatures that are not observed to groan, and 
bemoan themselves a long time after they come 
into the world; forasmuch as it is a behaviour 
suitable to the weakness wherein they find 
themselves. As to the custom of eating, it is in 
us, as in them, natural, and without instruction ; 

Sentit enim vim quisque suam quam possit abuti : 3 

" For every one soon finds his natural force, 
Which he, or better may employ, or worse." 

Who doubts but an infant, arrived to the strength 
of feeding himself; may make shift to find some- 
thing to eat. And the earth produces and offers 
him wherewithal to supply his necessity, with- 
out other culture and artifice ; and if not at all 
times, no more does she do it to beasts, witness 
the provision we see ants and other creatures 
hoard up against the dead seasons of the year. 
The late discovered nations, so abundantly fur- 
nished with natural meat and drink, without 
care, or without cookery, may give us to under- 
stand that bread is not our only food, and that, 
without tillage, our mother nature has provided 
us sufficiently of all we stand in need of: nay, 
it appears more fully and plentifully than she 
does at present, now that we have added our 
own industry: 

Et tellus nitidas fruges, vinetaque la?ta 
Sponte sua primum mortalibus ipsa creavit; 
Ipsa dedit dulc.es fictus, et pabnla lana; 
Q.ua; nunc vix noslro grandescunt aucta labore, 
Conterimusque boves, et vires agricolarum: 4 

"The earth did first spontaneously afford 
Choice fruits and wines to furnish out the board; 
With herbs and flow'rs unsown in verdant fields, 
But scarce by art so good a harvest yields ; 
Though men and oxen mutually have strove, 
With all their utmost force, the soil t' improve :" 

the debauchery and irregularity of our appe- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



235 



tites outstrips all the inventions we can contrive 
to satisfy it. 

As to arms, we have more natural ones than 

most other animals, more various 
arma n of men. motions of limbs, and naturally 

and without lesson extract more 
service from them. Those that are trained to 
fight naked are seen to throw themselves into 
the like hazards that we do. If some beasts 
surpass us in this advantage, we surpass many 
others. And the industry of fortifying the body, 
and covering it by acquired means, we have by 
instinct and natural precept. That it is so, the 
t elephant shows, who sharpens and 
teeth. Dt S whets the teeth he makes use of 

in war (for he has particular ones 
for that service, which he spares, and never 
employs them at all to any other use) ; when 
hulls go to fight, they toss and throw the dust 
about them; boars whet their tusks; and the 
ichneumon, when he is about to engage with 
the crocodile, fortifies his body, and covers and 
crusts it all over with close-wrought and well- 
tempered slime, as with a cuirass. Why shall 
we not say that it is also natural for us to arm 
ourselves with wood and iron ! 

As to speech, it is certain that if it be not 

natural it is not necessary. Ne- 
w "" ! '" !r ,,„ vertheless I believe that a child 
raj to man. which had been brought up in 

an absolute solitude, remote from 
all society of men (which would be an experi- 
ment very hard to make), would have some 
kind of speech to express his meaning by. And 
'tis not to be supposed that nature should have 
denied that to us which she has given to several 
other animals: for what is this faculty we 
observe in them, of complaining, rejoicing, 
calling to one another for succour, and inviting 
each other to love, which they do with the 

voice, other than speech! And 

Slanguage ^ sh ° uld , ^ n0t S P eak t0 
of their own. one another ! I hey speak to us, 
and we to them. In how many 
several sorts of ways do we speak to our dogs, 
and they answer us 1 We converse with them 
in another sort of language, and use other ap- 
pellations, than we do with birds, hogs, oxen, 
horses, and alter the idiom according to the kind. 

Cnsi per entro loro schiera bruna 

S' aminusa I' una con 1' altra formica, 

Forse a spiar lor via et lor fortuna.i 



Lactantius 2 seems to attribute to beasts not only 
„. ..... ... speech, but laughter also. And 

lie- ilnlnv attn- . i-rr< S, ... 

i, „,,,: to beasts. tne difference of language which 

is seen amongst us, according to 

the difference of countries, is also observed in 

animals of the same kind. Aristotle, 3 in proof 



l Dante, Purgat. xxvi. 3 
I Instit. Divin. iii. 10. 
1 Hist, of Animals, iv. 9. 



of this, instances the various calls of partridges, 
according to the situation of places : 

Varia'que volucres 
Lnnge alias alio jaciunt in tempore voces .... 
Et partim mutant cura teinpestatibus una 
Raucisonos cantus/> 
" And various birds do from their warbling throats. 
At various times, utter Quite different notes, 
And some their hoarse songs with the seasons change." 

But it is yet to be known what language this 
child would speak; and of that what is said 
by guess has no great appearance. If a man 
will allege to me, in opposition 
to this opinion, that those who KrTdeaf 10 
are naturally deaf speak not, I do not speak. 
answer that this is not only be- 
cause they could not receive the instruction of 
speaking by ear, but rather because the sense 
of hearing, of which they are deprived, relates 
to that of speaking, and that these hold together 
by a natural and inseparable tie, in such man- 
ner that what we speak we must first speak to 
ourselves within, and make it sound in our own 
ears, before we can utter it to others. 

Ail this I have said to prove the resemblance 
there is in human things, and to bring us back 
and join us to the crowd. We are neither 
above nor below the rest. All that is under 
heaven, says the sage, runs one law and one 
fortune : 

Indupedita suis fatalibus omnia vinclis.s 



There is, indeed, some difference, — there are 
several orders and degrees ; but it is under the 
aspect of one and the same nature : 



" All things by their own rites proceed, and draw 
Towards their ends, by nature's certain law." 

Man must be compelled and restrained within 
the bounds of this polity. Miserable creature ! 
he is not in a condition really to step over the 
rail. He is fettered and circumscribed, he is 
subjected to the same necessity that the other 
creatures of his rank and order are, and of a 
very mean condition, without any prerogative 
of true and real pre-eminence. That which he 
attributes to himself, by vain fancy and opinion, 
has neither body nor taste. And if it be so, 
that he only, of all the animals, has this liberty 
of imagination and irregularity of thoughts, 
representing to him that which is, that which 
is not, and that he would have, the false and 
the true, 'tis an advantage dearly bought, and 
of which he has very little reason to be proud ; 
for thence springs the principal and original 
fountain of all the evils that befitl him,— sin, 



« Lucret. v. 1077, 10S0, 10S2, 1033. 
6 Id. ib. 874. 
« Id. ib. 921. 



236 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sickness, irresolution, affliction, despair. I say, 
then, to return to ray subject, that 
^Terns as f weii there is n0 appearance to induce 
as mankind. a man to believe that beasts 
should, by a natural and forced 
inclination, do the same things that we do by 
our choice and industry. We ought from like 
effects to conclude like faculties, and from 
greater effects greater faculties; and conse- 
quently confess that the same reasoning, and 
the same ways by which we operate, are com- 
mon with them, or that they have others that 
are better. Why should we imagine this na- 
tural constraint in them, who experience no 
such effect in ourselves? added that it is more 
honourable to be guided and obliged to act 
regularly by a natural and inevitable con- 
dition, and nearer allied to the divinity, than 
to act regularly by a temerarious arid fortuitous 
liberty, and more safe to entrust the reins of 
our conduct in the hands of nature than our 
own. The vanity of our presumption makes 
us prefer rather to owe our sufficiency to our 
own exertions than to her bounty, and to enrich 
the other animals with natural goods, and ab- 
jure them in their favour, in order to honour 
and ennoble ourselves with goods acquired, 
very foolishly in my opinion ; for I should as 
much value parts and virtues naturally and 
purely my own as those I had begged and 
obtained from education. It is not in our 
power to obtain a nobler reputation than to be 
favoured of God and nature. 

For instance, take the fox, the people of 
Thrace make use of when they wish to pass 
over the ice of some frozen river, and turn him 
out before them to that purpose ; when we see 
him lay his ear upon the bank of the river, 
down to the ice, to listen if from a more remote 
or nearer distance he can hear the noise of the 
waters' current, and, according as he finds by 
that the ice to be of a less or greater thickness, 
to retire or advance,' — have we not reason to 
believe thence that the same rational thoughts 
passed through his head that we should have 
upon the like occasions ; and that it is a ratio- 
cination and consequence, drawn from natural 
sense, that that which makes a noise runs, that 
•which runs is not frozen, what is not frozen is 
liquid, and that which is liquid yields to im- 
pression ! For to attribute this to a mere 
quickness of the sense of hearing, without rea- 
son and consequence, is a chimasra that cannot 
enter into the imagination. We are to suppose 
the same of the many sorts of subtleties and 
inventions with which beasts secure themselves 
from, and frustrate, the enterprizes we plot 
against them. 

And if we will make an advantage even 



» Plutarch, on the Craftiness of Animals. 

* Id. How U> distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend. 
3 Herod, v. 5. Pomponius Mela, ii. 2. 

* Cffisar, de Bell. Gall. iii. 22. 



of this, that it is in our power to 
seize them, to employ them in our M ™ daw to 
service, and to use them at our wefiVs'the* 
pleasure, 'tis still but the same brutes are. 
advantage we have over one 
another. We have our slaves upon these 
terms: the Climacidae, were they not women 
in Syria who, squat on all fours, 2 served for a 
ladder or footstool, by which the ladies mounted 
their coaches'! And the greatest part of free 
persons surrender, for very trivial conveniences, 
their life and being into the power of another. 
The wives and concubines of the Thracians 
contended who should be chosen to be slain 
upon their husband's tomb. 3 Have tyrants 
ever failed of finding men enough vowed to 
their devotion'! some of them moreover adding 
this necessity, of accompanying them in death 
as well as life! Whole armies have bound 
themselves after this manner to their captains. 4 
The form of the oath in the rude school of 
gladiators was in these words: "We swear to 
suffer ourselves to be chained, burnt, wounded, 
and killed with the sword, and to endure all 
that true gladiators suffer from their master, 
religiously engaging both body and soul in 
his service:" 5 

Ure meum. si vis, flamma caput, et pete ferro 
Corpus, et intorto verbere terga seca. 2 



This was an obligation indeed, and yet there, 
in one year, ten thousand entered into it, to 
their destruction. When the Scythians interred 
their king they strangled upon 
his body the most beloved of his gjg$5* 
concubines, his cup-bearer, the kings, 
master of his horse, his chamber- 
lain, the usher of his chamber, and his cook. 
And upon the anniversary thereof they killed 
fifty horses, mounted by fifty pages, that they 
had impaled all 'up the spine of the back to 
the throat, and there left them fixed in triumph 
about his tomb. 7 The men that serve us do it 
cheaper, and for a less careful and favourable 
usage than what we treat our hawks, horses 
and dogs withal. To what solicitude do we 
not submit for the conveniences of these"! I do 
not think that servants of the most abject con- 
dition would willingly do that for their masters 
that princes think it an honour to do for their 
beasts. Diogenes seeing his relations solicitous 
to redeem him from servitude : " They are 
fools," said he; "'tis he that keeps and nou- 
rishes me that in reality serves me." 8 And they 
who entertain beasts ought rather to be said to 
serve them, than to be served by them. And 
withal in this these have something more gene- 



| Petron. Sat. c. 117. 
I Tib. i. 9. 21. 
' Herod, iv. 71. 
> Laertius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



237 



rous, in that one lion never submitted to another 
lion, nor one horse to another, for want of 
courage. As we go to the chase of beasts, so 
do tigers and lions to the chase of men, and do 
the same execution upon one another; dogs 
upon hares, pikes upon tench, swallows upon 
grass-hoppers, and sparrow-hawks upon black- 
birds and larks : 

Serpente ciconia pullos 
Niitrit, et invents perdevi.i rnra lacerta .... 
Et leporem ant capream famute Jovis et geneross 
In saltu venantur aves.' 

"The stork with snakes and lizards from the wood 
Ami pathless wilds supports her callow hrood, 
While Jove's own eagle, bird of noble blood, 
Scours the wide country for undaunted food; 
Sweeps the swift hare or swifter fawn away, 
And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey." 

We divide the quarry, as well as the pains 
and labour of the chase, with our hawks and 
hounds. And about Amphipolis, in Thrace, 
the hawkers and wild falcons equally divide 
the prey in the half. 2 As also along the lake 
Moeotis, if the fisherman does not honestly 
leave the wolves an equal share of what he has 
caught, they presently go and tear his nets in 
pieces. And as we have a way of sporting 
that is carried on more by subtlety than force, 
as springing hares, and angling with line and 
hook, there is also the like amongst other ani- 
mals. Aristotle says 3 that the cuttle-fish casts 
a gut out of her throat as long as a line, which 
she extends and draws back at pleasure; and 
as she perceives some little fish approach her 
she leis it nibble upon the end of this gut, 
lying herself concealed in the sand or mud, 
and by little and little draws it in, till the little 
fish is so near her that at one spring she may 
catch it. 

As to strength, there is no creature in the 
world exposed to so many injuries 
The strength as man. We need not a whale, 
to that of sr '° r an elephant, or a crocodile, nor 
animals. any such-like animals, of which 

one alone is sufficient to dispatch 
a great number of men, to do our business ; 
lice are sufficient to vacate Sylla's dictatorship; 4 
and the heart and life ofa great and triumphant 
emperor is the breakfast ofa little contemptible 
worm! 

Why should we say that it is only for man, 
by knowledge built up by art and meditation, 
to distinguish the things useful for his being, 
and proper for the cure of his diseases, and 
those which are not; to know the virtues of 
. rhubarb and polypody. When 
gujsh what' may we see tne goats of Candia, when 
t>e of use m wounded with an arrow, among 
in jo Mi^their a m iHi on f plants choose out 
dittany for their cure; and the 



tortoise, when she has eaten a viper, imme- 
diately go out to look for origanum to purge 
her; the dragon to rub and clear his eyes with 
fennel; the storks to give themselves clysters 
of sea-water; the elephants to draw not only 
out of their own bodies, and those of their 
companions, but out of the bodies of their 
masters too (witness the elephant of King Po- 
rus, 5 whom Alexander defeated), the darts and 
javelins thrown at them in battle, and that so 
dexterously that we ourselves could not do it 
with so little pain to the patient;— why do we 
not say here also that this is knowledge and 
reason? For to allege, to their disparage- 
ment, that 'tis by the sole instruction and dic- 
tate of nature that they know all this, is not 
to take from them the dignity of knowledge 
and reason, but with greater force to attribute 
it to them than to us, for the honour of so 
infallible a mistress. Chrysippus, 6 though in 
other things as scornful a judge of the condition 
of animals as any other philosopher whatever, 
considering the motions of a dog, who coming 
to a place where three ways met, either to 
hunt after his master he has lost, or in pursuit 
of some game that flies before him, goes snuff- 
ing first in one of the ways, and then in another, 
and, after having made himself sure of two, 
without finding the trace of what he seeks, 
dashes into the third without examination, is 
forced to confess that this reasoning is in the 
dog: "I have traced my master to this place; 
he must of necessity be gone one of these three 
ways; he is not gone this way nor that, he 
must then infallibly be gone this other ;" and 
that assuring himself by this conclusion, he 
makes no use of his nose in the third way, nor 
ever lays it to the ground, but suffers himself 
to be carried on there by the force of reason. 
This sally, purely logical, and this use of pro- 
positions "divided and conjoined, and the right 
enumeration of parts, is it not every whit as 
good that the dog knows all this of himself as 
well as from Trapezuntius 1 7 

Animals are not incapable, however, of being 
instructed after our method. We 
teach blackbirds, ravens, pies, Animi ib^ 
and parrots, to speak: and the instructed. ° 
facility wherewith we see they 
lend us their voices, and render both them and 
their breath so supple and pliant, to be formed 
and confined within a certain number of letters 
and syllables, does evince that they have a 
reason within, which renders them so docile 
and willing to learn. Everybody, I believe, 
is glutted with the several sorts of tricks that 
tumblers teach their dogs ; the dances, where 
they do not miss any one cadence of the sound 
they hear; the several various motions and 



' Juvenal, Sat. 14. 

» Pliny, x. 8. 

a Plutarch., on the Craftiness of JJnimnls. 

* Sylla died of the morbus pedicutosus at the age of sixty 

'■> Plutarch, ut supra. 



Sextus Empiric. Pyrrh. Hypolliyp. i. 14. 

' George Trapezuntius, a learned Greek, who. flying from 
the East, and taking refuge in Hah in the fifleeutl. reiiwrv. 
was bv Pope Kugenitis IV. entrusted with the directum nf 
one Of tin- colleges at Uome, where lie greatly contributed. 
to the revival of letters, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



leaps they make them perform by the command 
of a word. But I observe this effect with the 
greatest admiration, which nevertheless is very 
common, in the dogs that lead the blind, both 
in the country and in cities: I have taken 
notice how they stop at certain doors, where 
they are wont to receive alms ; how they avoid 
the encounter of coaches and carts, even there 
where they have sufficient room to pass; I 
have seen them, by the trench of a town, for- 
sake a plain and even path and take a worse, 
only to keep their masters further from the 
ditch ; — how could a man have made this dog 
understand that it was his office to look to his 
master's safety only, and to despise his own 
conveniency to serve him ? And how had he 
the knowledge that a way was wide enough 
for him that was not so for a blind man 1 Can 
all this be apprehended without ratiocination ! 

I must not omit what Plutarch says 4 he saw 
of a dog at Rome with the Emperor Vespasian, 
the father, at the theatre of Marcellus. This 
dog served a player, that played a farce of 
several parts and personages, and had therein 
his part. He had, amongst other things, to 
counterfeit himself for some time dead, by reason 
of a certain drug he was supposed to eat. After 
he had swallowed a piece of bread, which passed 
for the drug, he began after awhile to tremble 
and stagger, as if he was taken giddy: at last, 
stretching himself out stiff, as if dead, he suf- 
fered himself to be drawn and dragged from 
place to place, as it was his part to do; and 
afterward, when he knew it to be time, he 
began first gently to stir, as if awaking out of 
a profound sleep, and lifting up his head looked 
about him after such a manner as astonished 
all the spectators. 

The oxen that served in the royal gardens of 
Susa, to water them, and turn certain great 
wheels to draw water for that purpose, to which 
buckets were fastened (such as there are many 
in Languedoc), being ordered every one to 
draw a hundred turns a day, they were so 
accustomed to this number that it was impos- 
sible by any force to make them draw one turn 
more; but, their task being performed, they 
would suddenly stop and stand still. 2 We are 
almost men before we can count a hundred, and 
have lately discovered nations that have no 
knowledge of numbers at all. 

There is more understanding required in the 
teaching of others than in being taught. Now, 
setting aside what Democritus held 3 and proved, 
" That most of the arts we have were taught 
us by other animals," as by the spider to weave 
and sew; by the swallow to build; by the 
swan and nightingale music ; and by several 
animals to make medicines : — Aristotle is of 
opinion 4 "That the nightingales teach their 



i Plutarch, 

2 Id. ib. 

3 Id. it. 

* Id. ib 



the Craftiness of Animals. 



young ones to sing, and spend a great deal of 
time and care in it;" whence it happens that 
those we bring up in cages, and which have 
not had the time to learn of their parents, 
want much of the grace of their singing: we 
may judge by this that they improve by dis- 
cipline and study; and, even amongst the 
wild, it is not all and every one alike — every 
one has learnt to do better or worse, according 
to their capacity. And so jealous are they one 
of another, whilst learning, that they contend 
with emulation, and by so vigorous a conten- 
tion that sometimes the vanquished fall dead 
upon the place, the breath rather failing than 
the voice. The younger ruminate pensively 
and begin to mutter some broken notes; the 
disciple listens to the master's lesson, and gives 
the best account he is able; they are silent by 
turns ; one may hear faults corrected and observe 
some reprehensions of the teacher. "I have 
formerly seen," says Arrian, 5 "an elephant 
having a cymbal hung at each 
leg, and another fastened to his wearin" tS 
trunk, at the sound of which all cymbals. 
the others danced round about 
him, rising and bending at certain cadences, 
as they were guided by the instrument; and 
'twas delightful to hear this harmony." In 
the spectacles of Rome there were ordinarily 
seen elephants taught to move 
and dance to the sound of the f^To 
voice, dances wherein were seve- dance, 
ral changes and cadences very 
hard to learn. 6 And some have been known 
so intent upon their lesson as privately to prac- 
tice it by themselves, that they might not be 
chidden nor beaten by their masters. 

But this other story of the pie, of which we 
have Plutarch himself for a warrant, 7 is very 
strange. She lived in a barber's 



ever she heard. It happened one 
day that certain trumpeters stood a good while 
sounding before the shop. After that, and all 
the next day, the pie was pensive, dumb, and 
melancholic; which every body wondered at, 
and thought the noise of the trumpets had so 
stupified and astonished her that her voice was 
gone with her hearing. But they found at last 
that it was a profound meditation and a retiring 
into herself, her thoughts exercising and pre- 
paring her voice to imitate the sound of those 
trumpets, so that the first voice she uttered was 
perfectly to imitate their strains, stops, and 
changes; having by this new lesson quitted and 
taken in disdain all she had learned before. 

I will not omit this other example of a dog, 
also, which the same Plutarch (I am sadly con- 
founding all order, but I do not propose arrange- 



» Pliny, JWit. Hist. x. 29. 
« Hist, indie, c. 14. 

' Plutarch, on the Craftiness of Animals; whence 
the five following instances are taken. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



merit here any more than elsewhere throughout 
my book) which Plutarch says lie 
The °"" nin 6 saw on board a ship. This dog 
1'iK' ViioiiToi^a being puzzled how to get the oil 
jar. that was in the bottom of a jar, 

which he could not reach with 
his tongue hy reason of the narrow mouth of 
the vessel, went and fetched stones and let them 
fall into the jar till he made the oil rise so high 
that he could reach it. What is this but an 
effect of a very subtle capacity? 'Tis said that 
the ravens of Barbary do the same, when the 
water they would drink is too low. This action 
is somewhat akin to what Juba, a king of their 
The subtlety of nation, relates of the elephants: 
elephants to " ihat when, by the craft of the 
(ii<i-i,!;ii^e one hunter, one of them is trapped in 
certain deep pits prepared for 
them, and covered over with brush to deceive 
them, all the rest, in great diligence, bring a 
great many stones and logs of wood to raise the 
bottom so that he may get out." But this 
animal, in several other effects, comes so near to 
human capacity that, should I particularly re- 
late all that experience hath delivered to us, I 
should easily have what I usually maintain 
granted : namely, that there is more difference 
betwixt such and such a man than betwixt 
such a beast and such a man. The keeper of* 
an elephant in a private house of Syria robbed 
him every meal of the half of his allowance. 
One day his master would himself feed him, and 
An elephant poured the full measure of barley 
discovers tiie lie had ordered for his allowance 
cheat oi ins j n to ms marj p;er; at which the 

keeper. , , 9 ' . , 

elephant, casting an angry look 
at his keeper, with his trunk separated the one- 
half from the other, and thrust it aside, by that 
declaring the wrong was done him. And an- 
other, having a keeper that mixed stones with 
his corn to make up the measure, came to the 
pot where he was boiling meat for his own din- 
ner, and filled it with ashes. These are parti- 
cular effects : but that which all the world has 
seen, and all the world knows, that in all the 
armies of the Levant one of the greatest force 
consisted in elephants, with whom they did, 
without comparison, much greater execution 
than we now do with our artillery; which 
takes, pretty nearly, their place in a day of 
battle (as may easily be supposed by such as 
are well read in ancient history) ; 



1 Juvenal, xii. 1 
1 Sonic of the 



nations did the sai 



They must necessarily have very confidently 
relied upon the fidelity and understanding of 
these beasts when they entrusted them with the 
vanguard of a battle, where the least stop they 
should have made, by reason of the bulk and 
heaviness of their bodies, and the least fright 
that should have made them face about upon 
their own people, had been enough to spoil all: 
and there are but few examples where it has 
happened that they have fallen foul upon their 
own troops, whereas we ourselves break into 
our own battalions and rout one another. They 
had the charge not of one simple movement 
only, but of many several things to be performed 
in the battle : as the Spaniards did to their dogs 
in their new conquest of the Indies, 2 to whom 
they gave pay and allowed them a share in the 
spoil ; and those animals showed as much dex- 
terity and judgment in pursuing the victory and 
stopping the pursuit; in charging and retiring, 
as occasion required ; and in distinguishing 
their friends from their enemies, as they did 
ardour and fierceness. 

We more admire and value things that are 
unusual and strange than those of ordinary 
observation. I had not else so long insisted 
upon these examples: for I believe whoever 
shall strictly observe what we ordinarily see in 
those animals we have amongst us may there 
find as wonderful effects as those we seek in 
remote countries and ages. 'Tis one and the 
same nature that rolls on her course, and who- 
ever has sufficiently considered the present state 
of things, might certainly conclude as to both 
the future and the past. I have formerly seen 
men, brought hither by sea from very distant 
countries, whose language not being understood 
by us, and moreover their mien, countenance, 
and habit, being quite differing from ours; 
which of us did not repute them savages and 
brutes! Who did not attribute it to stupidity 
and want of common sense to see them mute, 
ignorant of the French tongue, ignorant of our 
salutations and cringes, our port and behaviour, 
from which all human nature must by all means 
take its pattern and example. All that seems 
strange to us, and that we do not understand, 
we condemn. The same thing happens also in 
the judgments we make of beasts. They have 
several conditions like to ours; from those we 
may, by comparison, draw some conjecture: 
but by those qualities that are particular to them- 
selves, what know we what to make of them? 
The horses, dogs, oxen, sheep, birds, and most 
of the animals that live amongst us, know our 
voices, and suffer themselves to be governed by 
them : sodid Crassus's lamprey, 3 ami came wheu 
he called it; as also do the eels that are found 
in the Lake Arethusa; and I have seen sevei ' 
ponds where the fishes come to eat at a certdj) 
call of those who use to feed them. 



JWrfur. Histor. viii. 
3 Plutarch, ut supr 



240 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



we may judge of that. We may also say that 
the elephants have some participation of reli- 
Whether ele- S lon > 2 forasmuch as after several 
phants have washings and purifications they 
any sentiments are observed to lift up their trunk 
re igion. j-^ ar|ng) an( ^ g xm ^ their eyes 
towards the rising of the sun, continue long in 
meditation and contemplation, at certain hours 
of the days, of their own motion, without in- 
struction or precept. But because we do not 
see any such signs in other animals, we cannot 
for that conclude that they are without religion, 
nor make any judgment of what is concealed 
from us. As we discern something in this action 
which the philosopher Cleanthes took notice of, 3 
because it something resembles our own. He 

saw, he says, " Ants go from their 
inTa a n r ce a ofa ant-hill, carrying the dead body 
sort of con- of an ant towards another ant-hill, 
feience betwixt wnence several other ants came 

out to meet them, as if to speak 
with them ; where, after having been a while 
together, the last returned to consult, you may 
suppose, with their fellow-citizens, and so made 
two or three journeys, by reason of the difficulty 
of capitulation. In the conclusion, the last 
comers brought the first a worm out of their 
burrow, as it were for the ransom of the de- 
funct, which the first laid upon their backs and 
carried home, leaving the dead body to the 
others." This was the interpretation that Cle- 
anthes gave of this transaction, giving us by 
that to understand that those creatures that 
have no voice are not, nevertheless, without 
intercourse and mutual communication, whereof 
'tis through our own defect that we do not par- 
ticipate ; and for that reason foolishly take upon 
us to pass our censure. But they yet produce 
either effects far beyond our capacity, to which 
we are so far from being able to arrive by imi- 
tation that we cannot so much as by imitation 
conceive it. Many are of opinion that in the 
great and last naval engagement that Antony 
lost to Augustus, his admiral galley was stayed 
in the middle of her course by the little fish the 
Latins call remora, by reason of the property 
she has of staying all sorts of vessels to which 
she fastens herself. 4 And the Emperor Caligula, 



i Martial, iv. 29. 6. 

2 Pliny, viii. 1. 

3 Plutarch, ut supra. 

4 Pliny, JVaC. Hist, xxxii. i. 
6 Id. it,. 

6 Plutarch, ut supra. 

7 Id. ib. 

8 Sextus Empiricus. Pyrrh. Hypoth. i. 14. 

8 Or Torpedo. Montaigne (observes Mr. Coste) would 
mislead us here, or, rather, is misled himself; for, because 
the cramp-fish benumbs the members of those who touch it, 
and because the cranes, swallows, arid 1 he oilier birds of pas- 
sage change their climate according to the seasons of the 
year, it by no means follows tlr.it tiro predictions, pretpnded 
to he derived from the flight of birds, are founded on certain 
meal lie. tvhich I hose birds have ol'diseo wring things future 



sailing with a great navy upon the coast of Ro- 
mania, his galley only was suddenly stayed by 
the same fish, which he caused to be taken, 
fastened as it was to the keel of his ship, very 
angry that such a little animal could resist both 
the sea, the wind, and the force of all his oars, 
by being only fastened by the beak to his galley 
(for it is a shell-fish); and was moreover, not 
without great reason, astonished that, being 
brought to him in the vessel, it had no longer 
the strength it had without. A citizen of Cyzicus 
formerly acquired the reputation of a good ma- 
thematician for having learnt the quality of the 
hedge-hog : he has his burrow open in divers 
places, and to several winds, and, foreseeing the 
wind that is to come, stops the hole on that 
side, which that citizen observing, gave the city 
certain predictions of the wind which was pre- 
sently to blow. 5 The cameleon takes her colour 
from the place upon which she is „. „, „„ 

, • , R , l ., K ■ ,. Change of co- 

laid ; 8 but the polypus gives him- lour in the ea- 
sel f what colour he pleases, ac- >neieon and 
cording to occasion, either to poy P Ba - 
conceal himself from what he fears, or from 
what he has a design to seize : 7 in the cameleon 
'tis a passive, but in the polypus 'tis an active, 
change. We have some changes of colour, as 
in fear, anger, shame, and other passions, that 
alter our complexions; but it is by the effect of 
suffering, as with the cameleon. It is in the 
power of the jaundice, indeed, to make us turn 
yellow, but 'tis not in the power of our own 
will. Now these effects that we discover in 
other animals, much greater than ours, seem to 
imply some more excellent faculty in them un- 
known to us; as 'tis to be presumed there are 
several other qualities and abilities of theirs, 
of which ik) appearances have arrived at us. 

Amongst all the predictions of elder times, 
the most ancient and the most Tne fl igllt0 f 
certain were those taken from the birds the most 
flight of birds; 8 we have nothing certain way of 
like it, nor any thing to be so P redictl0n - 
much admired. That rule and order of the 
moving of the wing, whence they derived the 
consequences of future things, must of neces- 
sity be guided by some excellent means to so 
noble an operation : for to attribute this great 
effect to any natural disposition, without the 
intelligence, consent, and meditation of him by 
whom it is produced, is an opinion evidently 
false. That it is so, the cramp-fish 9 has this 



to such as take the pains to watch their various motions. 
The vivacity of our author's genius has made him, in this 
place, confound things together that are very different. For 
the properties of the cramp-fish, cranes, and swallows, ap 
pear from sensible effects: but the predictions said to be 
derived from the flight, of certain birds, by virtue of the rule 
and method of the motion of their wiriL's. are only founded 
upon human imaginations, the reality whereof was never 
proved; which have varied according to times arrd places, 
and which, at length, have lost allcreditwith the very people 
that were most possessed with them; but lam of opinion 
that Montaigne only makes use here of the divining faculty 
of the birds, to puzzle those dogmatists who decide so posi- 
tively that the animals have in- it her reason nor intellect. In 
this he has imitated Sextus Umpirinrs. Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 11, 
who, attacking the dogmatists on this very ar tide, says, ex- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



241 



quality, not only to benumb all the members 
that touch her, but even through the nets trans- 
mit a heavy dulness into the hands of those that 
move and handle them ; nay, it is further said 
that if one pour water upon her, he will feel 
this numbness mount up the water to the hand, 
and stupify the feeling through the water. This 
is a miraculous force; but 'tis not useless to the 
cramp-fish; she knows it, and makes use on't; 
for, to catcii the prey she desires, she will bury 
herself in the mud, that other fishes swimming 
over her, struck and benumbed with this cold- 
ness of hers, may fall into her power. Cranes, 
swallows, and other birds of passage, by shifting 
their abode according to the seasons, sufficiently 
manifest the knowledge they have of their di- 
vining faculty, and put it in use. Huntsmen 
assure us that to cull out from amongst a great 
many puppies that which ought to be preserved 
as the best, the best way is to refer the choice 
to the mother; as thus, take them and carry 
them out of the kennel, and the first she brings 
back will certainly be the best; or if you make 
a show as if you would environ the kennel with 
fire, that one she first catches up to save. By 
which it appears they have a sort of prognostic 
which we have not, or that they have some 
virtue in judging of their whelps other and 
more certain than we have. 

The manner of coming into the world, of 
engendering, nourishing, acting, moving, living 
and dying of beasts, is so near to ours that 
whatever we retrench from their moving causes, 
and add to our own condition above theirs, can 
by no means proceed from any meditation of 
our own reason. For the regimen of our health, 
physicians propose to us the example of the 
beasts' manners and way of living; for this 
saying (out of Plutarch) has in all times been 
in the mouth of these people: "Keep warm 
thy feet and head, as to the rest, live like a 
beast." 

The chief of all natural actions is generation : 
we have a certain disposition of members which 
is the most proper for us to that end ; never- 
theless, we are ordered by Lucretius to conform 
to the gesture and posture of the brutes as the 
most effectual: 

More ferarum, 
Qtiadrupcdumquc inagis ritu, plerumque putantur 

Concipere itxores: Uuia sic loca siiincie possunt, 
Pectoribus positis, sublatis semina lumbis;' 

and the same authority condemns, as hurtful 
those indiscreet and impudent motions which 
the women have added of their own invention, 
to whom it proposes the more temperate and 
modest pattern and practice of the beasts of 
their own sex: 



pressly—" That it ca 

U8Q "t' speech, and more p< 

cause, not only hy tliuir k 



he denied that the birds have the 

- ,: "n than we have; be- 

f the present, hut also 

igs iuiure, they discover tin- latter, to such ;is are 

c of understanding them, by their voice and several 

means." 

21 



Nam rnnlier prohinet se concipere atipie repugnat, 
Clunibus ipsa viri Veiicrem si tela relractel," 
Atque exossato ciet omni pectore fluctus. 
Ejicit enim sulci recta regione Viaque 
Vornerem, atque locis avertit semiius icturn. 9 

If it be justice to render to every one their 
due, the beasts that serve, love, and defend 
their benefactors, and that pursue and fall upon 
strangers and those who offend them, do in this 
represent a certain air of our justice ; as also in 
observing a very equitable equality in the dis- 
tribution of what they have to their young. 
And as to friendship, they have it without 
comparison more lively and constant than men 
have. King Lysimachus's dog, 
Hyrcanus, his master being dead, ' 
lay on his bed, obstinately refus- 
ing either to eat or drink; and, 
the day that his body was burnt, he took a run 
and leaped into the fire, where he was con- 
sumed. 3 As also did the dog of one Pyrrhus, 
for he would not stir from off his master's bed 
from the time he died ; and when they carried 
him away let himself be carried with him, and 
at last leaped into the pile where they burnt his 
master's body." 4 There are inclinations of affec- 
tion which sometimes, spring in us, without the 
consultation of reason; and by a fortuitous 
temerity, which others call sympathy: of which 
beasts are as capable as we. We see horses 
take such an acquaintance with one another 
that we have much ado to make them eat or 
travel, when separated : we observe them to 
fancy a particular colour in those of their own 
kind, and, where they meet it, run to it with 
great joy and demonstrations of good will, and 
have a dislike and hatred for some other colour. 
Animals have choice, as well as we, in their 
amours, and cull out their mistresses ; neither 
are they exempt from our jealousies and impla- 
cable malice. 

Desires are either natural and necessary, as 
to eat and drink ; or natural and not necessary, 
as the coupling with females ; or neither natural 
nor necessary: of which last sort are almost all 
the desires of men: they are all superfluous 
and artificial. For 'tis marvellous how little 
will satisfy nature, how little she has left us to 
desire; our ragouts and kickshaws are not of 
her ordering. The Stoics say that a man may 
live on an olive a day. , The delicacy of our 
wines is no part of her instruction, nor the re- 
finements we introduce into the indulgence of 
our amorous appetites : 

Neque ilia 
Magno prognatum deposcit consule cunnum.a 

" Nature, in her pursuit of love, disclaims 
The pride of titles, and the pomp of names." 

These irregular desires, that the ignorance of 



i Lucretius, iv. 1201. The meaning of the passage is ren- 
dered in the preceding sentence of the text. 

2 Id. ift. I2l>6. The meaning of this quotation, also, is 
conveyed by the paragraph which precedes it. 

: > Plutarch, ut supra. « Id. ii. 

s Horace, i. S, li'J. 



242 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



good and a false opinion have infused into us, 
are so many that they almost exclude all the 
natural ; just as if there were so great a number 
of strangers in the city as to thrust out the 
natural inhabitants, or, usurping upon their 
ancient rights and privileges, should extinguish 
their authority and introduce new laws and 
customs of their own. Animals are much more 
regular than we, and keep them- 
a initials more se ) ves w ith oreater moderation 

regular than . . . ,. b ., , 

w |. within the limits nature has pre- 

scribed ; but yet not so exactly 
that they have not sometimes an analogy with 
our debauches. And as there have been furious 
desires that have impelled men to the love of 
beasts, so there have been examples of beasts that 
have fallen in love with us, and been seized with 
monstrous affection betwixt kinds : witness the 
elephant who was rival to Aristophanes the 
grammarian in the love of a young herb-wench 
in the city of Alexandria, who was nothing 
behind him in all the offices of a very passionate 
suitor: for going through the market where 
they sold fruit, he would take some in his trunk 
and carry them to her. He would as much as 
possible keep her always in his sight, and would 
sometimes put his trunk under her handkerchief 
into her bosom, to feel her breasts. 1 They tell 
also of a dragon in love with a girl, and of a 
goose enamoured of a child; of a ram that was 
suitor to the minstrelless Glaucia, in the town 
of Asopus f and we see not unfrequently baboons 
furiously in love with women. We see also 
certain male animals that are fond of the males 
of their own kind. Oppian 3 and others give 
us some examples of the reverence that beasts 
have to their kindred in their copulations: 4 but 
experience often shows us the contrary : 

Nee habetur turpe juvencae , 

Ferre patrem lergo ; fit eu.uo sua filia conjux; 
(luasque creavit.init pecurles caper; ipsaque cujus 
Semine concepta est, ex illo concipit ales. 5 

The heifer thinks it not a shame to take 

Her lusty sire upon her willing back: 

The horse his daughter leaps, treats scruple not 

T increase the herd by those they have begot; 

And birds of all sorts do in common live, 

And by the seed they have conceived conceive." 

And for subtle cunning, can there be a more 
pregnant example than in the philosopher 
Thales' mule'! 6 who fording a river, laden with 
salt, and by accident stumbling there, so that 
the sacks he carried were all wet, perceiving 
that by the melting of the salt his burden was 
something lighter, he never failed, so oft as he 
came to any river, to lie down with his load ; 
' till his master, discovering the knavery, ordered 
that he should be laden with wool : wherein, 



1 Plutarch, nt supra. 

- Id. ib. 

a On Hunting; i. 236. 

* Of this there is a very remarkable instance in Varro 
t/e He Rustica, ii. 7. "As incredible as it may seem, it 
ought, to be remembered that a stallion, refusing absolutely 
to leap his mother, the groom thought tit to carry him to 
her with a cloth over lies head, which blinded him, and by 



finding himself mistaken, he ceased to practise 
that device. There are several that very vividly 
represent the true image of our 
avarice; for we see them in- Animals that 
finitely solicitous to get all they seem tainted 
can, and hide it with exceeding anVolhe'sMiini 
great care, though they never are very saving, 
make any use of it at all. As to 
thrift, they surpass us not only in the foresight 
and laying up, and saving for the time to come, 
but they have, moreover, a great deal of the 
science necessary thereto. The ants bring abroad 
into the sun their grain and seed to air, refresh 
and dry them when they perceive them to 
mould and grow musty, lest they should decay 
and rot. But the caution and prevention they 
use in gnawing their grains of wheat surpass 
all imagination of human prudence: for by 
reason that the wheat does not always continue 
sound and dry, but grows soft, thaws and 
dissolves as if it were steeped in milk, whilst 
hasting to germination ; for fear lest it should 
shoot and lose the nature and property of a 
magazine for their subsistence, they nibble off 
the end by which it should shoot and sprout. 

As to what concerns war, which is the greatest 
and most magnificent of human actions, I would 
very fain know whether we would use it for an 
argument of some prerogative, 
or, on the contrary, for a testi- ™e pa ssion^ for 
mony of our weakness and imper- weakness in " 
fection : as, in truth, the science human beings, 
of undoing and killing one an- animate. 1 '"" 
other, and of ruining and destroy- 
ing our own kind, has nothing in it so tempting 
as to make it be coveted by beasts who have it 
not. 

Quando leoni 
Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam 
Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri ? ' 



Yet are they not universally exempt; witness 
the furious encounters of bees, Wars betwixt 
and the enterprizes of the princes bees, 
of the contrary armies : 

Sspe duobus 
Regibus incessit magno discordia motu ; 
Continuoque animus vitlgi. et trepidantia bella 
Corda licet longe prasciscere. 8 

" But if contending factions arm the hive. 
When rival kings in doubtful battle strive, 
Tumultuous crowds the dread event prepare, 
And palpitating hearts that beat to war. 

I never read this divine description but that, 
methinks, I there see human folly and vanity 
in their true and lively colours. 



that means he forced him to cover her; but, taking off the 
veil as soon as he got off her, the stallion furiously rushed 
upon the groom, and bit him till he killed him." 

s Ovid, Metam. x. 325. 

« Plutarch, ut supra. 

i Juvenal, xv. JbO. 

6 Virgil, Gcorg. iv. 67. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



243 



For these warlike movements, that so ravish us 
with their astounding noise and horror, this 
rattle of guns, drums, and cries, 

Fulgur. ibi ad ccelum se tollit, totaque circum 
Mtp. renidoscit, tellus, subterque virum vi 
Excitur pedibus souitus, cluinorequc moutes 
lcti rejectant voces ad sidera muudi ; ' 

"When burnish'd arms to heaven dart their rays, 
And many a steely beam i' th' sun-light plays, 
When trampled is the earth by horse and man, 
Until the very centre groans again, 
And that the rocks, struck by the various cries, 
Reverberate the sound unto the skies;" 

in the dreadful embattling of so many thou- 
sands of armed men, and so great fury, ardour, 
and courage, 'tis pleasant to consider by what 
idle occasions they are excited, and by how 
light ones appeased : 



all Asia was ruined and destroyed for the lust 
of Paris : the envy of one single man, a de- 
spite, a pleasure, a domestic jealousy, causes 
that ought not to set two oyster-wenches by the 
ears, is the mover of all this mighty bustle. 
Shall we believe those very men who are them- 
selves the principal authors of these mischiefs? 
Let us then hear the greatest, the most power- 
ful, the most victorious emperor that ever was, 
turning into a jest, very pleasantly and inge- 
niously, several battles fought both by sea and 
land, the blood and lives of five hundred thou- 
sand men that followed his fortune, and the 
strength and riches of two parts of the world 
drained for the expense of his expeditions: 

Quod futuit Glaphyran Antonius, hanc mihi poenam 

Fulvia constituit, ipioque uti futuam. 
Fulviam ego ut futuam ! quid, si me Manias oret 

Pcedicem, faciam ? Non puto, si sapiam. 
Aut fiitue, aut pugnemns, ait. Quid, si mihi vita 

Charior est ipsa mentula ? Signa cauant.s 

(I use my Latin with the liberty of conscience 
you are pleased to allow me. 4 ) Now this great 
body, with so many fronts, and so many mo- 
tions, which seems to threaten heaven and 
earth ; 



i Lucret. ii. 325. 

3 Horace, Epist. i. 2, 6. 

8 This epigram was composed by Augustus, but the lus- 
cious Latin conveys such gross and licentious ideas that 
there would be no excuse for translating the lines without 
softening them. The following French version, by .M. de 



Am; 



Parce qu'Antoine est charme dc Glaphyre 
Fulvie a ses beaux yeux me vent assujcltir. 
Antoine est infidele. Eh hien done? Est ce a dire 
Que des fautes d'Antoine on me fern patir? 

Qui ? moy ! que je serve Fulvie ! 

Sumt-il quelle en ait tenire? 
A ce compte, on verroit se retirer vers moi 

Mille epouses mal satisfaites. 
Mme moy, me ilit elle, a » combattons. Mais qttoy ? 

Elle est bien laide ! Aliens, sonnez, trompcttes. 



Quam multi Lyhicn volvuntur marmore fluctus, 
Stevis ubi Orion hibemis conditur unilis, 
Vel quam sole novo delists torrentur Arista?, 
Aut Hermi cainpo, aut Lycite flaveutibus .irvis : 
Scuta Sonant pulsuque pedum [remit excita tellus.-s 

1 Not thicker billows beat the Lybian main, 
When pale Orion sits in wintry rain ; 
Nor thicker harvests on rich llermus rise, 
Or Lycian fields, when Pha-bus burns the skies, 
Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around; 
Their trampling turns the turf and shakes the solid 



this furious monster, with so many heads 
and arms, is yet man — feeble, calamitous, and 
miserable man ! 'Tis but an ant-hill disturbed 
and provoked: 

It nigrum campis agmen : 8 
" The black troop marches to the field :" 

a contrary blast, the croaking of a flight of 
ravens, the stumble of a horse, the casual 
passage of an eagle, a dream, a voice, a sign, 
a morning mist, are any one of them sufficient 
to beat down and overturn him. Dart but a 
sunbeam in his face, he is melted and vanished. 
Blow but a little dust in his eyes, as our poet 
says of the bees, and all our ensigns and legions, 
with the great Pompey himself at the head of 
them, are routed and crushed to pieces: for it 
was he, as I take it, 7 that Sertorius beat in 
Spain with those fine arms, which also served 
Eumenes against Antigonus, and Surena against 
Crassus : 



Hi motus animorum, atque hrec certamina 
Pulveris exigui jactu coinpressa quiescent^ 



Let us but slip our flies after them, and they 
will have the force and courage to defeat 
them. Of fresh memory, the 
Portuguese having besieged the Tarniv' e faised 
city of Tamly, in the territory by the bee's, 
of Xiatine, the inhabitants of the 
place brought a great many hives, of which 
are great plenty in that place, upon the wall ; 
and with fire drove the bees so furiously upon 
the enemy that they gave over the enterprise, 
not being able to stand their attacks and endure 
their stings : and so the citizens, by this new 



"Cause Anthony is fired with filnphire's charms 
Fain would his Fulvia tempt me to her arms. 
If Anthony he false, what then ? must 1 
Be slave to Fulvia's lustful tyranny? 
Then would a thousand wanton, waspish wives, 
Swarm to my bed like bees into their hives. 
Declare for love, or war, she said ; and frow n'd : 
No love I'll grant: to arms bid trumpets sound." 



» JEncid, vii. 718. 

o lb. iv. 404. 

7 Here Montaigne's memory really fails him ; for it was 
not against Pompey that Sertorius employed this strata- 
gem, but against the Garaci tan inns, a people of Spain, who 
dwelt in deep caverns, hollowed out of the rock, whence 
'twas impossible to force theiu. Plutarch, L\J'c of Serto- 
rius, c. 6. 

e Viig. Qeorg. iv. 86. 



244 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sort of relief, gained liberty and the victory 
with so wonderful a fortune, that at the return 
of their defenders from the battle they found 
they had not lost so much as one. The souls 
of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same 
mould : the weight and importance of the 
actions of princes considered, we persuade our- 
selves that they must be produced by some as 
weighty and important causes : but we are 
deceived; for they are pushed on, and pulled 
back in their motions, by the same springs that 
we are in our little undertakings. The same 
reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour 
causes a war betwixt princes ; the same reason 
that makes us whip a lacquey, falling into the 
hands of a king makes him ruin a whole pro- 
vince. They are as lightly moved as we, but 
they are able to do more. In a gnat and an 
elephant the passion is the same. 

As to fidelity, there is no animal in the world 
so treacherous as man. Our histories have 
recorded the violent pursuits that 



Pyrrhus observing a dog that 
watched a dead man's body, and understanding 
that he had for three days together performed 
that office, commanded that the body should be 
buried, and took the dog along with him. One 
day, as he was at a general muster of his army, 
this dog, seeing his master's murderers, with 
great barking and extreme signs of anger flew 
upon them, and by this first accusation awakened 
the revenge of this murder, which was soon 
after perfected by form of justice. 1 As much 
was done by the dog of the wise Hesiod, who 
convicted the sons of Ganictor of Naupactus 
of the murder committed on the person of his 

master. 2 Another dog being to 
The fidelity of guard a temple at Athens, having 
suing a'sacrUe- spied a sacrilegious thief carrying 
gious person. away the finest jewels, fell to 

barking at him with all his force, 
but the warders not awaking at the noise, he 
followed him, and day being broke, kept off 
at a little distance, without losing sight of him: 
if he offered him anything to eat he would not 
take it, but would wag his tail at all the pas- 
sengers he met, and took whatever they gave 
him: and if the thief laid down to sleep, he 
likewise stayed upon the same place. The 
news of this dog being come to the warders of 
the temple they put themselves upon the pur- 
suit, inquiring of the colour of the dog, and at 
last found him in the city of Cromyon, and the 
thief also, whom they brought back to Athens, 
where he got his reward : and the judges, in 
consideration of this good office, ordered a cer- 
tain measure of corn for the dog's daily suste- 
nance, at the public charge, and the priests to 
take care of it. Plutarch delivers this story 



The gratitude 



for a certain truth, and that it happened in 
the age wherein he lived. 3 
- As to gratitude (for I think we need bring 
this word into a little repute), this one example, 
which Apion 4 reports himself to have been an 
eye-witness of, shall suffice. "One day," says 
he, "at Rome, they entertained 
the people with the sight of the ™||F 
fighting of several strange beasts, wards a slave, 
and principally of lions of an 
unusual size : there was one amongst the rest 
who, by his furious deportment, by the strength 
and largeness of his limbs, and by his loud and 
dreadful roaring, attracted the eyes of all the 
spectators. Amongst other slaves that were 
presented to the people in this combat of beasts 
there was one Androdus, of Dacia, belonging 
to a Roman lord of consular dignity. This lion 
having seen him at a distance first made a 
sudden stop, as it were in a wondering posture, 
and then softly approached nearer in a gentle 
and peaceable manner, as if it were to enter 
into acquaintance with him. This being done, 
and being now assured of what he sought for, 
he began to wag his tail, as dogs do when they 
flatter their masters, and to kiss and lick the 
hands and thighs of the poor wretch, who was 
beside himself, and almost dead with fear. 
Androdus being by this kindness of the lion 
a little come to himself, and having taken so 
much heart as to consider and know him, it 
was a singular pleasure to see the joy and 
caresses that passed betwixt them. At which 
the people breaking into loud acclamations of 
joy, the emperor caused the slave to be called, 
to know from him the cause of so strange an 
event; who thereupon told him a new and a 
very strange story : " My master," said he, 
" being pro-consul in Africa, I was constrained, 
by his severity and cruel usage, being daily 
beaten, to steal from him and run away ; and, 
to hide myself secretly from a person of so great 
authority in the province, I thought it my best 
way to fly to the solitudes, sands, .and unin- 
habitable parts of that country, resolving that 
in case the means of supporting life should 
chance to fail me, to make some shift or other 
to kill myself. The sun being excessively hot 
at noon, and the heat intolerable, I lit upon a 
private and almost inaccessible cave, and went 
into it. Soon after there came in to me this 
lion, with one foot wounded and bloody, com- 
plaining and groaning with the pain he endured. 
At his coming I was exceeding afraid ; but he 
having 'spied me hid in the corner of his den, 
came gently to me, holding out and showing 
me his wounded foot, as if he demanded my 
assistance in his distress. I then drew out a 
great splinter he had got there, and, growing 
a little more familiar with him, squeezing the 
wound thrust out the matter, dirt, and gravel 



Plutarch, ut supra. 
' Id. ib. Pausanias, ix. 31. 
i Plutarch, ut supra. jElian, de Animal, vii. 13. 



* In Aulus Gellius, v. 14. Seneca, de Benef. ii. 19, seem? 
to refer to the same story. Some editors of Aulus Gellius, 
name the hero Androdus, or Androcles, after .(Elian. Var. 
Hist. vii. 48 ; but the old editions have the name Androdus. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



245 



which was got into it, and wiped and cleansed 
it the best I could. He, finding himself some- 
thing better, and much eased of his pain, laid 
him down to rest, and presently fell asleep with 
his foot in my hand. From that time forward 
he and I lived together in this cave three whole 
years upon one and the same diet ; for of the 
beasts that he killed in hunting he always 
brought me the best pieces, which I roasted in 
the sun for want of fire, and so ate it. At last, 
growing weary of this wild and brutish life, the 
lion being one day gone abroad to hunt for our 
ordinary provision, I departed thence, and the 
third day after was taken by the soldiers, who 
brought me from Africa to this city to my 
master, who presently condemned me to die, 
and to be thus exposed to the wild beasts. 
Now, by what I see, this lion was also taken 
soon after, who has now sought to recompense 
rue for the benefit and cure that he received at 
my hands." This is the story that Androdus 
told the emperor, which he also conveyed from 
hand to hand to the people : wherefore, at the 
general request, he was absolved from his sen- 
tence and set at liberty, and the lion was, by order 
of the people, presented to him. " We after- 
wards saw," says Apion, " Androdus leading this 
lion, in nothing but a small leash, from tavern 
to tavern at Rome, and receiving what money 
everybody would give him, the lion being so 
gentle as to suffer himself to be covered with 
the flowers that the people threw upon him, 
every one that met him saying, 'There goes 
the lion that entertained the man ; there goes 
the man that cured the lion.' " 
Weeping of We often lament the loss of 

Sof those* beasts we love > and so do the y 

they love. the loss of us : 

Post, bellator eqiina, positis insignibus, ^Ethon 
It lacrymans, guttisque humectat grandibus ora. 1 
" To rlose the pomp, /Kthon, the steed of state, 

Stripped of his trappings, with a sullen pace 

lie walks, and the big mars run rolling down his face." 

As some nations have their wives in common, 
and some others have every one his own, is 
not the same seen among beasts, and marriages 
better kept than ours! As to the society 
and confederation they make amongst them- 
selves, to league together and to give one 

another mutual assistance, is it 
amongst not ' inown tnat 0Jf en, hogs, and 

beasts. other animals, at the cry of any 

of their kind that we offend, all 
the herd run to his aid and embody for his 
defence ? The fish Scarus, when he has swal- 
lowed the angler's hook, his fellows all crowd 
about him and gnaw the line in pieces; and 
if, by chance, one be got into the bow-net, the 
others present him their tails on the outside, 
which he holding fast with his teeth, they after 
that manner disengage and draw him out. 2 



i &ncid, xi. 89. Plii 
1 Plutarch, ut supra. 
> Id. ,b. 



Mullets, when one of their companions is en- 
gaged, cross the line over their back, and, with 
a fin they have there, indented like a saw, cut 
and saw it asunder. 3 As to the particular offices 
that we receive from one another for the service 
of life, there are several like examples amongst 
them. 'Tis said that the whale never moves 
that she has not always before her a little fish 
like the sea-gudgeon, tor this reason called the 
guide-fish, whom the whale follows, suffering 
himself to be led and turned with as great 
facility as the rudder guides the ship: in re- 
compense of which service also, whereas all the 
other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter 
into the dreadful gulf of this monster's mouth, 
are immediately lost and swallowed up, this little 
fish retires into it in great security, and there 
sleeps, during which time the whale never 
stirs: but so soon as ever it goes out he imme- 
diately follows it; and if by accident he loses 
the sight of his little guide, he goes wandering 
here and there, and strikes his sides against the 
rocks like a ship that has lost her helm : which 
Plutarch affirms to have seen in the island of 
Anticyra. 4 There is a like society betwixt the 
little bird called the wren and the crocodile. 
The wren serves for a centinel over this great 
animal ; and if the ichneumon, his mortal 
enemy, approach to fight him, this little bird, 
for fear lest he should surprise him asleep, both 
with his voice and bill rouses him and gives 
him notice of his danger. He feeds of this 
monster's leavings, who receives him familiarly 
into his mouth, suffering him to peck in his 
jaws and betwixt his teeth, and thence to pick 
out the bits of flesh that remain ; and when he 
has a mind to shut his mouth, he first gives the 
bird warning to go out by closing it by little 
and little, and without bruising or doing it any 
harm at all. 5 The shell-fish called the naker 
lives in the same intelligence with the shrimp, 
a little sort of animal of the lobster kind, which 
serves him in the nature of a porter, sitting at 
the opening of the shell, which the naker keeps 
always gaping and open till the shrimp sees 
some little fish, proper for their prey, within 
the hollow of the shell, where she enters too, 
and pinches the naker so to the quick that she 
is forced to close her shell, where they two 
together devour the prey they have trapped in 
their fort. 6 In the manner of living of the 
tunnies we observe a singular knowledge of 
the three parts of mathematics. As to astro- 
logy, they teach it men, for they stay in the 
place where they are surprised by the brumal 
solstice, and never stir thence till the next 
equinox: for which reason Aristotle himself 
attributes to them this science. As to geometry 
and arithmetic, they always form their numbers 
in the figure of a cube, every way square, and 
make up the body of a battalion, solid, close, 



Plutarch, u( supra. 

Id ib. Pliny, viii. 25, &c. 

Id. ib. Cicero, dc JVa£. Dior. ii. 48. 



21* 



246 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and environed round with six equal sides, and 
swim in this square order, as large behind as 
before ; so that whoever in seeing them can 
count one rank may easily number the whole 
troop, by reason that the depth is equal to the 
breadth, and the breadth to the length. 1 

As to magnanimity, it will be hard to exhibit 

a better instance of it than in the 
ff a ln a ii 'man example of the great dog sent to 
dog. Alexander the Great from the 

Indies. They first brought him 
a stag to encounter, next a boar, and after that 
a bear, all which he slighted, and disdained to 
stir from his place; but when he saw a lion he 
then immediately roused himself, evidently ma- 
nifesting that he declared that alone worthy to 
enter the lists with him. 2 Touching repentance 
and the acknowledgment of faults, 'tis reported 
of an elephant that, having in the impetuosity 

of his rage killed his keeper,- he 
arfeiephant. fell into so extreme a sorrow that 

he would never after eat, but 
starved himself to death. 3 And as to clemency, 
'tis said of a tiger, the most cruel of all beasts, 
that a kid having been put in to him, he suf- 
fered a two days' hunger rather than hurt it, 
and the third broke the grate he was shut up 
in, to seek elsewhere for prey; so unwilling he 
was to fall upon the kid, his familiar and his 
guest. 4 And as to the laws of familiarity and 
agreement, formed by conversation, it ordi- 
narily happens that we bring up cats, dogs, and 
hares, tame together. 

But that which seamen by experience know, 
and particularly in the Sicilian Sea, of the 
quality of the halcyons, surpasses all human 

thought. Of what kind of ani- 

Stiraof mal has nature even so much 
the lmicyons. honoured the birth 1 The poets 
indeed say that one only island, 
. Delos, which was before a floating island, was 
fixed for the service of Latona's lying-in : but 
God has ordered that the whole ocean should 
be stayed, made stable and smooth, without 
waves, without winds or rain, whilst the hal- 
cyon produces her young, which is just about 
the solstice, the shortest day of the year; so 
'that by her privilege we have seven days and 
seven nights in the very heart of winter wherein 
we may sail without danger. Their females 
never have to do with any other male but 
their own, whom they serve and assist all 
their lives, without ever forsaking him. If he 
becomes weak and broken with age, they take 
him upon their shoulders and carry him from 
place to place, and serve him till death. But 
the most inquisitive into the secrets of nature 
could never yet arrive at the knowledge of the 
wonderful fabric wherewith the halcyon builds 
The structure her nest for her little ones, nor 
of their nests, guess at the materials. Plutarch, 5 



i Plutarch, ut supra. — Aristotle, on Animals, viii. 13.- 
<Eliau, on Animals, ix. 42. 
a Plutarch, ut supra. 
■3 Arrian, India?' History, c. 14. 



who has seen and handled many of them, 
thinks it is the bones of some fish which 
she joins and binds together, interlacing them, 
some lengthwise and others across, and adding 
ribs and hoops in such manner that she forms 
at last a round vessel fit to launch ; which 
being done, and the building finished, she 
carries it to the beach, where the sea beating 
gently against it shows where she is to mend 
what is not well jointed and knit, and where 
better to fortify the seams that are leaky, that 
open at the beating of the waves ; and, on the 
contrary, what is well built and has had the 
due finishing, the beating of the waves does so 
close and bind together that it is not to be 
broken or cracked by blows either of stone or 
iron without very much ado. And that which 
is more to be admired is the proportion and 
figure of the cavity within, which is composed 
and proportioned after such a manner as not 
to receive or admit any other thing than the 
bird that built it: for to any thing else it is so 
impenetrable, close, and shut, nothing can 
enter, not so much as the water of the sea. 
This is a very clear description of this building, 
and borrowed from a very good hand ; and 
yet methinks it does not give us sufficient light 
into the difficulty of this architecture. Now 
from what vanity can it proceed to despise 
and look down upon, and disdainfully to inter- 
pret, effects that we can neither imitate nor 
comprehend'! 

To pursue a little further this equality and 
correspondence betwixt us and 
beasts, the privilege our soul so J^^l 01 
much glorifies herself upon, of common 
bringing all things she conceives 
to her own law, of stripping all 
things that come to her of their 
mortal and corporeal qualities, of ordering and 
placing things she conceives worthy her taking 
notice of, stripping and divesting them of their 
corruptible qualities, and making them to lay 
aside length, breadth, depth, weight, colour, 
smell, roughness, smoothness, hardness, soft- 
ness, and all sensible accidents, as mean and 
superfluous vestments, to accommodate them-to 
her own immortal and spiritual condition; as 
Rome and Paris, for example, that I have in 
my fancy, Paris that I imagine, I imagine 
and comprehend it without greatness and with- 
out place, without stone, without plaster, and 
without wood : this very same privilege, I say, 
seems evidently to be in beasts ; for a courser 
accustomed to trumpets, to musket-shots, and 
battles, whom we see start and tremble in his 
sleep and stretched upon his litter, as if he 
were in a fight; it is almost certain that he 
conceives in his soul the beat of a drum without 
noise, and an army without arms and without 
body : 



1 Plutarch, ut supra. 



beasts as well 

human 
beings. 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



247 



(iuippo videbis e<iuos fortes, cum membra jaccbunt 
In somnis, sudare tameir, spirareque sifipe, 
lit quasi de palma summas contendere vires :' 

" You shall see maneg'd horses in their sleep 
.Sweat, snort, start, tremble, and a clutter keep, 
As if with all their force they striving were 
The victor's palm proudly away to bear:" 

the hare, that a greyhound imagines in his 
sleep, after which we see him pant so whilst 
he sleeps, stretch out his tail, shake his legs, 
and perfectly represents all the motions of a 
course, Is a hare without fur and without bones: 

Vonantuvhquc canes in molli socpe qujete 
Jactant. crura tainen subito, voccsque repente 
Mittunt, et crebras reducunt naribus auras, 
Ut Vestigia si teneant inventa ferarum : 
Expergefactique sequuntur inania siepe 
Cervorum simulacra, tiiua: quasi dedita rernant; 
Donee discussis redeant erroribus ad se : 2 

"And hounds stir often in their quiet rest. 
Spending their mouths, as if upon a quest, 
Snuff, and breathe quick and short, as if they went 
In a full chase upon a burnins scent : 
Nay, being wak'd, imaijin'd siaus pursue, 

Till, liavinir shook themselves more broad awake, 
They do at last discover the mistake :" 

the watch-dogs, that we often observe to snarl 
in their dreams, and afterwards bark out, 
and start up as if they perceived some stranger 
at hand ; the stranger that their soul discerns 
is a man spiritual and imperceptible, without 
dimension, without colour, and without being : 

Consueta domi catuloruui blanda propago 
Degere.siepe leveni ex oculis volucremque soporem 
fiiscutere, el corpus de t"rra corripere instant, 
Proinde quasi ignotas facies atque ora tuan.tur.3 

"The fawning whelps of household curs will rise, 
And. shaking the soft slumber from their eyes, 
Oft bark and stare at ev'ry one within, 
As upon faces they bad never seen." 

As to the beauty of the bodv, before I pro- 
Whateonsti- ce , ed . an y farther" r should know 
tutes beauty. whether or no we are agreed 
about the description. Tis likely 
we do not well know what beauty is in nature 
and in general, since to our own human beauty 
we give so many divers forms, of which, were 
there any natural rule and prescription, we 
should know it in common, as the heat of the 
fire. But we fancy the forms according to our 
own appetite and liking: 

Turpis Romano Belgicus ore color :« 
" A German hue ill suits a Roman face." 

The Indians paint it black and tawny, with 
Beautv of the arreatewelled lips, wide flat noses, 
Indians. ar >d load the cartilage betwixt 

the nostrils with great rings of 
gold, to make it hang down to the mouth ; as 
also the under lip with great hoops, enriched 
with precious stones, that weigh them down to 
fall upon the chin, it being with them a singular 



i Lucret iv. 988. 

- id. ib. 992. 

3 Id. iv. 999. 

4 1'ropert. ii. 17, 26. 



grace to show their teeth, even below the roots. 
In Peru the greatest ears are the most beautiful, 
which they stretch out as far as they can by 
art. And a man now living says that he has 
seen in an eastern nation this care of enlarging 
them in so great repute, and the ear loaded 
with so ponderous jewels, that he did with 
great ease put his arm, sleeve and all, through 
the hole of an ear. There are elsewhere nations 
that take great care to black their 
teeth, and hate to see them white, despised? 
whilst others paint them red. The 
women are reputed more beautiful, not only in 
Biscay, but elsewhere, for having their heads 
shaved ; and, which is more, in certain frozen 
countries, as Pliny reports. 5 The Mexicans es- 
teem a low forehead a great beauty, and though 
they shave all other parts, they nourish hair on 
the forehead and increase it by art, and have 
great breasts in so great reputation that they 
affect to give their children suck over their 
shoulders. We should paint deformity so. 
The Italians fashion it gross and massy; the 
Spaniards gaunt and slender; and amongst us 
one has it white, another brown; one soft and 
delicate, another strong and vigorous ; one will 
have his mistress soft and gentle, others haughty 
and majestic. Just as the preference in beauty 
that Plato attributes to the spherical figure 
the Epicureans gave rather to the pyramidal or 
square, and cannot swallow a god in the form 
of a bowl. 6 But, be it how it 
will, nature has no more privi- Men are not 
leged us in this from her common l^'viiedged, m 

i .l • .i a j -r point of beautv, 

laws than m the rest. And if we above the 
will judge ourselves aright, we beasts, 
shall find that, if there be some 
animals less favoured in this than we, there are 
others, and in greater number, that are more: 
a multis animalibus decore vincimur, 1 "Many 
animals surpass us in beauty," even among the 
terrestrial, our compatriots: for as to those of 
sea, setting the figure aside, which cannot fall 
into any manner of proportion, being so much 
another thing in colour, clearness, smoothness, 
and arrangement, we sufficiently give place to 
them; and no less, in all qualities, to the 
aerial. And this prerogative that the poets 
make such a mighty matter of, our erect stature, 
looking towards heaven our original, 

Pronaque cum spectent animalia effitera terram, 
Os hoinini sublime dedit, ccelumque tueri 
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tolleru vultus, 8 

"Whilst all the brutal creatures downward bend 
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, 
He set man's face aloft, that, with his eyes 
Uplifted, he might view the starry skies," 

is truly poetical ; for there are several little 
beasts who have their sight absolutely turned 
towards heaven; and I find the gesture of 
camels and ostriches much higher raised and 



o JVflfc Hist. vi. 13. 
I'lato, TimtF.ua. 
' Seneca, Epist. 124. 
8 Ovid, Mctum. i. 84. 



248 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



more erect than ours. What animals have not 
their faces above and not before, and do not 
look opposite, as we do; and that do not in 
their natural posture discover as much of heaven 
and earth as man? And what qualities of our 
bodily constitution, in Plato and Cicero, 1 may 
not indifferently serve a thousand sorts of 
beasts'! Those that most resemble us are the 
most despicable and deformed of all the herd : 
for those, as to outward appearance and form 
of visage, are baboons : 

Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis? a 

" How like to man, in visage and in shape, 
Is, of all beasts the most uncouth, the ape?" 

as to the internal and vital parts, the hog. In 
earnest, when I consider man stark naked, 

even in that sex which seems to 
^onToT 6 have the greatest share of beauty, 
covered than his defects, natural subjection, 
any other anc | imperfections, I find that we 

animal. , L ' , .. 

have more reason than any other 

animal to cover ourselves; and are to be ex- 
cused from borrowing of those to whom nature 
has in this been kinder than to us, to trick 
ourselves out with their beauties, and hide our- 
selves under their spoils, their wool, feathers, 
hair, and silk. Let us observe, as to the rest, 
that man is the sole animal whose nudities 
offend his own companions, and the only one 
who in his natural actions withdraws and hides 
himself from his own kind. And really 'tis 
also an effect worth consideration, that they 
who are masters in the trade prescribe, as a 
remedy for amorous passions, the full and free 
view of the body a man desires; for that to 
cool the ardour there needs no more but freely 
and fully to see what he loves : 



And, although this receipt may peradventure 
proceed from a nice and cold humour, it is 
notwithstanding a very great sign of our defi- 
ciencies that use and acquaintance should make 
us disgust one another. It is not modesty, so 
much as cunning and prudence, that makes our 
ladies so circumspect to refuse us admittance 
into their cabinets before they are painted and 
tricked up for the public view : 



Nee Veneres nostras hoc fallit ; quo magis ipss 
Omnia sunnnopere hos vine postscenia celant, 
Q.uos retinere volunt, adstrictoque esse in amore: 3 

"Of this our ladies are full well aware, 
Which make them, with such privacy and care, 
Behind the scene all those defects remove, 
Likely to check the flame of those they love." 

whereas in several animals there is nothing 
that we do not love, and that does not please 



• By Plato in his Tlnueus; and by Cicero, de Nat. Dear 
ii. 54. 
a Ennius, apud. Cicero, ut supra, i. 35. 



our senses ; so that from their very excrements 
we do not only extract wherewith to heighten 
our sauces, but also our richest ornaments and 
perfumes. This discourse reflects upon none but 
the ordinary sort of women, and is not so 
sacrilegious as to comprehend those divine, 
supernatural, and extraordinary beauties, which 
we see shine occasionally among us like stars 
under a corporeal and terrestrial veil. 

As to the rest, the very share that we allow 
to beasts of the bounty of nature, by our own 
confession, is very much to their advantage. 
We attribute to ourselves imaginary and fan- 
tastic good, future and absent good, for which 
human capacity cannot of herself be responsi- 
ble : or good, that we falsely attribute to our- 
selves by the license of opinion, as reason, 
knowledge, and honour, and leave to them for 
their dividend, essential, durable, and palpable 
good, as peace, repose, security, innocence, and 
health: health, I say, the fairest 
and richest present that nature JJ^^^g 
can make us. Insomuch that f nature, 
philosophy, even the Stoic, 4 is so 
bold as to say, " That Heraclitus and Phere- 
cides, could they have trucked their wisdom for 
health, and have delivered themselves, the one 
of his dropsy, and the other of the lousy dis- 
ease that tormented him, they had done well." 
By which they set a greater value upon 
wisdom, comparing and putting it into the 
balance with health, than they do with this 
other proposition, which is also wherejn _ 
theirs: they say that if Circe sist^ii'^sTpe"- 
had presented Ulysses with the rinr excellence 
two potions, the one to make a j)£ a ™ t g" t0 the 
fool become a wise man, and the 
other to make a wise man become a fool, that 
Ulysses ought rather to have chosen the last, 
than consent to that by which Circe changed 
his human figure into that of a beast ; and say 
that wisdom itself would have spoke to him 
after this manner : " Forsake me, let me alone, 
rather than lodge me under the body and figure 
of an ass." How! the philosophers then will 
abandon this great and divine wisdom for this 
corporeal and terrestrial covering I It is then 
no more by reason, by discourse, and by the 
soul, that we excel beasts; 'tis by our beauty, 
our fair complexion, and our fine symmetry of 
parts, for which we must quit our intelligence, 
our prudence, and all the rest. Well, I accept 
this open and free confession: certainly they 
knew that those parts, upon which we so much 
value ourselves, are no other than vain fancy. 
If beasts then had all the virtue, knowledge, 
wisdom, and stoical perfection, they would still 
be beasts, and would not be comparable to man, 
miserable, wicked, mad, man. For, in short, 
whatever is not as we are is nothing worth; 
and God, to procure himself an esteem among 



s Lucretius, iv. 1162. 

* Plutarch, On Uie common Opinions against the Stoics. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



249 



us, must put himself into that shape, as we shall 
show anon. By which it appears that it is not 
upon any true ground of reason, but by a fool- 
ish pride and vain opinion, that we prefer 
ourselves before other animals, and separate 
ourselves from their society and condition. 

But to return to what I was upon before: 
we have for our part inconstancy, irresolution, 
incertitude, sorrow, superstition, solicitude of 
things to come, even after we shall be no more, 
ambition, avarice, jealousy, envy, irregular, 
frantic, and untamed appetites, war, lying, dis- 
loyalty, detraction, and curiosity. Doubtless, 
we have strangely over-paid this fine reason, 
upon which we so much glorify ourselves, and 
this capacity of judging and knowing, if we 
have bought it at the price of this infinite num- 
ber of passions to which we are eternally sub- 
ject. Unless we shall also think fit, as even 
Socrates does, 1 to add to the counterpoise that 
notable prerogative above beasts, "That whereas 
nature has prescribed them certain seasons and 
limits for the delights of Venus, she has given 
us the reins at all hours and all seasons." Ut 
vinum agrotis, quia prndest rard, nocet scepis- 
sime, melius est rum adhibere omnino, quam, spe 
dubia salitlis, in apertam perniciem incurrere : 
sic haud scio an melius fuerit, hurnano generi 
motum istum celerem cogitationis, acumen, 
solerliarn, quam ralionem vocamus, qunniam 
pe.slifera sint multis, admodum paucis salu- 
taria, non dari omnino, quam tarn mvnifice et 
tarn large dari. 2 "As it falls out that wine 
often hurting the sick, and very rarely doing them 
good, it is belter not to give them any at all 
than to run into an apparent danger out of hope 
of an uncertain benefit, so I know not whe- 
ther it had not been better for mankind that 
this quick motion, this penetration, this subtlety 
that we call reason, had not been given to man 
at all; considering how pestiferous it is to 
many, and useful but to few, than to have been 
conferred in so abundant manner, and with so 
liberal a hand." Of what advantage can we 
conceive the knowledge of so many things was 
to Varro and Aristotle] Did it exempt them 
from human inconveniences'? Were they by 
it freed from the accidents that lay heavy upon 
the shoulders of a porter? Did they extract 
from their logic any consolation for the gout] 
Or, for knowing how this humour is lodged in 
the joints, did they feel it the less] Did they 
enter into composition with death by knowing 
that some nations rejoice at his approach: or 
with cuckoldry, by knowing that in some parts 
of the world wives are in common] On the 
contrary, having been reputed the greatest men 
for knowledge, the one amongst the Romans, 
and the other amongst the Greeks, and in a time 
when learning did most flourish, we have not 
heard, nevertheless, that they had any particu- 



1 Xenophon, On Socrates, 
' Cicero, Dc JVa«. Deor. ii 
> Horace, Epod. 8, 17. 



lar excellence in their lives; nay, the Greek 
had enough to do to clear himself from some 
notable blemishes in his. Have we observed 
that pleasure and health have a better relish 
with him that understands astrology and gram- 
mar than with others ] 

Illilerati num minus nervi rigent?3 



or shame and poverty less troublesome to the 
first than to the last ] 

Scilicet et morbis, et debilitate rarebis, 

Et luctiiin ct niram cft'uifies, et tempera vita? 

Longa tibi post ha;c fato niuliore debuntur.'' 

" Disease tliy couch shall flee, 
And sorrow and care ; yes, thou, be sure, wilt see 
Long years of happiness, till now unknown." 

I have known in my time a hundred artisans, a 
hundred labourers, wiser and more happy than 
the rectors of the university, and whom I had 
much rather have resembled. Learning, me- 
thinks, has its place amongst the necessary 
things of life, as glory, nobility, dignity, or at tiie 
most, as beauty, riches, and such other quali- 
ties, which indeed are useful to it, but remotely, 
and more by opinion than by nature. We stand 
very little more in need of offices, rules, and 
laws of living in our society, than cranes and 
ants do in theirs; and yet we see that these 
carry themselves very regularly without erudi- 
tion. If man was wise, he would take the true 
value of every tiling according as it was useful 
and proper to his life. Whoever will number 
us by our actions and deportments will find 
many more excellent men amongst the ignorant 
than among the learned; aye, in all sorts of vir- 
tue. Old Rome seems to me to have been of much 
greater value, both for peace and war, than, 
that learned Rome that ruined itself. Anr\ 
though all the rest should be equal, yet integr. / 
and innocency would remain to the ancients, 
for they cohabit singularly well with simplicity. 
But I will leave this discourse, that would lead 
me farther than I am willing to „ .... , 

_ .. juu i b .i • Humility and 

follow ; and shall only say this submission the 
farther, 'tis only humility and parents of vir- 
submission that can make a com- tUc ' 
plete good man. We are not to leave the know- 
ledge of his duty to every man's own judgment ; 
we are to prescribe it to him, and not suffer him 
to choose it at his own discretion : otherwise, 
according to the imbecility, and infinite variety 
of our reasons and opinions, we should at large 
forge, ourselves duties that would, as Epicurus 
says, 5 enjoin us to eat one another. 

The first law that ever God gave to man ws ^ 
a law of pure obedience ; it was a 
commandment naked and simple, {^"J^w^f 
wherein man had nothing to in- God toman. 
quire after, nor to dispute; fbras- 



« Juv. Sat. 14, 156. 

<• Or rather the Epicurean Cektes, as may be seen in tha 
! that riutarch wrote againt him. 

2a 



250 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



much as to obey is the proper office of a rational 
soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and 
benefactor. From obedience and submission 
spring all other virtues, as all sin does from 
yelf-opinion. And, on the contrary, the first 
temptation that by the devil was offered to 
human nature, its first poison, insinuated itself 
into us by the promise made us of knowledge 
and wisdom: Erilis sicut Bii, scientes bonum 
et malum. 1 "Ye shall be as gods, knowing 
good and evil." And the syrens, in Homer, to 
allure Ulysses, and draw him within the danger 
of their snares, offered to give him knowledge. 2 
The plague of man is the opinion of wisdom ; 
and for this reason it is that ignorance is so 
recommended to us, by our religion, as proper 
to faith and obedience: Cavete ne quis vns de- 
cipiat per philosophiam el inanes seduclinnes, 
secundum elementa mundi? " Take heed, lest 
any man deceive you by philosophy and vain 
deceit, after the tradition of men, and the rudi- 
ments of the world." There is in this a general 
consent amongst all sorts of philosophers, that 
the sovereign good consists in the tranquillity 
of the soul and body : but where shall we 
find it? 

Ad summum, sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives, 
Liber honoratus, pulrlter, rex deuique regum ; 
Pracipue sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est : 

" In short, the wise is only less than Jove, 
Kich, free, and handsome; nay, a king above 
All earthly kings; with health supremely blest, 
Excepting when a cold disturbs his rest I" 

It seems, in truth, that nature, for the consola- 
tion of our miserable and wretched state, has 
only given us presumption for our inheritance. 
'Tis as Epictetus says, that man has nothing 
properly his own, but the use of his opinion: 4 
we have nothing but wind and smoke for our 
portion. The gods have health in essence, says 
philosophy, and sickness in intelligence. Man, 
on the contrary, possesses his goods by fancy, 
his ills in essence. We have reason to magnify 
the power of our imagination ; for all our goods 
are only in dream. Hear this poor calamitous 
animal huff! "There is nothing," says Cicero, 
"so charming as the employment of letters; of 
letters, I say, by means whereof the infinity of 
things, the immense grandeur of nature, the 
heavens even in this world, the earth, and the 
seas are discovered to us : 'tis they that have 
taught us religion, moderation, and the gran- 
deur of courage, and that have rescued our souls 
from darkness, to make her see all things, high, 



i Genesis iii. 5. 

2 Odyssey, xii. 188. Cicero, do Fin. v. 

s St. Paul, Coloss. ii. 8. 

* Manual, c. 11. 

6 Tuse. Quces. i. 26. 

8 Lucret v. 8. 

' This was Lucretius, 
eo pompously of Epicu 
potion, that was given him either by his wife or his in 
tress, so much disturbed his reason that the violence of] 
disorder only afforded him a few lucid intervals, which 
employed u composing his book, and at last made him k 
himself. — Eusebius's Chroiucon. 



low, first, last, and middling: 'tis they that 
furnish us wherewith to live happily and well, 
and conduct us to pass over our lives without 
displeasure, and without offence." 5 Does not 
this man seem to speak of the condition of the 
ever-living and almighty God'! But as to 
effects, a thousand little countrywomen have 
lived lives more equal, more sweet, and con- 
stant than his. 

Dens ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi, 
Qui princeps vita; rationein invenit earn, qua; 
Nunc appellatur sapientia; njiique per artem 
Fluctibus e tantis vitam, tantisque tenebris, 
In tarn tranquilla et tarn ciara luce locavit : b 

" That god, great Memmus, was a god no doubt 
"Who, prince of life, first found that reason out 
Now wisdom called ; and bv his art, who did 
That life in tempests tost, and darkness hid, 
Place in so great a calm, and clear a light." 

here are brave ranting words: but a very 
slight accident put this man's 7 understanding 
in a worse condition than that of the meanest 
shepherd notwithstanding this instructing god, 
this divine wisdom. Of the same stamp and 
impudence is the promise of De- 
mocritus's book: "I am going Temerity and ^ 



prefixes to one of his, Of the 
Mortal Gods; 9 and the judgment of Chrysip- 
pus, that " Dion was as virtuous as God ;" I0 
and my Seneca himself says, that "God 
had given him life ; but that to live well 
was his own:" conformably to this other. In 
virtute vere gloriamur ; quod non conlingeret, 
si id donum a Den, non a nobis haberemus :" 
" We truly glory in our virtue : which would 
not be, if it was given us of God, and not by 
ourselves :" this is also Seneca's saying: " that 
the wise man hath fortitude equal with God, 
but that his is in spite of human frailty, wherein 
therefore he more than equals God," 12 There is 
nothing so ordinary as to meet with sallies of 
the like temerity : there is none of us, who take 
so much offence to see himself equalled with 
God, as he does to see himself undervalued by 
being ranked with other creatures; so much 
more are we jealous of our own interest than 
that of our Creator. 

But we must trample under foot this foolish 
vanity, and briskly and boldly shake the ridi- 
culous foundation upon which these false opi- 
nions are founded. So long as man shall believe 
he has any means and power of himself, he will 
never acknowledge what he owes to his Maker; 



e '-Qui ita sit ausus ordiri 
excipit tie quo non prolitetur 
uuiversa?— Cic. Acad, quest. 



isi mortalein deitm." 
'Plutarch, Of the Comm 
i Cic. de Nat. Dear lib. 
' Epist. 53. sub fine. 



13. "Cvrenaici philo- 
equurrf; ad aranduna 
hominem ad duas res, 



Conceptions of the i 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



251 



his eggs shall always be chickens, as the saying 
is : we must therefore strip him to his shirt. Let 
us see some notable examples of the effects of his 
philosophy : Posidonius being tormented with 
a disease so painful as made him writhe his arms 
and gnash his teeth, thought he sufficiently 
scorned the dolour, by crying out against it: — 
"Thou mayst do thy worst, I will not confess 
that thou art an evil." ' He was as sensible of 
the pain as my footman, but he made a bravado 
of bridling his tongue, at least, and restraining 
it within the laws of his sect : Re succumbere 
non oporlebat, verbis glorianlem. 2 " It did not 
become him, that spoke so big, to confess his 
frailty when he came to the test." Arcesilas 
being ill of the gout, and Carneades, who had 
come to see him, going away troubled at his 
condition, he called him back, and showing him 
his feet and breast : — " There is nothing comes 
thence hither," said he. 3 This has something 
a better grace, for he feels himself in pain, and 
would be disengaged from it; but his heart, 
notwithstanding, is not conquered nor subdued 
by it. The other stands more obstinately to his 
point, but, I fear, rather verbally than really. And 
Dionysius Heracleotes, afflicted with a vehement 
smarting in his eyes, was reduced to quit these 
stoical resolutions. 4 But even though knowledge 
should, in effect, do as they say, and could blunt 
the point, and dull the edge, of the misfortunes 
that attend us, what does she, more than what 
ignorance does more purely and evidently? — 
The philosopher Pyrrho, being at sea in very 
great danger, by reason of a mighty storm, 
presented nothing to the imitation of those who 
were with him, in that extremity, but a hog 
they had on board, that was fearless and uncon- 
cerned at the tempest. 5 Philosophy, when she has 
said all she can, refers us at last to the example 
of a gladiator, wrestler, or muleteer, in which 
sort of people we commonly observe much less 
apprehension of death, sense of pain, and other 
inconveniences, and more of endurance, than 
ever knowledge furnished any one withal, that 
was not born and bred to hardship. What is 
the cause that we make incisions, and cut the 
tender limbs of an infant, and those of a horse, 
more easily than our own — but ignorance only 7 
How many has mere force of imagination made 
sick ] We often see men cause 
L !' | S ' ,, ' I '* L ' S . themselves to be let blood, purged, 

iinajii'na'tion. and physicked, to be cured of dis- 
eases they only feel in opinion. — 
When real infirmities fail us, knowledge lends 
us her's : that colour, that complexion, portend 
some catarrhous defluxion : this hot season 
threatens us with a fever: this breacli in the 
life-line of your left hand gives you notice of 
some near and dangerous indisposition; and at 
List, she roundly attacks health itself; saying, 
this sprightliness and vigour of youth cannot 
continue in this posture; there must be blood 



' Cicero, Tusc. Qu.r.ii. li 

"■ Id, ih. 13. 

• Cicero, dc Finib. v. 31. 



taken, and the heat abated, lest it turn against 
yourself. Compare the life of a man subjected 
to such imaginations, to that of a labourer that 
suffers himself to be led by his natural appetite, 
measuring things only by the present sense, 
without knowledge, and without prognostic, 
that feels no pain or sickness, but when he is 
really ill. Whereas the other has the stone in 
his soul, before he has it in his bladder : as if it 
were not time enough to suffer the evil when it 
shall come, he must anticipate it by fancy, and 
run to meet it. 

What I say of physic may generally serve in 
example for all other sciences. Thence is de- 
rived that ancient opinion of the philosophers* 
that placed the sovereign good in the discovery 
of the weakness of our judgment. My igno- 
rance affords me as much occasion of hope as of 
fear; and having no other rule for my health 
than that of the examples of others, and of 
events I see elsewhere upon the like occasion, I 
find of all sorts, and rely upon those which by 
comparison are most favourable to me. I re- 
ceive health with open arms, free, full and entire, 
and by so much the more whet my appetite to 
enjoy it, by how much it is at present less 
ordinary and more rare : so far am I from 
troubling its repose and sweetness with the bit- 
terness of a new and constrained manner of 
living. Beasts sufficiently show us how much 
the agitation of our minds brings infirmities 
and diseases upon us. That which is told us of 
those of Brazil, that they never die but of old 
age, is attributed to the serenity and tranquillity 
of the air they live in; but I rather attribute it 
to the serenity and tranquillity of their souls, 
free from all passion, thought, or employment, 
extended or unpleasing, a people that pass over 
their lives in a wonderful simplicity and ig- 
norance, without letters, without law, without 
king, or any manner of religion. And whence 
comes that, which we find by experience, that 
the heaviest and dullest men are most able, and 
the most to be desired in amorous performances ; 
and that the love of a muleteer often renders 
itself more acceptable than that of a gentleman, 
if it be not that the agitation of the soul in the 
latter disturbs his physical ability, dissolves and 
tires it, as it also ordinarily troubles and tires 
itself. What puts the soul beside itself, and 
more usually throws it into madness, but her 
own promptness, vigour, and agility, and, 
finally, her own proper force] Of what is the 
most subtle folly made, but of the most subtle 
wisdoml As great friendships spring from 
great enmities, and vigorous health from mortal 
diseases, so from the rare and vivid agitations 
of our souls proceed the most wonderful and 
most distracted frenzies; 'tis but half a turn of 
the toe from the one to the other. In the 
actions of madmen we see how infinitely mad- 
ness resembles the most vigorous operations of 



* Cicero, dc Finib. v. 31. 
» LnflrtiUS, hi rilti. 
o The Sceptics. 



252 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the soul. Who does not know how indiscerni- 
ble the difference is betwixt foliy and the 
sprightly elevations of a free soul, and the 
effects of a supreme and extraordinary virtue? 
Plato says that melancholy persons are the 
most capable of discipline, and the most excel- 
lent ; and accordingly in none is there so great 
a propension to madness. Great wits are ruined 
by their own proper force and pliability : into 
what a condition, through his own agitation 
and promptness of fancy, is one of the most 
judicious, ingenious, and nearest formed, of 
any other Italian poet, to the air of the an- 
cient and true poesy, lately fallen ! Has he 
not vast obligation to this vivacity that has 
destroyed him? to this light that has blinded 
him? to this exact and subtle apprehension of 
reason that has put him beside his own? to 
this curious and laborious 'search after sciences, 
that has reduced him to imbecility? and to 
this rare aptitude to the exercises of the soul, 
that has rendered him without exercise and 
without soul ? I was more angry, if possible, 
than compassionate, to see him at Ferrara in so 
pitiful a condition surviving himself, forgetting 
botli himself and his works, which, without his 
knowledge, though before his face, have been 
published unformed and incorrect. 1 

Would you have a man healthy, would you 

have him regular, and in a steady and secure 

posture? Muffle him up in the 

stupidity ac- shadesof stupidity and sloth. We 

Wg<m a r n and by must be made beasts to be made 
health. wise, and hoodwinked before we 

are fit to be led. And if one shall 
tell me that the advantage of having a cold 
and dull sense of pain and other evils, brings 
this disadvantage along with it, to render us 
consequently less sensible also in the fruition of 
good and pleasure, this is true; but the misery 
of our condition is such that we have not so 
much to enjoy as to avoid, and that the ex- 
tremest pleasure does not affect us to the degree 
that a light grief does : Segnius homines bona 
quam mala sentiunt. 2 We are not so sensible 
of the most perfect health as we are of the 
least sickness. 

Pungit 
In cute vix eumma vinlahim plagula corpus; 
Quando valere nihil queniquam aiovet. Hoc juvat unum, 
Quod me noti torquet latus. ant. pes: Coctera qnisquam 
Vix queat aut sanum sese, aut sentire valentem. a 

"The body with a little sting is griev'd, 
When the most perfect health is not perceiv'd, 
This only pleases me, that spleen nor (rout 
Neither offend my side nor wring my foot; 
Excepting these, scarce any 



Or e'er observes. 



U<:\ 



health and well.' 



Our well-being is nothing but the not being ill. 
Which is the reason why that sect of philoso- 



1 Montaishe here refers loT;is-n, whom be sew at Ferrara 
in November, j5f'0, confined in the Hospital of St. Anno, 
where he remained from March, lu7il, till July, 1 .580. Curi- 
ously enough, Montaigne does not men I ion thecircu 
in his journey. II is almost equally curious that Mr. Cntt 
refers hi? reader to Arioslo. instead of Tasso, though Ario: 
was 59 years old when Montaigne came into the world. 



phers, which sets the greatest value upon plea- 
sure, has yet fixed it chiefly in unconsciousness 
of pain. To be freed from ill is the greatest 
good that man can hope for or desire ; as 
Ennius says, 

Nimium boni est cui nihil est mali; 4 

for that every tickling and sting which are in 
certain pleasures, and that seem to raise us above 
simple health and passiveness, that active, 
moving, and, I know not how, itching, and 
biting pleasure ; even that very pleasure itself 
aims at nothing but insensibility as its mark. 
The appetite that carries us headlong to women's 
embraces has no other end but only to cure the 
torment of our ardent and furious desires, and 
only requires to be glutted and laid at rest, and 
delivered from the fever. And so of the rest. 
I say, then, that if simplicity conducts us to a 
state free from evil, she leads us to a very happy 
one according to our condition. And yet we 
are not to imagine it so stupid an insensibility 
as to be totally without sense ; for Crantor had 
very good reason to controvert 
the insensibility of Epicurus, if Perfect inset,- 

, , , J . , ' \ . sibilitv neither 

founded so deep that the very first possible nor 
attack and birth of evils were not desirable, 
to be perceived : " I do not ap- 
prove such an insensibility as is neither possible 
nor to be desired. I am very well content not 
to be sick ; but if I am, I would know that I 
am so; and if a caustic be applied, or incisions 
made in any part, I would feel them." 5 In 
truth, whoever would take away the knowledge 
and sense of evil, would at the same time eradi- 
cate the sense of pleasure, and finally annihilate 
man himself: Istud nihil dolere non sine magna 
mercede contingit immanilatis in animo, stupo- 
ris in corde. 6 "An insensibility that is not to 
be purchased but at the price of inhumanity in 
the soul, and of stupidity of the body." Evil 
appertains to man of course. Neither is pain 
always to be avoided, nor pleasure always 
pursued. 

'Tis a great advantage to the honour of 
ignorance that knowledge itself throws us into 
its arms, when she finds herself KnowIe(1 re . 
puzzled to fortify us against the fersus tcfigno" 
weight of evil ; she is constrained ranee to screen 
to come to this composition, to jjf^tf*^" 
give us the reins, and permit us tune, 
to fly into the lap of the other, 
and to shelter ourselves under her protection 
from the strokes and injuries of fortune. For 
what else is her meaning when she instructs us 
to difert our thoughts from the ills that press 
upon us, and entertain them with the meditation 
of pleasures past and gone ; to comfort our- 



i Stephen de la Uoe'tie, in the Latin satire already quoted. 

ok i.e. 27. 

i Ajiud Cicero, dc Finib. ii. 13. 

' Cicero, Tiisc. Quits, iii. 7. 

i Id. ib. 6. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



253 



selves in present afflictions with the remem- 
brance of fled delights, and to call to our 
succour a vanished satisfaction, to oppose it to 
the discomfort that lies heavy upon us! Leva- 
Hones xgritudiiium in avocatione a cogitunda 
■molcsliu, et revocatione ad conteinplandas vo- 
luptates, ponit.;' "he directs us to alleviate 
our grief and pains by rejecting unpleasant 
thoughts, and recalling agreeable ideas;" if it 
be not that where her power tails she would 
supply it with policy, and make use of sleight 
of hand where force of limbs will not serve her 
turn! For not only to a philosopher, but to 
any man in his right wits, when he has upon 
him the thirst of a burning fever, what satisfac- 
tion can it be to him to remember the pleasure 
he took in drinking Greek wine a month ago! 
It would rather only make matters worse to 
him: 

Che ricordarsi il ben doppia la noia. 2 
"Tile tlii nking of pleasure doubles trouble." 

Of the same stamp is this other counsel that 
philosophy gives, only to remember the happi- 
ness that is past, and to forget the misadventures 
we have undergone: as if we had the science 
of oblivion in our own power, and counsel, 
wherein we are yet no more to seek. 

Suavis laborum est praneritorum memoria. 8 
"Sweet is the memory of by -gone pain." 

How does philosophy, that should arm me 
to contend with fortune, and steel my courage 
to trample all human adversities under foot, 
arrive to this degree of cowardice to make me 
hide my head at this rate, and save myself by 
these pitiful and ridiculous shifts! For the 
memory represents to us not what we choose, 
but what she pleases; nay, there is nothing 
that so much imprints anything in our memory 
as a desire to forget it. And 'tis a p;ood way 
to retain and keep anything safe in the soul to 
solicit her to lose it. And this is false: Est 
situm in nobis, ut et adversa quasi perpetua 
oblivione obruarnus, el secunda jucnnde ct 
suavitur meminerimus ; 4 "it is in our power 
to bury, as it were, in a perpetual oblivion all 
adverse accidents, and to retain a pleasant and 
delightful memory of our successes;" and this 
is true : Memini elium qua nolo ; oblivisci non 
possum quo?, volo. 6 " I do also remember what 
I would not; but I cannot forget what I 
would." And whose counsel is this! His, 6 
qui se units sapientem prqfiteri sit ausus ; 7 
" who alone durst profess himself a wise man," 



'Who from mankind the prize of knowledge Hon, 
And put the stars out like the rising sun." 



To empty and disfurnish the memory, is not 
this the true way to ignorance! 

Iners malorum remedium ignorantia est. 9 
" Ignorance is but a dull remedy for evils." 

We find several other like precepts, whereby wo 
are permitted to borrow frivolous appearances 
from the vulgar, where we find the strongest 
reason will not answer the purpose, provided 
they administer satisfaction and comfort. Where 
they cannot cure the wound, they are content 
to palliate and benumb it. 1 believe they will 
not deny this, that if they could add order and 
constancy in a state of life that could maintain 
itself in ease and pleasure by some debility of 
judgment, they would accept it : 

Pntare, et spargere ftores 
Innipiam, patiarque vel inconsultus haberi.' 

"Give me to drink, and, crown'd with flowers, despise 
The grave disgrace of being thought unwise." 

There would be a great many philosophers of 
Lycas's- mind ; this man, being otherwise of 
very regular manners, living quietly and con- 
tentedly in his family, and not failing in any 
office of his duty, either towards his own or 
strangers, and very carefully preserving himself 
from hurtful things, became, nevertheless, by 
some distemper in his brain, possessed with a 
conceit that he was perpetually in the theatre, 
a spectator of the finest sights and the best 
comedies in the world ; and being cured by 
the physicians of his frenzy, was hardly pre- 
vented from endeavouring by suit to compel 
them to restore hiin again to his pleasing 
imagination : 

Pol ! me occidistis, amici, 
Non servastis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas, 
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error :'i 

" By heaven ! you've killed me, friends, outright. 
And not preserved me; since my dear delight 
And pleasing error, by my better sense 
Unhappily return'd, is banished hence:" 

with a madness like that of Thrasylaus the 
son of Pythodorus, who made himself believe 
that all the ships that weighed anchor from the 
port of Piraeus, and that came into the haven, 
only made their voyages for his profit: con- 
gratulating them upon their successful naviga- 
tion, and receiving them with the greatest joy; 
and when his brother Crito caused him to be 
restored to his better understanding, he infi- 
nitely regretted that sort of condition wherein 
he had lived with so much delight and free 
from all anxiety of mind.' 2 "Pis according to 
the old Greek verse, that " there is a great deal 
of convenience in not being over-wise:" 

'Ev T<|> Qpovuv yap ptitiiv, ijiSij-Of Bios. 13 



■ Oicero, Tusc. Quais. 15. 

a Id. ii. 

8 Euripides, apud Cirer. de Finib. ii. 32. 

i Cicero, dr. Finib. i. 17. 

a Id. ib. ii. 32. 

8 Epicurus. 

7 Cicero, ut supra, ii. 3. 

22 



s Lucretius, iii. 1056. 

• Seneca, CEdipua. iii. 7. 
io Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 138. 
uid.i». 

» AtheiiTiis, xii. jElinn, Var. /fist. iv. 25, where the 
name is Thrasyllus. 
13 Sophocles, in Ajacc ila^tyopSput, ver. 55-1. 



254 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



And Ecclesiastes, 1 " In much wisdom there is 
much sorrow ;" and " Who gets wisdom gets 
labour and trouble." 

Even that to which philosophy consents in 
general, that last remedy which she applies to 
all sorts of necessities, to put an end to the life 
we are not able to endure. Placet! — Pare. 
Non placet! — Quacumque vis, exi 2 — Pungit 
dolor J — Vel fodiat sane. Si nudus es, da 
jagulum ; sin tectus armis Vulcaniis, id estfor- 
tiludine, resiste ;? " Does it please] — Obey it. 
Not please 1 — Go where thou wilt. Does grief 
prick thee, — nay, stab thee. — If thou art 
naked, present thy throat: if covered with the 
arms of Vulcan, that is fortitude, resist it." 
And this word, so used in the Greek festivals, 
aut bibat aut abeat, 4 "either drink or go," 
which sounds better upon the tongue of a 
Gascon, 5 who naturally changes the 6 into v, 
than on that of Cicero: 

Vivere si recte nescis. decede peritis. 
Lusisti satis, eclisti satis, atque hibisti; 
Tempus abire tibi est, tie potum largius requo 
Rideat, et pulset lasciva decentius aetas.n 

" If to live well and right, thou dost not know, 
Give way, and leave tliy place to those that do. 
Thou'st eaten, drunk, and play'd to thy content, 
'Tis time to make thy parting compliment, 
Lest youth, more decent in their tollies, scoff 
The nauseous scene, and hiss thee reeling off:" 

What is it other than a confession of his impo- 
tency, and a sending back not only to ignorance, 
to be there in safety, but even to stupidity, 
insensibility, and non-entity ] 



Democritum postquam matura i 

Admonuit memorein, moms languescere mentis; 

Sponte sua letho caput obvius obtulit ipse. 7 

" Soon as, through age, Democritus did find 
A manifest decadence in his mind, 
He thought he now surviv'd to his own wrong, 
And went to meet his death, that stay'd too long." 

'Tis what Antisthenes said, " That a man should 
either make provision of sense to understand, 
or of a halter to hang himself;" 8 and what 
Chrysippus 9 alleged upon this saying of the 
poet Tyrtseus: 

" Or to arrive at virtue or at death :" 

and Crates said, "That love would be cured 
. by hunger, if not by time; and 
""cured. 6 " S t0 whoever disliked these two re- 
medies, by a rope." I0 That Sex- 
tius," of whom both Seneca and Plutarch speak 
with so high an encomium, having applied him- 
self, all other things set aside, to the study of 



> 1. 18. 

» An alteration of Seneca, Epist. 70, whose words are 
•• Placet? — Vive. Non placet ? — Licet eo reverti, unde 

s Cicero, Tu.sc. Qums. ii. 14. 

* An application from Cicero, whose words are these : 
" Mihi quidem in vita servanda videtur ilia lex qua; in 
Gracorum conviviis obtiuetur," &c. Tusc. Qu<es. v. 4. 

' This remark upon the Gascon pronunciation (observes 
Mr. Coste), which chooses to alter b into v. is only to be 
applied to the word bibat, otherwise it would not be very 
properly intended here : because if the b in the word abcat 



philosophy, resolved to throw himself into the 
sea, seeing the progress of his studies too tedious 
and slow. He ran to find death, since he 
could not overtake knowledge. These are the 
words of the law upon the subject: "If per- 
adventure some great inconvenience happen, 
for which there is no remedy, the haven is near, 
and a man may save himself by swimming out 
of his body, as out of a leaky skiff; lor 'tis the 
fear of dying, and not the love of life, that ties 
the fool to his body." 

As life renders itself by simplicity more plea- 
sant, so more innocent and better, also it renders 
it as I was saying before: "The simple and 
ignorant," says St. Paul, "raise themselves 
up to heaven and take possession of it; and 
we, with all our knowledge, plunge ourselves 
into the infernal abyss." I am neither swayed 
by Valentinian, 12 a professed enemy to all 
learning and letters, nor by Licinius, both 
Roman emperors, who called them the poison 
and pest of all political government; nor by 
Mahomet, who, as 'tis said, interdicted all 
manner of learning to his followers: but the 
example of the great Lycurgus, and his autho- 
rity, with the reverence of the 
divine Lacedaemonian policy, so The . Laced »- 

.... J ;i nioman policy 

great, so admirable, and so long without letters, 
flourishing in virtue and happi- 
ness, without any institution or practice of let- 
ters, ought certainly to be of very great weight. 
Such as return from the new world discovered 
by the Spaniards in our fathers' 
days, testify to us how much Tne new . 
more honestly and regularly those ^ w of^magi's- 
nations live, without magistrate trate. 
and without law, than ours do, 
where there are more officers and lawyers than 
there are of other sorts of men and business : 

Di cittatorie piene et di libelli, 
D'esamine et di carte di procure, 
Hanno le mani et il seuo, et gran fastalli 
Di chiose, di consigli, et di letture: 
Per cui le faculta de poverelli 
Non sono mai nelle citta sicure; 
Hanno dietro et dinanzi, et d'ambi i lati, 
Notai, procuratori e avvocati.' 8 

" Their bags were full of writs, and of citations, 
Of process, and of actions and arrests, 

Of bills, of answers, and of replications, 
In courts of delegates, and of requests, 

To grieve the simple sort with great vexations: 
They had resorting to them as their guests, 

Attending on their circuit, and their journeys, 

Scriv'ners, and clerks, and lawyers, and attorneys." 

It was what a Roman senator of the latter ages 
said, that their predecessors' breath stunk of 



was changed into v it would mar the construction which 
Montaigne would put, according to Cicero, upon this 
phrase: "Aut bibat aut abeat." 
e Hor. Epist. ii. 2, 213. 
' Lucret. iii. 1052. 

e Plutarch, Contradictions of the Stoic Philosophers. 
» Id. ib. 

io Laertius, in vita. 

11 The Pythagorean, who is also frequently referred to by 
Seneca, 
n Patens. 
" Ariosto, Cant. 14. Stanz. 84. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



255 



garlic, but their stomachs were perfumed with 
a good conscience: 1 and that, on the contrary, 
those of his time were all sweet odour without, 
but stunk within of all sorts of vices; that is to 
say, as I interpret it, that they abounded with 
learning and eloquence, but were very defective 
in moral honesty. Incivility, ignorance, sim- 
plicity, roughness, are the natural companions 
of innocence: curiosity, subtlety, knowledge, 
bring malice in their train : humility, fear, obe- 
dience, and affability, which are the principal 
things that support and maintain human society, 
require an empty and docile soul, anJ little pre- 
suming upon itself. Christians have a particular 
knowledge, how natural and original an evil 
curiosity is in man; the thirst 
nino' ,'ty and° f of knowledge, and the desire to 
pride* ' become more wise, was the first 

ruin of man, and the way by 
which he precipitated himself into eternal 
damnation. Pride was his ruin and corruption. 
'Tis pride that diverts him from the common path, 
and makes him embrace novelties, and rather 
choose to be head of a troop, lost and wander- 
ing in the path of error ; to be a master and a 
teacher of lies, than to be a disciple in the school 
of truth, suffering himself to be led and guided 
by the hand of another, in the right and beaten 
road. 'Tis perad venture, the meaning of this 
old Greek saying, that superstition follows pride, 
and obeys it as if it were a father: jj SjioiScu- 
pwia xaSartcp aatfi ru tu^iL ati^ptai. 2 Ah ! 
presumption, how much dost thou hinder us! 

After that Socrates was told that the god of 
wisdom had assigned to him the title of sage, 
he was astonished at it, and, searching and 
examining himself throughout, could find no 
foundation for this divine judgment. He knew 
others as just, temperate, valiant, and learned, 
as himself; and more eloquent, more handsome, 
and more profitable to their country than he. 
At last he concluded that he was not distin- 
guished from others, nor wise, but only because 
he did not think himself so; and that his God 
considered the opinion of knowledge and wis- 
dom as a singular absurdity in man ; and that 
his best doctrine was the doctrine of ignorance, 
and simplicity his best wisdom. 3 The sacred 
word declares those miserable among us who 
have an opinion of themselves: "Dust and 
ashes," says it to such, " what hast thou where- 
in to glorify thyself!" And, in another place, 
"God has made man like unto a shadow," of 
whom who can judge, when by removing the 
light it shall be vanished'! Man is a thing of 
nothing. 

Our force is so far from being able to com- 
prehend the divine height, that, of the works of 
our Creator, those best bear his mark, and are 



i A remark o 


' \ .urn. w liich may ho seen in Nonii 


s Mar- 


cellus, at the » 


m,I Cepe. 






ml Siiihci'iim. Srrm. xxii. 






U u fur Sucratcs. 




1 1)1 rill nr.. 






« Dc JUbr. Gt 


rmuH. C. 34. 





with better title his, which we the least under- 
stand. To meet with an incredible thing is an 
occasion to Christians to believe; and it is so 
much the more according to reason, by how 
much it is against human reason. 
If it were according to reason, it Too curious an 
would be no more a miracle; and inquiry into the 
if it were according to example, ^ to'Lecon-"^ 
it would be no longer a singular tlemned. 
thing. Melius scitur Deus ne- 
sciendo:* "God is better known by not knowing 
him," says St. Austin : and Tacitus, 5 Sanctius 
est ac reverenlius de actis Deorum credere, 
quam scire ; " it is more holy and reverent to 
believe the works of God than to know them ;" 
and Plato thinks there is something of impiety 
in inquiring- too curiously into God, the world, 
and the first causes of thing's: Atque ilium qui- 
dem parenteral hvjus universilutis invenire, dif- 
ficile ; el quum jam in veneris, indicure in 
vulgits, nefus : 5 " to find out the parent of the 
world is very difficult; and when 
found out, to reveal him to the What ° ,lr n °- 
vulgar is sin," says Cicero. d,vine°Belng 
We talk indeed of power, truth, amount to. 
justice; which are words that 
signify some great thing ; but that thing we 
neither see nor conceive at all. We say that 
God fears, that God is angry, that God loves, 

Immortalia mortali sermone notantes:' 
"Giving to things immortal mortal names:" 

These are all agitations and emotions that can- 
not be in God, according to our form, nor can 
we imagine them, according to his. It only 
belongs to God to know himself, and to interpret 
his own works; and he does it in our lan- 
guage, going out of himself, to stoop to us who 
grovel upon the earth. How can prudence, 
which is the choice between good and evil, be 
properly attributed to him whom no evil can 
touch ? How can reason and intelligence, which 
we make use of, to arrive by obscure at appa- 
rent things; seeing that nothing is obscure to 
him! How justice, which distributes to every 
one what appertains to him, a thing begot by 
the society and community of men, how is that 
in God! How temperance, which is the mo- 
deration of corporal pleasures, that have no 
place in the Divinity ! Fortitude to support 
pain, labour, and dangers, as little appertains 
to him as the rest ; these three things have no 
access to him." 3 For which reason Aristotle 9 
holds him equally exempt from virtue and vice: 
Neque gratia, ne.que ira teneri potest ,• quod 
qua lalia essent, imhccilla essent omnia.' " He 
can neither be affected with favour nor intiij - 
nation, because both these are the effects Of 
frailty." 



"Cicero, translation of the Timaua of Plato, c. 2. 

' Lucret. v. 122. 

e Cicero, lie Nat. Deornni. iii. 15. 

o Ethics, vii. 1. 

»" Cicero, lie JVal. Dcor. i. 17. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The participation we have in the knowledge 
of truth, such as it is, is not ac- 

L^mwTe^e C i" ired h 7 0Ur 0Wn forCe = God 

of the truth.° has sufficiently given us to under- 
stand that, by the witnesses he 
has chosen out of the common people, simple and 
ignorant men, that he has been pleased to employ 
to instruct us in his admirable secrets. Our faith 
is not of our own acquiring; 'tis purely the gift 
of another's bounty: 'tis not by meditation, or 
by virtue of our own understanding, that we 
have acquired our religion, but by foreign au- 
thority and command; wherein the imbecility 
of our own judgment does more assist us than 
any force of it; and our blindness more than 
our clearness of sight: 'tis more by the media- 
tion of our ignorance than of our knowledge 
that we know any thing of the divine wisdom. 
'Tis no wonder if our natural and earthly parts 
cannot conceive that supernatural and heavenly 
knowledge : let us bring nothing of our own, 
but obedience and subjection ; for, as it is writ- 
ten, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 
and will bring to nothing the understanding of 
the prudent. Where is the wise 1 Where is the 
scribe? Where is the disputer of this world'! 
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this 
world] For after that, in the wisdom of God, 
the world knew not God, it pleased God by the 
foolishness of preaching to save them that be- 
lieve." l 

Finally, should I examine whether it be in 
the power of man to find out that which he 
seeks and if that quest, wherein he has busied 
himself so many ages, has enriched him with 
any new force, or any solid truth ; I believe he 
will confess, if he speaks from his conscience, 
that all he has got by so long inquiry is only 
to have learned to know his own weakness. 
We have only by a long study confirmed and 
verified the natural ignorance we were in 
before. The same has fallen out to men truly 
wise, which befals the ears of corn ; they shoot 
and raise their heads high and pert, whilst 
empty ; but when full and swelled with grain 
in maturity, begin to flag and droop. So men, 
having tried and sounded all things, and having 
found in that mass of knowledge, and provision 
of so many various things, nothing solid and 
firm, and nothing but vanity, have quitted their 
presumption, and acknowledged their natural 
condition. 'Tis what Velleius reproaches Cotta 
withal and Cicero, " that they had learned of 
Philo, that they had learned nothing." 2 Phe- 
recydes, one of the seven sages, writing to Thales 
upon his death-bed ; "1 have," said he, "given 
order to my people, after my interment, to carry 



i Corinthians, i. 19. 

3 Cicero, dc Nat. Deor. i. 17. 

8 Laertius, in vita. 

< Socrut.es. Cicero, Acad, i. 4. In the edition of 1588, 
after "the wisest man that ever was," Montaigne adileri, 
"and who never said a thing which more entitled him to 
the distinction than this." 

6 Cicero. Acid. i. 12. 

6 The reader will have some difficulty in finding any thing 



my writings to thee. If they please thee and 
the other sages, publish ; if not, suppress them. 
They contain no certainty with which I myself 
am satisfied. Neither do I pretend to know the 
truth, or to attain to it. I rather open than 
discover things." 3 The wisest man that ever 
was, being asked what he knew, made answer, 
" He knew this that he knew nothing." 4 By 
which he verified what has been said, that the 
greatest part of what we know is the least of 
what we do not ; that is to say, that even what 
we think we know is but a piece, and a very 
little one, of our ignorance. We know things 
in dreams, says Plato, and are ignorant of them 
in truth. Ornnes pene veteres, nihil cognosci, 
nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt ; an- 
gustos sensus, imbecilles animos, brevia curri- 
cula tufas. 5 "Almost all the ancients have 
declared that there is nothing to be known, 
nothing to be perceived or understood : the 
senses are too limited, men's minds too weak, 
and the course of life too short." And of Cicero 
himself, who stood indebted to his learning for 
all he was worth, Valerius says, 6 " That he began 
to disrelish letters in his old age; and when at 
his studies, it was with great independency upon 
any one party; following what he thought pro- 
bable, now in one sect, and then in another, 
evermore wavering under the doubts of the 
academy." Dicendum est, sed ila ut nihil 
qffirmem, quseram omnia, dubitans plerumque, 
el mihi diffidens." 1 " Something I must say, but 
so as to affirm nothing: I inquire into all 
things, but for the most part in doubt and 
distrust of myself." 

I should have too fair a game should I con- 
sider man in his common way of 'living and in 
gross; yet 1 might do it by his own rule, who 
judges truth not by weight, but by the number 
of votes. Let us set the people aside, 



who neither feel nor judge, and let most of their 
natural faculties lie idle : I will 
take man in his highest ground. ^S, 
Let us consider him in that little the greatest 
number of men, excellent and f™*™ x }j ave 
culled out from the rest, who, B mdy ajid art. 
having been endowed with a re- 
markable and particular natural force, have 
moreover hardened and whetted it by care, 
study, and art, and raised it to the highest pitch 
of wisdom to which it can possibly arrive. They 
have adjusted their souls to all ways and all 



of the sort stated in Valerius Maximns. M. de la Monnoyc 
su""i'sis thai Mnnluigne was led into the mistake by some 
incorrect passage in I he old editions of this author, but liar- 
bevrac shows that this passage bad already deceived John 
of' Salisbury (Policral. viii. 32.). from whom Montaigne 
probably contciit"d himself with translating, without re- 
ferring to the original at all. 

' Cicero, dc Divinat. ii. ^. 

» Lucret. iii. 1001, 1059. 



[ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



257 



biases; have propped and supported them with 
all foreign helps proper for them, and enriched 
and adorned them with all they could borrow 
for their advantage, both within and without 
the world : 'tis in these is placed the utmost and 
modt supreme height to which human nature 
can attain. They have regulated the world 
with policies and laws. They have instructed 
it with arts and sciences, and by the example 
of their admirable manners. I shall make 
account of none but such men as these, their 
testimony, and experience. Let us examine 
how far they have proceeded, and where they 
stopped. The errors and defects that we shall 
find amongst these men the world may boldly 
avow as their own. 

Whoever goes in search of any thing must 
come to this, either to say that he has found it, 
or that it is not to be found, or that he is yet 

upon the search. All philosophy 
£vided?, S Z hy is divided int0 thes e three kinds ; 
three kinds. her design is to seek out truth, 

knowledge, and certainty. The 
Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, and others, 
have thought they have found it. These estab- 
lished the sciences we have, and have treated of 
them as of certain knowledge. Clitomachns, 
Carneades, and the Academics, have despaired 
in their search, and concluded that truth could 
not be conceived by our understandings. The 
result of these is weakness and human igno- 
rance. This sect has had the most and the 
most noble followers. Pyrrho, and other scep- 
tics or epechists, whose dogmas are held by 
many of the ancients to be taken from Homer, 
the seven sages, and from Archilochus and 
Euripides, and to whose number these are 
added, Zeno, Demoeritus, and Zenophanes, say 
that they are yet upon the enquiry after truth. 
These conclude that the others, who think they 
have found it out, are infinitely deceived ; and 
that it. is too daring a vanity in the second sort 
to determine that human reason is not able to 
attain unto it; for this establishing a standard 
of our power, to know and judge the difficulty 
of things, is a great and extreme knowledge, 
of which they doubt whether a man is capable : ' 



"Up that says nothing ran bo kno*vn, o'erthrows 
His own opinion, for lie nothing knows, 
So knows not that." 

The ignorance that knows itself, judges and 
condemns itself, is not an absolute ignorance: 
to be such, it must be ignorant of itseff; so that 
the profession of the Pyrrhonians is to waver, 
doubt, and enquire, not to make themselves 
eure of, or responsible to themselves for any 
tiling. Of the three actions of the soul, imao-i- 



native, appetitive, and consentive, they receive 
the two first; the last they kept ambiguous, 
without inclination or approbation, either of 
one thing or another, so light as it is. Zeno 
represented the motion of his imagination upon 
these divisions of the faculties of the soul thus: 
"An open and expanded hand .si<rniried appear- 
ance; a hand half shut, and the fingers a little 
bending, consent ; a clenched fist, comprehen- 
sion ; when with the left he yet thrust the right 
fist closer, knowledge." 3 Now this situation 
of their judgment upright and inflexible, receiv- 
ing all objects without application or consent, 
lends them to their ataraxy, which is a peace- 
able condition of life, temperate, and exempt 
from the agitations we receive by the impres- 
sion of opinion and knowledge that we think 
we have of things: whence spring fear, 
avarice, envy, immoderate desires, ambition, 
pride, superstition, love of novelty, rebellion, 
disobedience, obstinacy, and the greatest part 
of bodily ills; nay, and by that they are ex- 
empt from the jealousy of their discipline: for 
they debate after a very gentle manner; they 
fear no requital in their disputes; when they 
affirm that heavy things descend 
they would be sorry to be believed, fu'spens'eof 
and love to be contradicted, to judgment the 
engender doubt and suspense of P"" t >P 1| r of 

. p , . , . , *\ , Pyrrhonism. 

judgment, which is their end. 
They only put forward their propositions to 
contend with those they think we have in our 
belief. If you take their arguments, they will 
as readily maintain the contrary: 'tis all one 
to them, they have no choice. If you maintain 
that snow is black, they will argue on the 
contrary that it is white; if you say it is nei- 
ther the one nor the other, they will maintain 
that it is both. If you hold, of certain judg- 
ment, that you know nothing, they will main- 
tain that you do. Yea, and if by tfn affirmative 
axiom you assure them that you doubt, they 
will argue against you that you doubt not; or 
that you cannot judge and determine that you 
doubt. And by this extremity of doubt, which 
justles itself, they separate and divide themselves 
from many opinions, even of those they have 
several ways maintained, both concerning doubt 
and ignorance. " Why shall not they be al- 
lowed to doubt," say they, "as well as the 
dogmatists, one of whom says green, another 
yellow! Can anything be proposed to us to 
grant, or deny, which it shall not be permitted 
to consider as ambiguous?" And where others 
are carried away, either by the custom of their 
country, or by the instruction of parents, or by 
accident, as by a tempest, without judgment 
and without choice, nay, and for the most 
part before the age of discretion, to such 
and such an opinion, to the sect whether Stoic 



the other sceptic The first affirm they have found the 
truth, the next declare it to be above our comprehension, 

and tic iiilicrs art: still in quest of it. 
■' l,uc ret. iv. 470. 
3 Cicero, Acad. ii. 47. 



258 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



or Epicurean, with which they are prepos- 
sessed, enslaved, and fast bound, as to a thing 
they cannot forsake: Ad quamcumque disci- 
■plinam, velut tempestate, delati, ad earn, tan- 
quam ad saxum, adhasrescunt ; l "every one 
cleaves to the doctrine he has happened upon, 
as to a rock against which he has been thrown 
by tempest;" why shall not these likewise be 
permitted to maintain their liberty, and consider 
things without obligation or slavery 1 ! hoc 
liberiores et solutiores, quod integra Mis est 
judicundi polestas: 2 "in this more uncon- 
strained and free, because they have the greater 
power of judging." Is it not of some advantage 
to be disengaged from the necessity that curbs 
others 1 Is it not better to remain in suspense 
than to entangle one's-self in the innumerable 
errors that human fancy has produced ? Is it not 
much better to suspend one's persuasion than to 
intermeddle with these wrangling and seditious 
divisions : " What shall I choose ?" " What 
you please, provided you will choose." 3 A 
very foolish answer ; but such a one, neverthe- 
less, as all dogmatism seems to point at, and 
by which we are not permitted to be ignorant 
of what we are ignorant of. 

Take the most eminent side, that of the great- 
est reputation ; it will never be so sure that you 
shall not be forced to attack and contend with 
a hundred and a hundred adversaries to defend 
it. Is it not better to keep out of this hurly- 
burly'? You are permitted to embrace Aris- 
' totle's opinions of the immortality of the soul 
with as much zeal as your honour and life, and 
to give the lie to Plato thereupon, and shall 
they be interdicted to doubt him! If it be law- 
ful for Paneetius 4 to maintain his opinion about 
augury, dreams, oracles, vaticinations, of which 
the Stoics made no doubt at all ; why may not 
a wise man dare to do the same in all things 
that he dared to do in those he had learned of 
his masters, established by the common consent 
of the school, whereof he is a professor and a 
member'? If it be a child that judges, he knows 
not what it is ; if a wise man, ho is prepossessed. 
They have reserved for themselves a marvellous 
advantage in battle, having eased themselves of 
the care of defence. If you strike them, they 
care not, provided they strike too, and they turn 
every thing to their own use. If they over- 
come, your argument is lame ; if you, theirs ; 
if they fall short, they verify ignorance ; if yon 
fall short, you do it ; if they prove that nothing 
is known, 'tis well ; if they cannot prove it, 'tis 
also well : Ut quum in eadem re paria con- 
trariis in partibus momenta inveniuntur, faci- 
lius ab utraque parte assensio suslineatur : 5 
"That when like sentiments happen pro and 
con in the same thing, the assent may on 
both sides be more easily suspended." And 



i Montaigne continues to quote Cicero, Acad. ii. 



they make account to find out, with much 
greater facility, why a thing is false, than why 
'tis true ; that which is not, than that which is ; 
and what they do not believe, than what they 
do. Their way of speaking is : — 
" I assert nothing ; it is no more Z^Tu™ 
so than so, or than neither one Eyn-honians. 
nor t'other : I understand it not. 
Appearances are every where equal : the law 
of speaking, pro or con, is the same. Nothing 
seems true, that may not seem false." Their 
sacramental word is srtl^u, that is to say, " I 
hold, I stir not." This is the burden of their 
song, and others of like stuff. The effect of 
which is a pure, entire, perfect, and absolute 
suspension of judgment. They make use of 
their reason to- inquire and debate, but not to 
fix and determine. Whoever shall imagine a 
perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment 
without bias, propension, or inclination, upon 
any occasion whatever, conceives a true idea of 
Pyrrhonism. I express this fancy as well as I 
can, by reason that many find it hard to con- 
ceive, and the authors themselves represent it a 
little variously and obscurely. 

As to what concerns the actions of life, they 
are in this of the common fashion. mv . 

„,, -ii,- tI i Their manner 

1 hey yield and give up themselves of jj fe 
to their natural inclinations, 6 to the 
power and impulse of passions, to the constitu- 
tion of laws and customs, and to the tradition of 
arts ; Non enim nos Deus isia scire, sed tan- 
tummodo uti voluit. 1 " For God would not 
have us know, but only use those things." 
They suffer their ordinary actions to be guided 
by those things, without any dispute or judg- 
ment. For which reason I cannot consent to 
what is said of Pyrrho, by those 8 who represent 
him heavy and immovable, leading a kind of 
savage and unsociable life, standing the justle 
of carts, going upon the edge of precipices, and 
refusing to accommodate himself to the laws. 
This is to enhance upon his discipline : he would 
never make himself a stock or a stone, he would 
show himself a living man, discoursing, reason- 
ing, enjoying all reasonable conveniences and 
pleasures, employing and making use of all his 
corporal and spiritual faculties in rule and rea- 
son. The fantastic, imaginary, and false pri- 
vileges that man had usurped of lording it, 
ordaining, and establishing, he has utterly 
quitted and renounced. Yet there 
is no sect but is constrained to The wise man 

. , « ,, J 18 detC'I'ilNIM :l 

permit her sage to follow several in ijf e by ap . 
things not comprehended, per- pearances. 
ceived, or consented to, if he 
means to live. And if he goes to sea, he follows 
that design, not knowing whether his voyage 
shall be successful or no ; and only insists upon 
the tightness of the vessel, the experience of the 



6 Cioero, Acad. i. 12. 

e SoSe.xtns Em pi ricus declares expressly, and in so many 
words. Pyrrh. Hyyot. i. 6. 
? Cicero, de Divin. i. 18. 
o Laertius, Lucian, Aulas Gellius, and others. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



259 



pilot, and the' convenience of the season, and 
such probable circumstances ; after which he is 
bound to go, and suffer himself to be governed 
by appearances, provided there be no express 
and manifest contrariety in them. He has a 
body, he has a soul ; the senses push them, the 
mind spurs them on. And although he does not 
find in himself this proper and singular sign of 
judging, and that he perceives that he ought 
not to engage his consent, considering that there 
may be some false, equal to these true, appear- 
ances, yet does he not, for all that, fail of car- 
rying on the offices of his life with great liberty 
and convenience. How many arts are there 
that profess to consist more in conjecture than 
knowledge; that decide not on true and false, 
and only follow that which seems so ! There 
are, say they, true and false, and we have in 
us wherewith to seek it; but not to make it 
stay when we touch it. We are much more 
prudent, in letting ourselves be regulated by 
the order of the world, without inquiry. A soul 
clear from prejudice has a marvellous advance 
towards tranquillity and repose. Men that 
jndge and control their judges, do never duly 
submit to them. 

How much more docile and easy to be go- 
What mind. verned both by the laws of reli- 
ve beat die- gion and civil polity, are simple 
posed to submit and incurious minds, than those 
Ih/rufe'ofgo" over-vigilant wits, that will still 
vemment. be prating of divine and human 

causes ! There is nothing in hu- 
man invention that carries so great a show 
of likelihood and utility as this; this presents 
man, naked and empty, confessing his natural 
weakness, fit to receive some foreign force from 
above, unfurnished of human, and therefore 
more apt to receive into him the divine know- 
ledge, making nought of his own judgment, to 
give more room to faith; neither disbelieving 
nor establishing any dogma against common 
observances; humble, obedient, disciplinable, 
and studious ; a sworn enemy of heresy ; and 
consequently freeing himself from vain and irre- 
ligious opinions, introduced by false sects. 'Tis 
a blank paper prepared to receive such forms 
from the finger of God as he shall please to 
write upon it. The more we resign and commit 
ourselves to God, and the more we renounce 
ourselves, of the greater value we are. " Take 
in good part," says Ecclesiastes, "the things 
that present themselves to thee, as they seem 
and taste from hand to mouth: the rest is out 
of thy knowledge." ' Dominus novit cogita- 
tiones hominum, quoniam vu.nm sunt : " The 
Lord knovveth the hearts of men, that they are 
but vanity." 2 

Thus we see that of the three general sects of 
philosophy, two make open profession of doubt 



and ignorance ; and in that of the dogmatists, 
which is the third, it is easy to 
discover that the greatest part of The result of 
them only assume this face of con- J,,-' ! ^e°J)ogina- 
fidence and assurance that they lists, 
may produce the better effect; 
they have not so much thought to establish 
any certainty for us, as to show us how far 
they have proceeded in their search of truth: 
Quarn docli fingunt magis quam norunt: 3 
" Which the learned rather feign than know." 
Timrcus, being to instruct Socrates in what he 
knew of the gods, the world, and men, proposes 
to speak to him as a man to a man ; and that 
it is sufficient, if his reasons are probable as 
those of another; for that exact reasons were 
neither in his nor any other mortal hand; 
which one of his followers has thus imitated: 
Ut potero explicabo: nee lumen, ut Pylhius 
Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa quae dixero ; sed, 
ut homunculus, prolmbilia conjeclura sequens ; 4 
" I will, as well as I am able, explain ; affirm- 
ing, yet not as the Pythian oracle, that what I 
say is fixed and certain, but like a mere man, 
that follows probabilities by conjecture." And 
this, upon the natural and common subject of 
the contempt of death: he has elsewhere trans- 
lated from the very words of Plato : <S'i forte, 
de De.orum nalura ortuque mundi disserentes, 
minus id quod habemus in animo consequimur, 
haud erit mirum : tequum est enim meminisse, 
et me, qui disseram, hominem esse, et vos, qui 
jndicetis, ut, si probabilia dicentur, nihil ultra 
requiratis? "If perchance, when we discourse 
of the nature of God, and the world's original, 
we cannot do it as we desire, it will be no great 
wonder. For it is just you should remember 
that both I who speak and you who are to 
judge, are men : so that if probable things are 
delivered, you shall require and expect no 
more." Aristotle ordinarily heaps up a great 
number of other men's opinions and beliefs, to 
compare them with his own, and to let us see how 
much he has gone beyond them, and how much 
nearer he approaches to the likelihood of truth; 
for truth is not to be judged by the authority 
and testimony of others ; which made Epicurus 
religiously avoid quoting them in his writings. 
This is the prince of all dogmatists, and yet we 
are told by him that the more we know the 
more we have room for doubt. 6 In earnest, we 
sometimes see him shroud and muffle up himself 
I in so thick and so inextricable an obscurity 
i that we know not what to make of his advice; 
it is, in effect, a Pyrrhonism under a resolutive 
form. Hear Cicero's protestation, who expounds 
to us another's fancy by his own: Qui requi- 
runt quid de. qua que re ipsi senliamus ctiri sins 
idfaciunt quam necesse est. . . Hue in philo- 
sophia ratio contra omnia disserendi, nullamque 



a Psalm xhii. n. 
3 Plato, Timarns. 
* Cicero, Tusc. Ques. i. 9. 



' Cicero, Translation of the Timirus, 



Pope, under the title of Puis 11. 



dubia. This it 



260 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



rem aperte judicandi, profecta a Socrate, 
repetita ab Arcesilao, confirmata a Carneade, 

usque ad nostram viget cetatem Hi 

sumus, qui omnibus veris falsa qusedam ad- 
juncta esse dicamus, tanta similitudine utiniis 
nulla insit certe judicandi et asseniiendi nota. 1 
" They who desire to know what we think of 
every thing are therein more inquisitive than is 
necessary. This practice in philosophy of dis- 
puting- against every thing, and of absolutely 
concluding nothing, begun by Socrates, re- 
peated by Arcesilaus, and confirmed by Car- 
neades, has continued in use even to our own 
times. We are they who declare that there is 
so great a mixture of things false amongst all 
that are true, and they so resemble one another, 
that there can be in them no certain mark to 
direct us either to judge or assent." Why hath 
not Aristotle only, but most of the philosophers, 
affected difficulty, if not to set a greater value 
upon the vanity of the subject, and amuse the 
curiosity of our minds by giving them this hol- 
low and fleshless bone to pick'! Clitomachus 
affirmed " That he could never discover by 
Carneades's writings what opinion he was 
of." 2 This was it that made Epicurus affect 
to be abstruse, and that procured Heraclitus 
the epithet of oxotuvbc.. 3 Difficulty is a 
coin the learned make use of, like jugglers, 
to conceal the vanity of their art, and 
which human sottishness easily takes for cur- 
rent pay. 

Clarus, ob obscuram linguam, magis inter inanes . . . 
Omnia enim stolid] mams aiiinn antur, amantque 
lnversis qua; sub verbis latitantia cernun't.* 

" Bombast and riddle best do puppies please. 
For fools admire and love such things as these; 
And a dull quibble, wrapt in dubious phrase, 
Up to the height doth their wise wonder raise." 

Cicero 5 reprehends some of his friends for giving 
more of their time to the study of astrology, 
logic, and geometry, than they were really 



> Cicero, de JVat. Dcor. i. 5. 

a Montaigne (remarks Mr. Coste) has supposed this to be 
the meaning of Cicero, whose words are these : — " The 
opinion of which Calliphon Carneades so studiously de- 
fended that he even seemed to approve of it, although Cli- 
tomachus affirmed that he never cou Id understand what was 
approved by Carneades."— Acad, tyuast. x. 45. But this is 
not saying "That Clitoinachus as-sorted that, by the writ- 
ings of Carneades. he could never discover his opinion." 
The dispute is not what were the opinionsof Carneades in 
the general, but what he used to say in defence of Calli- 
phon's private opinion coricrrnini: what constitutes man's 
chief good. Forasmuch as Carneades was an Academician, 
he could not advance any thing positive or clearly decisive 
upon this important question, which was the reason that 
Clitomachus never could understand « hat was the opinion 
of Carneades in this matter. Calliphon made the chief good 
consist in pleasure and virtue both together, which, says 
Cicero, Carneades also was not willing to contradict, " not 
that he approved it, but lhat hi might oppose the Stoics; not 

to decide the thing, but to embarrass the Ploics." lead. 

Qumst. iv. 4'2. In this same book Cicero explains to us se- 
veral of Carneades's opinions ; and, what is very remark- 
able, he only does it as they are set forth by Clitomachus. 
"Having." says he, "explained all that Carneades says 
upon this subject, all I hose opinions of Ant ioi hus ( the Stoic) 
will fall to the wound. But, for fear lest I should be sus- 
pected of making him say what I think, ] shall deliver no- 
thing but what I collect from Clitomachus, who passed bis 



worth ; saying that they were by 
these diverted from the duties of dVspitdTy 
life, and from more profitable and some of the 
proper studies. The Cyrenaick ^phers. 
philosophers, in like manner, de- 
spised physics and logic. Zeno, in the very 
beginning of the books of the commonwealth, 
declared all the liberal arts of no use. 6 Chry- 
sippus said "That what Plato and Aristotle 
had writ, concerning logic, they had only done 
in sport, and by way of exercise ;" and could 
not believe that they spoke in earnest of so vain 
a thing. 7 Plutarch says the same of metaphy- 
sics. And Epicurus would have said as much 
of rhetoric, grammar, poetry, mathematics, and, 
natural philosophy excepted, of all the sciences; 
and Socrates of them all, excepting that which 
treats of manners and of life. Whatever any 
one required to be instructed in, by him, he 
would ever, in the first place, demand an ac- 
count of the conditions of his life present and 
past, which he examined and judged, esteeming 
all other learning subsequent to that and super- 
numerary : Parum mihi placeant ex litterse, 
qua ad virtutem doctoribus nihil profuerunt? 
" That learning is in small repute with me 
which nothing profited the teachers themselves 
to virtue." Most of the arts have been in like 
manner decried by the same knowledge ; but 
they did not consider that it was from the pur- 
pose to exercise their wits in those very matters 
wherein there was no solid advantage. 

As to the rest, some have looked upon Plato 
as a dogmatist, others as a doubter, others in 
some things the one, and in other things the 
other. Socrates, the conductor of his dialogues, 
is eternally upon questions and stirring up dis- 
putes, never determining, never satisfying, and 
professes to have no other science but that of 
opposing himself. Homer, their author, has 
equally laid the foundations of all the sects of 
philosophy, to show how indifferent it was 
which way we should choose. 'Tis said that 



life with Carneades till he was an old man. and, being a 
Carthaginian, was a man of great penetration, very stu- 
dious, moreover, and veiv exact." Mead. Quasi, iv. 31. "I 
have," says Cicero, •• a little before explained to you, from 
the words'of Clitomachus, in what sense Carneades declared 
these matters." These very things Cicero repeats after- 
wards, where he transcribes them from a book which Clito- 
machus had composed and addressed to the poet Lucilius. 
After this, how could Cicero make Clitomachus say that, by 
the writings of Carneades in general he could never dis- 
cover what were his sentiments ? The truth is that Clitoma- 
chus had not read the writings of Carneades; for, except 
some letters that he wrote to Anarathes, king ofCnppadocia, 
which ran in his name, the rest of his opinions, as Diogenes 
Laertius says expressly, were preserved in the books of his 
disciples.— h> Vila Carucadis. The same historian tells U8 
that Clitomachus, who composed above 400 volumes, ap- 
plied himself above all things to illustrate the sentiments 
of Carneades, whom he succeeded. 
3 Obscure. Cicero, de Fin. ii. 5. 

* Lucret. i. 640. 
6 Dc Offic. i. 6. 

6 I.aertius, ii. 82. 
' Id. in vita. 

* Plutarch, Contradictions of the Stoic Philosophers 
where, however, Chrysippus says just the contrary to wha. 
is here attributed to him. 

Sallust, Bell. Jug. c. 85, where the text is somewhat 
different. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



281 



ten several sects sprung from Plato ; yet, in my 
opinion, never did any instruction halt and 
stumble, if his does not. 1 

Socrates said that midwives, 2 in taking upon 
them the trade of helping others to bring forth, 
left the trade of bringing forth themselves; 
and that by the title of a wise man or sage, 
which the gods had conferred upon him, he 
was disabled, in his virile and mental love, of 
the faculty of bringing forth, contenting himself 
to help and assist those that could ; to open 
their nature, anoint the passes, and facilitate 
their birth; to judge of the infant, baptize, 
nourish, fortify, swath, and circumcise it, exer- 
cising and employing his understanding in the 
perils and fortunes of others. 

It is so with the most part of this third sort 
of authors, as the ancients have observed in 
the writings of Anaxagoras, Democritus, Parme- 
nides, Xenophanes, and others. They have a 
way of writing, doubtful in substance and de- 
sign, rather enquiring than teaching, though 
they mix their style with some dogmatical pe- 
riods. Is not the same thing seen in Seneca 
and Plutarch 1 How many contradictions are 
there to be found if a man pry narrowly into 
them ! So many that the reconciling lawyers 
ought first to reconcile them every one to them- 
selves. Plato seems to have affected this method 
of philosophising in dialogues; to the end that 
he might with greater decency, from several 
mouths, deliver the diversity and variety of his 
own fancies. It is as well to treat variously of 
things as to treat of them conformably, and 
better, that is to say, more copiously and with 
greater profit. Let us take example from our- 
selves: judgments are the utmost point of all 
dogmatical and determinative speaking; and 
yet those arrets that our parliaments give the 
people, the most exemplary of them, and those 
most proper to nourish in them the reverence 
due to that dignity, principally through the 
sufficiency of the persons acting, derive their 
beauty not so much from the conclusion, which 
with them is quotidian and common to every 
judge, as from the dispute and heat of divers 
and contrary arguments that the matter of law 
and equity will permit. And the largest field 
for reprehension that some philosophers have 
against others is drawn from the diversities and 
contradictions wherein every one of them finds 
himself perplexed, either on purpose to show the 
vacillation of the human mind concerning every 
thing, or ignorantly compelled by the volubility 
and incomprehensibility of all matter; which is 
the meaning of the maxim — " In a slippery and 
sliding place let us suspend our belief;" for, 
as Euripides says, 

"God's various works perplex the thoughts of men."' 



» Pinto, Meetetes. 

" In French, sages-femmes. 

3 Plutarch, Of the Oracles that have ceased. 

' Cicero, Quest. Acad. iv. 5. 



Like that which Empedocles, as if transported 
with a divine fury, and compelled by truth, 
often strewed here and there in his writings: 
"No, no, we feel nothing, we see nothing; all 
things are concealed from us ; there is not one 
thing of which we can positively say what it 
is;" 4 according to the divine saying: Cogi- 
tationes mortaliurn timidx, el incerlx ad in- 
ventinnes noslrse el providentix 5 " For the 
thoughts of mortal men are doubtful ; and our 
devices are but uncertain." It is not to be 
thought strange if men, despairing to overtake 
what they hunt after, have not however lost 
the pleasure of the chase ; study 
being of itself so pleasant an em- The SMreh °<" 
ployment; and so pleasant that ^ecujiToccu- 
amongst the pleasures, the Stoics pation. 
forbid that also which proceeds 
from the exercise of the mind, will have it 
curbed, and find a kind of intemperance in too 
much knowledge. 

Democritus having eaten figs 6 at his table 
that tasted of honey, fell presently to consider- 
ing with himself* whence they should derive this 
unusual sweetness; and to be satisfied in it, 
was about to rise from the table to see the place 
whence the figs had been gathered ; which his 
maid observing, and having understood the 
cause, smilingly told him that "he need not 
trouble himself about that, for she had put them 
into a vessel in which there had been honey." 
He was vexed at this discovery, and that she 
had deprived him of the occasion of this enquiry, 
and robbed his curiosity of matter to work upon : 
"Go thy way," said he, "thou hast done me 
an injury ; but, for all that, I will seek out the 
cause as if it were natural;" and would wil- 
lingly have found out some true reason for a 
false and imaginary effect. This story of a 
famous and great philosopher very clearly re- 
presents to us that studious passion that puts 
us upon the pursuit of things, of the acquisition 
of which we despair. Plutarch gives a like 
example of some one who would not be satisfied 
in that whereof he was in doubt, that he might 
not lose the pleasure of enquiring into it: like 
the other who would not that his physician 
should allay the thirst of his fever, that he 
might not lose the pleasure of quenching it by 
drinking. Satius est supervacua discere, quam 
nihil. 1 " Tis better to learn more than neces- 
sary than nothing at all." As in all sorts of 
feeding, the pleasure of eating is very often 
single and alone, and that what we take, which 
is acceptable to the palate, is not always nou- 
rishing or wholesome; so that which our minds 
extract from science does not cease to be pleas- 
sant, though there be nothing in it either 
nutritive or healthful. Thus they say: "The 
consideration of nature is a diet proper for our 



» Wisdom, \x. 14. 

« Thewordill n<ilnrc]\(TableT<i!k,ques. n)hrov aUvnv, 
a cucumber, and not rbv adKov. a tis, as Montaigne haa 
translated it. copying alter Amyot and Xylander. 

1 Seneca, jEpist, Sti. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



minds, it raises and elevates us, makes us disdain 
low and terrestrial things, by comparing them 
with those that are celestial and high. The 
mere inquisition into great and occult things is 
very pleasant, even to those who acquire no 
other benefit than the reverence and fear of 
judging it." This is what they profess. 1 The 
vain image of the sickly curiosity is yet more 
manifest in this other example which they so 
often urge. " Eudoxus wished and begged of 
the gods that he might once see the sun near at 
hand, to comprehend the form, greatness, and 
beauty of it; even though he should thereby 
be immediately burned." 2 He would at the 
price of his life purchase a knowledge, of which 
the use and possession should at the same time 
be taken from him: and for this sudden and 
vanishing knowledge lose all the other know- 
ledge he had in present, or might afterwards 
have acquired. 

I cannot easily persuade myself that Epi- 
curus, Plato, and Pythagoras, 
The atoms of , have given us their atoms, ideas, 
ideas'of Plato, ar, d numbers, for current pay. 
the numbers of They were too wise to establish 
what a fnd a they their articles of faith upon things 
were advanced, so disputable and uncertain. But 
in that obscurity and ignorance 
in which the world then was, every one of 
these great men endeavoured to present some 
kind of image or reflection of light, and worked 
their brains for inventions that might have a 
pleasant and subtle appearance ; provided that, 
though false, they might make good their 
ground against those that would oppose them. 
Unicuique ista pro ingenio finguntur, non ex 
scientia vi? " These things every one fancies 
according to his wit, and not by any power of 
knowledge." 

One of the ancients, who was reproached, 
"That he professed philosophy, 
of which he nevertheless in his 
own judgment made no great 
account," made answer, "That 
this was truly to philosophize." 
They wished to consider all, to 
balance every thing, and found 
that an employment well suited to our natural 
curiosity. Some things they wrote for the 
benefit of public society, as their religions; 
and for that consideration it was but reasonable 
that they should not examine public opinions 
to the quick, that they might not disturb the 
common obedience to the laws and customs of 
their country. 

Plato treats of this mystery with a raillery 
manifest enough : for where he writes accord- 
ing to his own method he gives no certain 
rule. When he plays the legislator he borrows 
a magisterial and positive style, and boldly 
there foists in his most fantastic inventions, as 



What is true 
philosophy. 
Conduct of the 
philosophers 
with regard to 
relision and 
to the laws. 



1 Cicero, Acad. ii. 41. Seneca, jvta. Qa 



a Plutarch, That you can-not lire joyously arronling to 
Vie doctrine of Epicurus. See also Laertius in the Life of 



fit to persuade the vulgar, as impossible to be 
believed by himself; knowing very well how 
fit we are to receive all sorts of impressions, 
especially the most immoderate and prepos- 
terous: and yet, in his Laws, he takes singular 
care that nothing be sung in public but poetry, 
of which the fiction and fabulous relations tend 
to some advantageous end ; it being so easy to 
imprint all sorts of phantasms in human minds, 
that it were injustice not to feed them rather 
with profitable untruths than with untruths 
that are unprofitable and hurtful. He says 
very roundly, in his Republic,* "That it is 
often necessary, for the benefit of men, to 
deceive them." It is very easy to distinguish 
that some of the sects have more followed 
truth, and the others utility, by which the last 
have gained their reputation. 'Tis the misery 
of our condition that often that which presents 
itself to our imagination for the truest does not 
appear the most useful to life. The boldest 
sects, as the Epicurean, Pyrrhonian, and the 
new Academic, are yet constrained to submit 
to the civil law at the end of the account. 

There are other subjects that they have 
tumbled and tossed about, some to the right 
and others to the left, every one endeavouring, 
right or wrong, to give them some kind of 
colour; for, having found nothing so abstruse 
that they would not venture to speak of, they 
are very often forced to forge weak and ridicu- 
lous conjectures; not that they themselves 
looked upon them as any foundation, or esta- 
blishing any certain truth, but merely for 
exercise. Non tarn id sensisse quod dicerent, 
quam exercere ingenia material difficultate 
videntur voluisse. ."They seem not so much 
themselves to have believed what they said, as 
to have had a mind to exercise their wits in the 
difficulty of the matter." And if we did not 
take it thus, how should we palliate so great 
inconstancy, variety, and vanity of opinions, 
as we see have been produced by those excel- 
lent and admirable men"! As, for example, 
what can be more vain than to imagine, to 
guess at God, by our analogies and conjec- 
tures] To direct and govern him and the 
world by our capacities and our laws! And to 
serve ourselves, at the expense of the divinity, 
with what small portion of capacity he has been 
pleased to impart to our natural condition ; 
and because we cannot extend our sight to 
his glorious throne, to have brought him down 
to our corruption and our miseries 1 

Of all human and ancient opinions concern- 
ing religion, that seems to me the 
most likely and most excusable, baWc'of'aU 
that acknowledged God as an human opi- 
incomprehensible power, the ori- " e 'ij"; S n° uchins 
ginal and preserver of all things, 
all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking 



Kin/or us. who was a retrin ■:n.'d I'niin Korean, contemporary 
with Plato. 

3 M. Seneca, Suasor. 4. 

'i Book v. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



in good part the honour and reverence that 
man paid him, under what method, name, or 
ceremonies soever : 

a, regumque, deumque, 

"Jove, the almighty, author of all things, 
The father, mother, of both gods and kings." 

This zeal has universally been looked upon 
from heaven with a gracious eye. All govern- 
ments have reaped fruit from their devotion: 
impious men and actions have 
What the everywhere had suitable events. 

iftjnJaa !e0f Pa g al1 histories acknowledge 
among the dignity, order, justice, prodigies, 

Pagans. and oracles, employed for their 

profit and instruction in their fabu- 
lous religions: God, through his mercy, vouch- 
safing, by these temporal benefits, to cherish 
the tender principles of a kind of brutish know- 
ledge that natural reason gave them of him, 
through the deceiving images of their dreams. 
Not only deceiving and false, but impious also 
and injurious, are those that man has forged 
from his own invention ; and of all the reli- 
gions that St. Paul found in re- 
und ;; d ' ( '\^ pute at Athens, that which they 
Athens. ' bad dedicated " to the unknown 
God " seemed to him the most to 
be excused. 2 

Pythagoras shadowed the truth a little more 
closely, judging that the knowledge of this 
first cause and being of beings ought to be 
indefinite, without limitation, without declara- 
tion ; that it was nothing else than the extreme 
effort of our imagination towards perfection, 
every one amplifying the idea according to the 
talent of his capacity. But if Nurna attempted 
to conform the devotion of his people to tiiis 
project; to attach them to a religion purely 
mental, without any prefixed object and mate- 
rial mixture, he undertook a thing of no use: 
the human mind could never support itself 
floating in such an infinity of inform thoughts ; 
there is required some certain image to be pre- 
sented according to its own model. The divine 
majesty has thus, in some sort, suffered himself 
to be circumscribed in corporal limits for our 
advantage. His supernatural and celestial sa- 
craments have signs of our earthly condition ; 
his adoration is by sensible offices and words ; 
for 'tis man that believes and prays. I shall 
omit the other arguments upon this subject: 
but a man would have much ado to make me 
believe that the sight of our crucifixes, that the 
picture of our Saviour's passion, that the orna- 
ments and ceremonious motions of our churches, 
that the voices accommodated to the devotion 
of our thoughts, and that emotion of the senses, 
do not warm the souls of the people with a 
religious passion of very advantageous effect. 



i These which are the verses of Valerius Soranus, were 
preserved from Varro, IV whom St. Augustine lias insert- 
ed them in his hook De Cioilatc Dei, vii. tt, 11. 

a Acts oftlM Jiposllcs, xvii. 23. 



Of those to whom they have given a body, 
as necessity required in that universal blindness, 
I should, I fancy, mosc incline to those who 
adored the sun : 



La Lumiere 

L'ceil du monile ; et si bieu an chef porte dea yeulj 



i:i les fai.-ISlll-slll 




.- in>, I, de regardent : 


(■<■ !„•:,, i .-.■grand 




tons fail i lea saisons, 


si,., ilenlreo 


i Bort ,1,' a 


is dome maisons; 


Qui remplit I'unit 


?rs de Bes 


•eriiis coeneues; 


Uui d'un traictfle 


s.-s y,.-,il.\ 


in, is diBsipe les nues: 


I.'esprit, 1'aiiie du 




ent et flamboyant, 


En la ours,; d'un 




: Ciel tournoyant; 


1'leiud' ii.-ns.-g 


and, nir. r 


ind, vagabond, et ferme; 


Lequel tienl desso 


ibs luy to 


itlemondepourterme: 






■tsanssojour; 


Fits aiane de nam 


e, el ie pe 


re du jour: a 


"The common lig 




al shines on all, 


Diffused around 




terrestrial ball, 


And. if Hie aim 






» Has eyes, the su 






That iif- .-in 1 -:, 




i young and old, 



Who the whole world li iloro has made his bound 
At rest, without rest, idle without stay. 
Nature's first son, and father of the day : 

forasmuch as, besides this grandeur and beauty 
of his, 'tis the only piece of this machine that 
we discover at the remotest distance from us; 
and by that means so little known that they 
were pardonable for entering into so great 
admiration and reverence of it. 

Thales," who first inquired into this sort of 
matter, believed God to be a Spirit that made 
all things of water; Anaximander, that the 
gods were always dying and entering into life 
again; and that there were an infinite number 
of worlds; Anaximines, that the air was God, 
that he was procreate and immense, always 
moving. Anaxagoras the first, was of opinion 
that the description and manner of all things 
were conducted by the power and reason of an in- 
finite spirit. Alcmaeon gave divinity to the sun, 
moon, and stars, and to the soul. Pythagoras 
made God a spirit, spread over the nature of all 
things, whence our souls are extracted ; Par- 
menides, a circle surrounding the heaven, and 
supporting the world by the ardour of light. 
Empedocles pronounced the four elements, of 
which all things are composed, to be gods ; 
Protagoras had nothing to say, whether they 
were or were not, or what they were ; Demo- 
critus was one while of opinion that the images 
and their circuitions were gods; another while, 
the nature that darts out those images; and then, 
our science and intelligence. Plato divides his 
belief into several opinions: he says, in his 
Timceus, that the Father of the World cannot 
be named ; in his Laws, that men are not to in- 



* This following analysis of the Heathen Mythology i 
principally taken from Cicero, dc JVat. Deor. i. iO, &c 



264 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



quire into his being ; and elsewhere, in the very 
same books, he makes the world, the heavens, 
the stars, the earth, and our souls, gods; ad- 
mitting, moreover, those which have been re- 
ceived by ancient institution in every republic. 
Xenophon reports a like perplexity in Socrates's 
doctrine ; one while that men are not to inquire 
into the form of God, and presently makes him 
maintain that the sun is God, and the soul God ; 
that there is but one God, and then that there 
are many. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, 
makes God a certain power governing all things, 
and that he has a soul. Aristotle one while 
says it is the spirit, and another the world ; one 
while he gives the world another master, and 
another while makes God the heat of heaven. 
Zenocrates makes eight, five named amongst 
the planets; the sixth composed of all the fixed 
stars, as of so many members ; the seventh and 
eighth, the sun and moon. Heraclides Ponticus 
does nothing but float in his opinion, and finally 
deprives God of sense, and makes him shift 
from one form to another, and at last says that 
it is heaven and earth. Theophrastus wanders 
in the same irresolution amongst his fancies, 
attributing the superintendency of the world 
one while to the understanding, another while 
to heaven, and then to the stars. Strato 
says that 'tis nature, she having the power 
of generation, augmentation, and diminution, 
without form and sentiment. Zeno says 'tis 
the law of nature, commanding good and pro- 
hibiting evil ; which law is an animal ; and 
takes away the accustomed gods, Jupiter, Juno, 
and Vesta. Diogenes Apolloniates, that 'tis 
air. 1 Zenophanes makes God round, seeing 
and hearing, not breathing, and having nothing 
in common with human nature. Aristo thinks 
the form of God to be incomprehensible, de- 
prives him of sense, and knows not whether he 
be an animal or something else ; Cleanthes, one 
while supposes it to be reason, another while the 
world, another the soul of nature, and then the 
supreme heat rolling about, and environing all. 
Perseus, Zeno's disciple, was of opinion that 
men have given the title of gods to such as have 
been useful, and have added any notable ad- 
vantage to human life, and even to profitable 
things themselves. Chrysippus made a confused 
heap of all the preceding theories, and reckons, 
amongst a thousand forms of gods that he makes, 
the men also that have been deified. Diagoras 
and Theodorus flatly denied that there were any 
gods at all. Epicurus makes the gods shining, 
transparent, and perflable, lodged as betwixt 



i This word having been misprinted age in the earlier edi- 
tions of the Essays, the blunder has been hitherto carefully 
retained, though one of the most obvious description. Ci- 
cero himself, from whom Montaigne is quoting, says ex- 
pressly elsewhere (De Mat. Dear. i. 12.), that " air is the god 
of Itioneues Apolloniat.es ;" with liim agrees St. Austin, in 
his book de Cioiiate Dei, viii. 2. from whom it also appears 
that this philosopher ascribed sense to the air, and that he 
called it the matter out of which all things were formed, 
and that it was endowed with divine reason, without which 
nothing could be made. M. Bayle, in his dictionary at the 
article of "Diogenes of Apollonia," infers, " that he made 



two forts, betwixt two worlds, secure from 
blows, clothed in a human figure, and with 
such members as we have ; which members are 
to them of no use : 

Ego Deum genus esse semper dixi, et dicam ccelitum ; 
Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus. 



Trust to your philosophy, my masters; and 
brag that you have found the bean in the 
cake when you see what a rattle is here with 
so many philosophical heads ! The perplexity 
of so many worldly forms has gained this over 
me, that manners and opinions contrary to 
mine do not so much displease as instruct me; 
nor so much make me proud as they humble 
me, in comparing them. And all other choice 
than what comes from the express and imme- 
diate hand of God seems to me a choice of very 
little privilege. The policies of the world are 
no less opposite upon this subject than the 
schools, by which we may understand that for- 
tune itself is not more variable and inconstant, 
nor more blind and inconsiderate, than our 
reason. The things that are most unknown 
are most proper to be deified ; wherefore to 
make gods of ourselves, as the ancients did, 
exceeds the extremest weakness of understand- 
ing. I would much rather have gone along 
with those who adored the serpent, the dog, or 
the ox : forasmuch as their nature and being is 
less known to us, and that we have more room 
to imagine what we please of those beasts, and to 
attribute to them extraordinary faculties. But 
to have made gods of our own 
condition, of whom we ought to of" m " 
know the imperfections; and to utmost de 
have attributed to them desire, °{l 



To make gods 



anger, revenge, marriages, gene- 
ration, alliances, love, jealousy, our members, 
and bones, our fevers and pleasures, our death 
and obsequies; this must needs have proceeded 
from a marvellous inebriety of the human 
understanding ; 



Forma, estates, vestitus, ornatus noli sunt; 
genera, conjugia, cognationes, omniaque Ira- 
ducta ad similitudinem imbecillilatis humance : 
nam et perlurbatis animis inducuntur ; accipi- 
mus enim deorum cupiditates, esgritudines, ira- 



a whole, or a compound, of air and the divine virtue, in 
which, if air was the matter, the divine virtue was the soul 
and form; and that, by consequence, the air, animated by 
the divine virtue, ougiit, according to that philosopher, to 
be styled God. As for the rest, this philosopher, by ascrib- 
ing understanding to the air, differed from his master Anax- 
imenes, who thought the air inanimate." Montaigne him- 
self says, further on in the chapter, " Either the infinity of 
nature of Anaximander, or the air of Diogenes, or the num- 
bers and symmetries of Pythagoras." 

2 Ennius, apud Cicero, dc Divin. ii. 50. 

» Lucret. v. 123. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



cundia.i ,■ l " Their forms, ages, clothes, and 
ornaments are known: their descents, mar- 
riages, and kindred, and all adapted to the 
similitude of human weakness; for they are 
represented to us with anxious minds, and we 
read of the lusts, sickness, and anger of the 
gods;" as having attributed divinity not only 
to faith, virtue, honour, concord, liberty, vic- 
tory, and piety; but also to voluptuousness, 
fraud, death, envy, old age, misery; to fear, 
fever, ill fortune, and other injuries of our frail 
and transitory life : 



" O earth-born souls ! by earth-born passions led, 
To every spark of heav'nly influence dead! 
Think ye that what man values will inspire 
In minds celestial the same base desire V 

The Egyptians, with an impudent prudence, 
interdicted, upon pain of hanging, that any one 
should say that their gods, Serapis and Isis, 
had formerly been men ; and yet no one was 
ignorant that they had been such; and their 
effigies, represented with the finger upon the 
mouth, signified, says Varro, 3 that mysterious 
decree to their priests, to conceal their mortal 
original, as it must by necessary consequence 
cancel all the veneration paid to them. Seeing 
that man so much desired to equal himself to 
God, he had done better, says Cicero, 4 to have 
attracted those divine conditions to himself, and 
drawn them down hither below, than to send his 
corruption and misery up on high : but, to 
take it right, he has several ways done both the 
one and the other, with like vanity of opinion. 
When philosophers search narrowly into the 
hierarchy of their gods, and make 
philosophers a great bu3tle about distinguish- 
were serious in ing their alliances, offices, and 

hierarch.y°of ,he P 0Wer > I Cannot believe the y s P eak 

their gods, and as they think. When Plato de- 
of the condi- scribes Pluto's orchard to us, and 

tion ol men in ., . v , . 

another lite. tne bodily conveniences or pains 
that attend us after the ruin and 
annihilation of our bodies, and accommodates 
them to the feeling we have in this lite : 



when Mahomet promises his followers a Para- 
dise hung with tapestry, gilded and enamelled 
with gold and precious stones, furnished with 
wenches of excelling beauty, rare wines, and 
delicate dishes ; it is easily discerned that these 
are deceivers that accommodate their promises 
to our sensuality, to attract and allure us by 
hopes and opinions suitable to our mortal appe- 
tites. And yet some amongst us are fallen into 



1 Cicero, dc JVaJ. Deor. ii. 28. 

2 Pers. ii. 01. Montaigne has transposed the lines, i 
insl it ut.rl imlitrcrc lor immittcrc. 

3 Quoted by St. Augustin, Ve Civil. Dei. xviii. 5. 
* Tusc. Qu<cs. i. 26. 

23 



the like error, promising to themselves after the 
resurrection a terrestrial and temporal life, 
accompanied with all sorts of worldly conve- 
niences and pleasures. Can we believe that 
Plato, he who had such heavenly conceptions, 
and was so well acquainted with the Divinity 
as thence to derive the name of the Divine 
Plato, ever thought that the poor creature, man, 
had any thing in him applicable to that incom- 
prehensible power? and that he believed that 
the weak holds we are able to take were capable, 
or the force of our understanding sufficient, to 
participate of beatitude or eternal pains] We 
should then tell him from human reason: ''If 
the pleasures thou dost promise us in the other 
life are of the same kind that I have enjoyed 
here below, this has nothing in common with 
infinity; though all my five natural senses 
should be even loaded with pleasure, and my 
soul full of all the contentment it could hope or 
desire, we know what all this amounts to, all 
this would be nothing: if there be any thing of 
mine there, there is nothing divine; if this be 
no more than what may belong to our present 
condition, it cannot be of any value. All con- 
tentment of mortals is mortal. Even the know- 
ledge of our parents, children, and friends, if 
that can affect and delight us in the other world, 
if that still continues a satisfaction to us there, 
we still remain in earthly and finite conve- 
niences. We cannot as we ought conceive the 
greatness of these high and divine promises, if 
we could in any sort conceive them : to have a 
worthy imagination of them we must imagine 
them' unimaginable, inexplicable, and incom- 
prehensible, and absolutely another thing than 
those of our miserable experience. "Eye hath, 
not seen," saith St. Paul, "nor ear heard, nei- 
ther hath entered into the heart of man, the* 
things that God hath prepared for them th> t 
love him." 6 And if, to render us 
capable, our being were reformed tne changeof 
and changed, (as thou, Plato, our being to 
sayest, by thy purifications), it <i" al "y us for 
i... i j; \ i eternal happi- 

ought to be so extreme and total nes s. 
a change, that by physical doc- 
trine it will be no more to us ; 



"He Hector was whilst he could fbht, but when 
Dragg'd by Achilles' steeds, no Hector then ;" 

it must be something else that must receive 
these recompenses: 

Quod mutatur . . . dissolvitur; interit cruo : 
Trajiciuntur enim partes, atque online migrant.' 

" Things changed dissolved are, and therefore die; 
Their parts are mix'd, and from their order fly." 

For in Pythagoras's metempsychosis, and 



5 JEiuid, vi. 443. 

6 Corinthians, i. 2, 9; after Isaiah, 
' Ovid, Trist. iii. 2, 27. 

8 Lucret. iii. 756. 



266 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the change of habitation that he imagined in 
souls, can we believe that the lion, in whom 
the soul of Caesar is enclosed, does espouse 
Caesar's passions, or that the lion is he 7 For if 
it was still Caesar, they would be in the right 
who, controverting this opinion with Plato, 
reproach him that the son might be seen to ride 
his mother transformed into a mule, and the like 
absurdities. And can we believe that in the 
mntations that are made of the bodies of animals 
into others of the same kind, the new comers 
are not other than their predecessors'! From 
the ashes of a phoenix, a worm, they say, is 
engendered, and from that another phoenix ; ' 
who can imagine that this second phoenix is no 
other than the first 1 We see our silk-worms, 
as it were, die and wither ; and from this wi- 
thered body a butterfly is produced ; and from 
that another worm ; how ridiculous would it be 
to imagine that this was still the first ! That 
which once has ceased to be is no more : 

Nee, si materiam nostram collegerit aelas 
Post ohitum, rursumque redegerit, ut sita nunc est, 
Atque irerum uol.is fuerinl data liiinina vita 1 , 
Pertineat quidquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum 
Interrupta semel cuin sit repetentia nostra. 2 

"Neither tho' time should gather and restore 
Our matter to the form it was before. 
-And give again new light to see withal, 
Would that new figure us concern at all ; 
Or we again ever the same be seen, 
Our being having interrupted been." 

And, Plato, when thou sayest in another 
place that it shall be the spiritual part of man 
that will be concerned in the fruition of the 
recompense of another life, thou tellest us a thing 
wherein there is as little appearance of truth : 

Scilicet, avolsis radicibus, ut nequit ullam 
Dispicere ipsa oculas rem, seorsum corpore toto;3 



for, by this account, it would no more be 
man, nor consequently us, who would be con- 
cerned in this enjoyment: for we are composed 
of two principal essentia] parts, the separation 
of which is the death and ruin of our being : 

Inter enim jecta est vitai pausa. vageque 
Deerrarunt passim motus ab sensibus oinnes;* 



we cannot say that the man suffers when the 
worms feed upon his members, and that the 
earth consumes them : 

Et nihil hoc ad nos, qui coitu conjugioque 
Corporis atque aniline cunsistimus uniter apti.5 

" What's that to us ? for we are only we, 
While soul and body iu one frame agree." 

Moreover, upon what foundation of their justice 



Pliny, Nat. Hist. 
'■ Lucret. iii. 85i>. 
i Id. ib. 5U2. 
I Id. ib. 872. 



can the gods take notice of or 

reward man after bis death for The foundation 

, . , , • t .- of rewards and 

his good and virtuous actions, punishments in 
since it was themselves that put another life, 
them in the way and mind to do 
them 1 And why should they be offended at 
or punish him for wicked ones, since them- 
selves have created in him so frail a condition, 
and when, with one glance of their will, they 
might prevent him from falling! Might not 
Epicurus, with great colour of human reason, 
object this to Plato, did he not often save him- 
self with this sentence : " That it is impossible 
to establish any thing certain of the immortal 
nature by the mortal V She does nothing but 
err throughout, but especially when- she med- 
dles with divine things. Who does more 
evidently perceive this than we I For although 
we have given her certain and infallible prin- 
ciples; and though we have enlightened her 
steps with the sacred lamp of truth that it has 
pleased God to communicate to us ; we daily 
see, nevertheless, that if she swerve never so 
little from the ordinary path; and that she 
stray from, or wander out of the way set out 
and beaten by the church, how soon she loses, 
confounds and fetters herself, tumbling and 
floating in this vast, turbulent, and waving sea 
of human opinions, without restraint, and with- 
out any determinate end : so soon as she loses 
that great and common road, she enters into a 
labyrinth of a thousand several paths. 

Man cannot be anything but what he is, 

nor imagine beyond the reach of 

, . ° -i ,,,rrv „ „ t The ridiculous- 

his capacity. " 1 is a greater ness of nre _ 

presumption," says Plutarch, 6 tending to 
"in them who are but men to £°^ d g ft m 
attempt to speak and discourse ot with man. 
the gods and demi-gods than it 
is in a man utterly ignorant of music to give 
an opinion of singing ; or in a man who never 
saw a camp to dispute about arms and martial 
affairs, presuming by some light conjecture to 
understand the effects of an art he is totally a 
stranger to." Antiquity, I believe, thought to 
put a compliment upon, and to add something 
to, the divine grandeur in assimilating it to 
man, investing it with his faculties, and adorn- 
ing it with his ugly humours and most shameful 
necessities : offering it our aliments to eat, pre- 
senting it with our dances, mummeries, and 
farces, to divert it ; with our vestments to cover 
it, and our houses to inhabit, coaxing it with 
the odour of incense and the sounds of music, 
with festoons and nosegays; and to accom- 
modate it to our vicious passions, flattering its 
justice with inhuman vengeance, and with the 
ruin and dissipation of things by it created and 
preserved : as Tiberius Sempronius, 7 who burnt 
the rich spoils and arms he had gained from 



» Lucret. 857. 

e In his treatise, THiii the Divine Justice sometimes defers 
Uic puhishment of Crime. 
' Livy, xli. 16. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the enemy in Sardinia for a sacrifice to Vulcan ; 
and Paulus jEmilius,' those of Macedonia, to 
Mars and Minerva; and Alexander, 2 arriving 
at the Indian Ocean, threw several great ves- 
sels of gold into the sea, in honour of Thetes; 
and moreover loading her altars with a slaughter 
not of innocent beasts only, but of men also, 
as several nations, and ours among the rest, 
were commonly used to do ; and I believe there 
is no nation under the sun that lias not done 
the same : 

Sulmone creatos 
Quatuor liicjuvenes, totidem, quns cducat Ufens, 
Viventes rapit, infeiias cpjns iuunolet umbris. 3 
"Four sons of Siilmo, four whom Ufens bred, 

To please the "(.'host of Pallas, and expire 
III sacrifice before liis fun'ral pyre." 

The Getse 4 hold themselves to be immortal, and 
that their death is nothing but a journey to their 
god Zamolxis. Every rive years they dispatch 
some one among them to him, to entreat of him 
such necessaries as they stand in need of. This 
envoy is chosen by lot, and the form of dispatch- 
ing him, after he has been instructed by word 
of mouth what he is to deliver, is that of the 
assistants, three hold up as many javelins, upon 
which the rest throw his body with all their 
force. If he happen to be wounded in a mortal 
part, and that he immediately dies, 'tis held a 
certain argument of divine favour; but if he 
escapes he is looked upon as a wicked and 
execrable wretch, and another is dismissed after 
the same manner in his stead. Amestris, 5 the 
mother of Xerxes, being grown 
Sacri fice of old, caused at once fourteen young 
men. " men, of the best families of Per- 

sia, to be buried alive, according 
to the religion of the country, to gratify some 
infernal deity. And even to this day the idols 
of Themixtitan are cemented with the blood of 
little children, and they delight in no sacrifice 
but of these pure and infantine souls; a justice 
thirsty of innocent blood : 

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.c 



The Carthaginians immolated their own children 
to Saturn; and those who had 

elul , ''i'n i ' , a?r r i. n0tle ot ' tlleir 0Wn flight « f 

(iced in saturu. others, the father and mother 
being in the mean time obliged 
to assist at the ceremony with a gay and 
contented countenance. 7 

It was a strange fancy to think to gratify 
the divine bounty with our afflictions; like the 
Lacedaemonians, 8 who regaled their Diana with 
the tormenting of young boys, whom they 



i Livy, xlv. 53. 

a Arrian.vi. Ill, Diod. Sicul. 17,10-1, are the only historians 
of Alexander who speak about golden vases thrown into 
the sea ; but they say nothing about the slaughter of men 

3 Mneid, x. 517. 

< Herod, iv. 94. 

a Pint, on Superstition. Herod, vii. 114. Amestris was 
the wife of Xerxes. 



caused to be whipped for her sake, very often 
to death. It was a savage humour to imagine 
to gratify the architect by the subversion of 
his building, and to think to take away the 
punishment due to the guilty by punishing the 
innocent: and that poor Iphigenia, at the port 
of Aulis, should by her death and immolation 
acquit, towards God, the whole army of the 
Greeks from all the crimes they had committed ; 



and that the two noble and generous souls of 
the two Decii, the father and the son, to incline 
the favour of the gods to be propitious to the 
affairs of Rome, should throw themselves head- 
long into the thickest of the enemy : Quce fuit 
tanla deorum iniquitas, vt jdacari populo 
Romano non possent nisi talcs viri occidissent ? I0 
"How great an injustice in the gods was it 
that they could not be reconciled to the people 
of Rome unless such men perished !" To which 
may be added, that it is not for the criminal to 
cause himself to be scourged according to his 
own measure nor at his own time, but that it 
purely belongs to the judge, who considers 
nothing as chastisements but the penalty that 
he appoints, and cannot call that punishment 
which proceeds from the consent of him that 
suffers. The divine vengeance pre-supposes an 
absolute dissent in us, both for its justice and 
for our own penalty. And therefore it was 
a ridiculous humour of Polycrates, tyrant of 
Samos, 11 who, to interrupt the continued course 
of his good fortune, and to balance it, went 
and threw the dearest and most precious jewel 
he had into the sea, believing that by this 
voluntary and antedated mishap he bribed and 
satisfied the revolution and vicissitude of for- 
tune: and she, to mock his folly, ordered it so 
that the same jewel came again into his hands, 
found in the belly of a fish. And then to what 
end were those tearings and dismemberments 
of the Corybantes, the Menades, and, in our 
times, of the Mahometans, who slash their 
faces, bosoms, and limbs, to gratify their pro- 
phet; seeing that the offence lies in the will, 
not in the breast, eyes, genitals, roundness of 
form, the shoulders, or the throat'! Tantus 
est. perturbatx mentis, el sedibus suis pulsx, 
furor, ul sic dii placentur, qitemadmodum ne 
homines quidem s<Bviunt. n "So great is the 
fury and madness of troubled minds when once 
displaced from the seat of reason, as if the gods 
should be appeased with what even men are 
not so cruel as to approve." The use of this 



o I.uerel. i. 102. 

7 Plutarch, on Superstition. 

8 Id. Apothegms of the Lncedtcmonian 
» Lucret. i. 99. 

io Cicero, de JVut. Door. iii. G. 

11 Herod, iii. 4, and \-l. 

i- St. August, do Cioit. Dei, vi. 10. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



natural contexture has not only respect to us, 
but also to the service of God and other men ; 
'tis as unjust for us voluntarily to wound or 
hurt it as to kill ourselves upon any pretence 
whatever : it seems to be great cowardice and 
treason to exercise cruelty upon, and to destroy, 
the functions of the body that are stupid and 
servile, to spare the soul the solicitude of govern- 
ing them according to reason : Ubi iralos deos 
timent, qui sic prupitios habere merentur? In 
regise libidinis voluptatem castrati sunt quidam ; 
sed nemo sibi, ne vir esset, jubente domino, 
manus inlulit. 1 "Where are they so afraid 
of the anger of the gods as to merit their favour 
at that rate] Some, indeed, have been made 
eunuchs for the lust of princes: but no man at 
his master's command has put his own hand to 
unman himself." So did they fill their religion 
with several ill effects : 

Sffipius olim 
Religio peperit scelcrosa atque impia facta. 2 



Religion did 

Now nothing of ours can in any sort be com- 
pared or likened unto the divine 
The folly of nature, which will not blemish 

poweV"™" and Stain it with much imper- 
fections of God fection. How can that infinite 
according to beauty, power, and goodness 

our concep- . . J ' „ r ' =■ 

tions. admit of any correspondence or 

similitude to such abject things 
as we are, without extreme wrong and manifest 
dishonour to his divine greatness] Infirmum 
dei fortius est hominibus ; et slultum dei sapien- 
tius est hominibus. " For the foolishness of 
God is wiser than men, and the weakness of 
God is stronger than men." 3 Stilpo, the phi- 
losopher, being asked, "Whether the gods 
were delighted with our adorations and sacri- 
fices]" — -'You are indiscreet," answered he; 
" let us withdraw apart, if you would talk of 
such things." 4 Nevertheless we prescribe him 
bounds, we keep his power besieged by our 
reasons (I call our ravings and dreams reason, 
with the dispensation of philosophy, which 
says, " That the wicked man, and even the 
fool, go mad by reason, but a particular form 
of reason"), we would subject him to the vain 
and feeble appearances of our understandings, 
— him who has made both us and our know- 
ledge. Because that nothing is made of 
nothing, God therefore could not make the 
world without matter. What! has God put 
into our hands the keys and most secret springs 
of his power] Is he obliged not to exceed 
the limits of our knowledge] Put the case, 
O man ! that thou hast been able here to mark 
some footsteps of his effects: dost thou there- 
fore think tiiat he has employed all he can, 
and has crowded all his forms and ideas in this 



i St. August, dc Ciuit. Dei, after Seneca. 

2 Lucret. i. 83. 

s St. Paul, 1 Corinth, i. 25. 

* Laertius, in vita. 



work] Thou seest nothing but the order and 
revolution of this little cave in which thou art 
lodged, if, indeed, thou dost see so much: 
whereas his divinity has an infinite jurisdiction 
beyond. This part is nothing in comparison 
of the whole : 



"The earth, the sea, and skies, from pole to pole, 
Are small, nay, nothing to the mighty whole." 

'Tis a municipal law that thou allegest, thou 
knowest not what is universal. Tie thyself to 
that to which thou art subject, but not him ; he 
is not of thy brotherhood, thy fellow-citizen, or 
companion. If he has in some sort communi- 
cated himself unto thee, 'tis not to debase him- 
self unto thy littleness, nor to make thee comp- 
troller of his power : the human body cannot 
fly to the clouds: rules are for thee. The sun 
runs every day his ordinary course : the bounds 
of the sea and the earth cannot be confounded : 
the water is unstable and without firmness: a 
wall, unless it be broken, is impenetrable to a 
solid body : a man cannot preserve his life in 
the flames; he cannot be both in heaven and 
upon earth, and corporally in a thousand places 
at once. 'Tis for thee that he has made these 
rules; 'tis thee that they concern: he has ma- 
nifested to Christians that he has enfranchised 
himself from them all when it pleased him. 
And in truth, why, almighty as he is, should 
he have limited his power within any certain 
bounds] In favour of whom should he have 
renounced his privilege] Thy reason has in no 
other thing more of likelihood and foundation 
than in that wherein it persuades thee that 
there is a plurality of worlds: 



The most eminent minds of elder times be- 
lieved it ; and some of this age of 
ours, compelled by the appear- ^P—y 
ances of human reason, do the no new opinion, 
same : forasmuch as in this fabric 
that we behold there is nothing single and one, 

Cum in summa res nulla sit una, 
Unica qua gignatur, et unica solaque crescat; 7 

"Since nothing's single in this mighty place, 
Tiiat can alone beget, alone increase;" 

and that all the kinds are multiplied in some 
number; by which it seems not to be likely 
that God should have made this work only 
without a companion ; and that the matter of 
this form should have been totally drained in 
this individual. 

Quare etiam atque etiam tales fatonre necesse est, 

Esse alios alibi congressus lnateriali ; 

(Aualis hie est, avido complexu quern tenet a:tuer.8 



Lucret. vi. 679. 
Lucret. ii. 1085. 
Id. ib. 1077. 
Id. ib. 10C4. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



" Wherefore 'tis necessary to confess 
That there must elsewhere be the like congress 
Of the like matter, which the airy space 
Holds fast within its infinite embrace." 

Especially if it be a living; creature, which its 
motions render so credible that Plato affirms it, 1 
and that many of our people do either confirm, 
or dare not deny it : no more than that ancient 
opinion that the heavens, the stars, and other 
members of the world, are creatures composed 
of body and soul, mortal in respect of their 
composition, but immortal by the determination 
of the Creator. Now if there be many worlds, 
as Democritus, Epicurus, and almost all philo- 
sophy lias believed, what do we know that the 
principles and rules of this of ours in like man- 
ner concern the rest! They may peradventure 
have another form and another polity. Epi- 
curus 2 supposes them either like or unlike. We 
see in this world an infinite difference arid 
variety, only by distance of places; neither 
corn, wine, nor any of our animals are to be 
seen in that new corner of the world discovered 
by our fathers; 'tis all there another thing; and 
in times past, do but consider in how many 
parts of the world they had no knowledge 
either of Bacchus or Ceres. If Pliny and He- 
rodotus are to be believed, there are in certain j 
places kinds of men very little resembling us, 3 
mongrel and ambiguous forms, betwixt the 
human and brutal natures: there are countries 
where men are born without heads, having 
their mouth and eyes in their breast ; where 
they are all hermaphrodites; where they go on 
all tour ; where they have but one eye in the 
forehead, and a head more like a dog than like 
ours: where they are half fish the lower part, 
and live in the water: where the women bear 
at five years old, and live but eight: where the 
head and the skin of the forehead is so hard 
that a sword will not touch it, but rebounds 
again: where men have no beards: nations 
that know not the use of fire: others that eject 
seed of a black colour. What shall we say of 
those that naturally change themselves into 
wolves, colts, and then into men again ] And 
if it be true, as Plutarch says, 4 that in some 
place of the Indies there are men without 
mouths, who nourish themselves with the smell 
of certain odours, how many of our descriptions 
are false? He is no longer risible, nor, perhaps, 
capable of reason and society. The disposition 
and cause of our internal composition would 
then for the most part be to no purpose, and of 
no use. 



Moreover, how many things are there in our 
own knowledge that oppose those 
fine rules we have cut out tbr and SSS&ESRiJ 
prescribe to nature] And yet we to the rules we 
must undertake to circumscribe l ,'^, c al j r r '^ cribl:d 
thereto God himself! How many 
things do we call miraculous and contrary to 
nature] This is done by every nation, and by 
every man, according to the proportion of his 
ignorance. How many occult properties and 
quintessences do we daily discover] For, for 
us to go "according to nature," is no more but 
to go "according to our understanding," as 
far as that is able to follow, and as far as we 
are able to see into it : all beyond that is, for- 
sooth, monstrous and irregular. Now, by this 
account, all things shall be monstrous to the 
wisest and most understanding men ; for human 
reason has persuaded them that there was no 
manner of ground nor foundation, not so much 
as to be assured that snow is white, and Anaxa- 
goras affirmed it to be black; 5 if there be any 
thing, or if there be nothing; if there be know- 
ledge or ignorance, which Metrodorus of Chios 
denied that man was able to determine; 6 or 
whether we live, as Euripides doubts whether 
the life we live is life, or whether that we call 
death be not life : 

TSs <5' olSev u tfiv tovQ', 3«r«Ar;T<« Bavuv 
T5|rji< Se, QvfiaKuv carV 

and not without some appearance. For why 
do we derive the title of beino; from this instant, 
which is but a flash in the infinite course of an 
eternal night, and so short an interruption of 
our perpetual and natural condition, death pos- 
sessing all the before and after this moment, 
and also a good part of the moment itself. 
Others swear there is no motion 
i at all, 8 as the followers of Mehs- %??° a , ° f „„ 

1 , . , . ^ things below 

sus, and that nothing stirs, ior denied, 
if there be but one, neither can 
that spherical motion be of and use to him, nor 
motion from one place to another, as Plato 
proves : " That there is neither generation nor 
corruption in nature." Protagoras says 9 that 
there is nothing in nature but doubt; that a 
man may equally dispute of all things: and 
even of this, whether a man can equally dispute 
of all things: Nausiphanes, 10 that of things 
which seem to be, nothing is more than it is not; 
that there is nothing certain but uncertainty: 
Parmenides," that of that which seems, there is 
no one thing in general ; that there is but one 
thing: Zeno, that one same is not, and that 



i In the Tiimrus. 

• The following ii 
riooks of II, rn ;,,ius 
the lamer portion o 
by both authors. I 
can be persuaded tl 
wolves, and aflerwards 



i to 



Laertius, in ritii. 
taken frorn the 3d and 4th 
7th, and 8th of Pliny. But 
ions are stated doubtingly 
ly says that a person who 
: ever metamorphosed into 
again, will be ready to 



give his credit to all the fables that have been 
BO many ages past ; and having then quoted some stories 
of such pretended metamorphoses, cries out — "It is as- 
tonishing how far the Creeks have extended their credulity. 
There is no lie ever so impudent that wants a witness to 
prove it."— Mit. /list. viii. 22. 
« I'lut. On Lite Face of the Moon. Pliny, tfal. Hist. 7, 2. 

23* 



5 Cicero. Jlcad. ii. 23 and 31. Rpist. ad Quint. fraL 
Pest is Empiricus, Ifupoth. Pyrrhon. i. 13. Galen, da 
Simplir. Mcnir. ii 1, &c. A German named Voight, has 
also published a dissertation Jdrcrsust nlhorem niris. 

» (Vero. An\d. ii. 23. Sexlus Empiricus, llupoth. Pyrr. 

i Plato, in hU Onrgias. p. 3(10; Diog. Laert. Life of 
Pijrr/w, ix. 73; ami Sextos Empiricus, Purr. Jlurut. 
iii. 24, quote these verses differently from one another, 
and from what they are here, but there is no real dill'erciico 
in the sense. 

e Laertius, in vita. * Id. in vitu. 

i» Seneca, r 

u Cicero, dr jVa/. Ucnr. iii. ; who elsewhere (Jltad. iv. 37) 
attributes the saying to Xenopuaues. 



270 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



there is nothing; if there were one thing, it 
would either be in another or in itself; if it be 
in another, they are two; if it be in itself, they 
are yet two ; the comprehending, and the com- 
prehended. 1 According to these doctrines the 
nature of things is no other than a shadow, 
either false or vain. 

This way of speaking in a Christian man has 
ever seemed to me very indiscreet and irrev- 
erent. " God cannot die; God cannot contradict 
himself; God cannot do this or that." I do not 
like to have the divine power so limited by the 
laws of men's mouths ; and the idea which pre- 
sents itself to us in those propositions ought to 
be more religiously and reverently expressed. 

Our speaking has its failings and defects, as 
well as all the rest. Most of the occasions of 
disturbance in the world are grammatical ones : 
our suits only spring from disputes as to the 
interpretation of laws ; and most 

guage very de 
fective. 



wars proceed from the inability 
of ministers clearly to express the 
conventions and treaties of amity 
of princes. How many quarrels, and of how 
great importance, has the doubt of the meaning 
of this syllable hoc, created in the world"! 2 
Let us take the clearest conclusion that logic 
itself presents us withal: if you say, "It is fine 
weather," and that you say true, it is then fine 
weather. Is not this a very certain form of 
speaking? And yet it will deceive us ; that it 
will do so, let us follow the example : If you 
say, " I lie," if you say true, you do lie. 3 The 
art, the reason, and force of the conclusion of 
this, are the same with the other, and yet we 
are gravelled. The Pyrrhonian philosophers, 
I see, cannot express their general conception 
in any kind of speaking; for they would re- 
quire a new language on purpose : ours is all 
formed of affirmative propositions, which are 
totally antarctic to them ; insomuch that when 
they say " I doubt," they are presently taken 
by the throat, to make them confess that at 
least they know and are assured that they do 
doubt. By which means they have been com- 
pelled to shelter themselves under this medical 
comparison, without which their humour would 
be inexplicable: when they pronounce, "I 
know not," or, "I doubt," they say that this 
proposition carries off itself with the rest, no 
more nor less than rhubarb, that drives out the 
ill humours, and carries itself off with them. 4 
This fancy will be more certainly understood 
by interrogation: "What do I know]" as I 
bear it with the emblem of a balance. 

See what use they make of this irreverent 
way of speaking: 6 in the present disputes about 



1 Cicero, Acad. ii. 37. Seneca, Epist. 88. 

s Montaigne here refers to the controversies between the 
Catholics and Protestants about traiis-snhsiantiation. 

3 This is the sophistical dilemma called the liar. Cicero, 
Acad. ii. 29. Aul. Geil. xviii. 2. 

* Laert. ix. 76. 

6 This refers to what was just said, that God cannot do 
this or that. 

6 Pliny, ii. 7; whom the author named in the first edition 
of the Essays; but in the edition of IMS, he scratched out 



our religion, if you press its adversaries too 
hard, they will roundly tell you, "that it is 
not in the power of God to make it so, that his 
body should be in paradise and upon earth, and 
in several places at once." And see, too, what 
advantage the old scoffer 6 made of this. " At 
least," says he, " it is no little consolation to 
man to see that God cannot do all things : for 
he cannot kill himself, though he would; which 
is the greatest privilege we have in our con- 
dition ; he cannot make mortal immortal, nor 
revive the dead ; nor make it so, that he who 
has lived has not; nor that he who has had 
honours has not had them; having no other 
right to the past than that of oblivion." And 
that the comparison of man to God may yet be 
made out by jocose examples: "He cannot 
order it so," says he, " that twice ten shall not 
be twenty." This is what he says, and what a 
Christian ought to take heed shall not escape 
his lips. Whereas, on the contrary, it seems as 
if men studied this foolish daring of language, 
to reduce God to their own measure : 

\ Cras vel atra 
Nube polum Pater occupato, 
Vel sole puro, non tamen irritum 
Q,uodcumque retro est, efficiet, ncque 
Diffinget, infectumque reddet, 
Quod fugiens seinel hora vexit.* 

"To-morrow, let it shine or rain, 
Yet cannot this the past make vain : 
Nor uncreate and render void 
That which was yesterday enjoyed." 

When we say that the infinity of ages, as well 
past as to come, are but one instant with God ; 
that his goodness, wisdom, and power are the 
same with his essence; our mouths speak it, 
but our understandings apprehend it not ; and 
yet, such is our vain opinion of ourselves, that 
we must make the Divinity to pass through our 
sieve ; and thence proceed all the dreams and 
errors with which the world abounds, whilst we 
reduce and weigh in our balance a thing so far 
above our poise. 8 Mirum quo procedat impro- 
bitas cordis humani, parvulo aiiquo invitala 
successu, 9 " 'Tis wonderful to what the wicked- 
ness of man's heart will proceed, if elevated 
with the least success." How magisterially and 
insolently does Epicurus reprove the Stoics, for 
maintaining that the truly good and happy 
being appertained only to God, and that the 
wise man had nothing but a shadow and resem- 
blance of it! How temerariously have they 
bound God to destiny (a thing which, by my 
consent, none that bears the name of a Christian 
shall ever do again) ! and Thales, Plato, and 
Pythagoras have enslaved him to necessity. 
This arrogance of attempting to discover God 



"ce mocqueur de Pline," and substituted "ce mocqueur 
ancien." 

i Horace, Od. iii. 29. 43. 

o Montaigne in this passage somewhat contradicts the au- 
thor whom he is defending. " L'homme," says Sebonde, 
in Montaigne's translation, c. 121, "est par sa nature, en 
tantqu'il est nomine, la vrayeet vive imagedeDieu. Tout 
ainsi que le cac hot engrave sa figure dans lacire, ainsi Dieu 
empreint en I'liouime sa semblance," &c. 

a Pliny, JYat. Hist. ii. 23. 



M'ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



271 



with our eyes has been the cause that an emi- 
nent person among us ' has attributed to the 
Divinity a corporal form ; and is the reason of 
what happens to us every day, of attributing to 
God important events, by a particular assign- 
ment. Because they weigh with us, they con- 
clude that they also weigh with him, and that 
he has a more intent and vigilant regard to them 
than to others of less moment to us or of ordi- 
nary course : Magna Dii curanl, jmrva negli- 
gunt: 2 "The gods are concern-d at great 
matters, but slight the small." Listen to him ; 
he will clear this to you by his reason : JSec in 
regnis quidem reges omnia minima curanl : 3 
"Neither indeed do kings in their administra- 
tion take notice of all the least concerns." As 
if to that King of kings it were more or less to 
subvert a kingdom, or to move the leaf of a 
tree; or as if his providence acted after another 
manner in inclining the event of a battle than 
in the leap of a flea. The hand of his govern- 
ment is laid upon every thing after the same 
manner, with the same power and order: our 
interest does nothing towards it; our inclina- 
tions and measures sway nothing with him. 
Deus ila artifex magnus in magnis, ul minor 
non sit in parvis : 4 "God is so great an artificer 
in great things, that he is no less in the least." 
Our arrogancy sets this blasphemous comparison 
ever before us. Because our employments are 
a burden to us, Strato has courteously been 
pleased to exempt the gods from all offices, as 
their priests are: he makes nature produce 
and support all things; and with her weights 
and motions make up the several parts of the 
world, discharging human nature from the awe 
of divine judgments: Quod bealum xlernum- 
que sit, id nee hubere negotii quidquam, nee 
exhibere alleri: 5 "What is blessed and eternal 
has neither any business itself nor gives any to 
another." Nature will that in like things there 
should be a like relation. The infinite number 
of mortals, therefore, concludes a like number 
of immortals; the infinite things that kill and 
destroy pre-suppose as many that preserve and 
profit. As the souls of the gods, without tongue, 
eye, or ear, do every one of them feel amongst 
themselves what the other feels, and judge our 
thoughts; so the souls of men, when at liberty 
and loosed from the body, either by sleep or 
some ecstasy, divine, foretel, and see things, 
which, whilst joined to the body, they could 
not see. "Men," says St. Paul, "professing 
themselves to be wise, they become fools; and 
change the glory of the uncorruptible God into 
an image made like corruptible man." 6 Do 
but take notice of the juggling in the ancient 
deifications. After the great and stately pomp 
of the funeral, so soon as the fire began to 



i Tirlu.Iliiiii, ill the well-known passage,— Qu 
Deum esse corpus, ctsi Dens spiritus sit. 
a Cicero, De Jv'at. Deor. ii. (JU. 
s I.I. ib. iii. 35. 

♦ St. August. De Chit. Dei. .\i. 22. 
' Cicero, ,/r A\a. Dear. i. 17. 
Horn, i. 'Ji 



mount to the top of the pyramid, and to catch 
hold of the couch where the body lay, they at 
the same time turned out an eagle, which flying 
upward, signified that the soul went into Para- 
dise. 7 We have a thousand medals, and parti- 
cularly of the worthy Faustina, where this 
eagle is represented carrying these deified souls 
to heaven with their heels upwards. 'Tis pity 
that we should fool ourselves with our own 
fopperies and inventions, 

Quod finxere, tiinent, 
"They fear their own inyentions," 

like children who are frighted with the same 
face of their play-fellow, that they themselves 
have smeared and smutted. Quasi quidquam 
infelicius sit hornine, cui sua figmenla domi- 
vantur : 8 "As if any thing could be more 
unhappy than man, who is insulted over by his 
own imagination." 'Tis far from honouring 
him who made us, to honour him that we have 
made. Augustus had more temples than Jupi- 
ter, served with as much religion and belief of 
miracles. The Thracians, in return of the be- 
nefits they had received from Agesilaus, came 
to bring him word that they had canonized 
him: "Has your nation," said he to them, 
" the power to make gods of whom they please 1 
Pray first deify some one amongst yourselves, 
and when I shall see what advantage he has by 
it, I will thank you for your offer." 9 Man is 
certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, 
and yet he will be making gods by dozens. 
Hear Trismegistus in praise of our sufficiency: 
" Of all the wonderful things, it surmounts all 
wonder that man could find out the divine 
nature and make it." 10 And take here the 
arguments of the school of philosophy itself: 



" To whom to know the deities of heaven 
Or know he knows them not, alone 'tis given." 

"If there is a God, he is a living creature; 12 if 
he be a living creature, he has sense; and if he 
has sense, he is subject to corruption. If he be 
without a body, he is without a soul, and con- 
sequently without action; and if he has a body, 
it is perishable." Is not here a triumph 1 we 
are incapable of having made the world ; there 
must then be some more excellent nature that 
has put a hand to the work. It were a foolish 
and ridiculous arrogance to esteem ourselves 
the most perfect thing of the universe. There 
must then be something that is better, and that 
must be God. When you see a stately ant? 
stupendous edifice, though you do not know 
who is the owner of it, you would yet conclude 



7 llermiian, iv. 
* Lucan, i. 486. 

« I'lularcli, Jlpoth. of the Larcilcmonians. 
io Jlsclep. Dialog, npud L. Apuleiuui, ».'l i 
» Lucan, i. 453. 
13 Cicero, etc Nut. Dcor. iii. 13, ii. 0. &c. 



272 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



it was not built for rats. And this divine struc- 
ture, that we behold of the celestial 
palace" ° S palace, have we not reason to be- 
lieve that it is the residence of 
some possessor, who is much greater than we 1 
Is not the most supreme always the most 
worthy 1 but we are in the lowest form. No- 
thing without a soul and without reason can 
produce a living creature capable of reason. 
The world produces us, the world then has 
soul and reason. Every part of us is less than 
we. We are part of the world, the world 
therefore is endued with wisdom and reason, 
and that more abundantly than 
The govern. we 'Tis a fine thing to have a 
ment of the , , *? 

world. great government: the govern- 

ment of the world then appertains 
to some happy nature. The stars do us no 
harm; they are then full of goodness. We 
have need of nourishment: then so have the 
gods also, and feed upon the vapours of the 
earth. Worldly goods are not goods to God; 
therefore they are not goods to us; offending 
and being offended are equally testimonies of 
imbecility; 'tis therefore folly to fear God. 
God is good by his nature; man by his indus- 
try, which is more. The divine and human 
wisdom have no other distinction, but that the 
first is eternal; but duration is no accession 
to wisdom, therefore we are companions. We 
have life, reason, and liberty ; we esteem good- 
ness, charity, and justice: these qualities are 
then in him. In conclusion, building and de- 
stroying, the conditions of the Divinity, are 
forged by man, according as they relate to 
himself. What a pattern, and what a model ! 
let us stretch, let us raise and swell human qua- 
lities as much as we please: puff up thyself, 
poor man, yet more and more, and more ; 

Non si tu ruperis, inquit.t 
" Not if thou burst," said he. 

Profecto non Deum, quern cogitare non pos- 
sunt, sed semet ipsos pro illo cogitantes, non 
Mum, sed seipsos, non il(i, sed sibi comparant. 
" Certainly they do not imagine God, whom 
they cannot imagine; but they imagine them- 
selves in his stead : they do not compare him, 
but themselves, not to him, but to themselves." 
In natural things the effects do but half relate 
to their causes. What's this to the purpose? 
His condition is above the order of nature, too 
elevated, too remote, and too mighty, to permit 
itself to be bound and fettered by our conclu- 
sions. 'Tis not through ourselves that we arrive 
at that place: our ways lie too low. We are 
no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis 
than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance 
with your astrolabe. They debase God even to 

i Horace, Sat. ii. 3. in. 

2 Or Anubis, according to Josephi 



the carnal knowledge of women, to so many 
times, and so many generations. Paulina, the 
wife of Saturninus, a matron of great reputation 
at Rome, thinking she lay with the god Serapis, 3 
found herself in the arms of an amoroso of hers, 
through the panderism of the priests of his 
temple. Varro, the most subtle and most 
learned of all the Latin authors, in his book of 
theology, writes, 3 that the sexton of Hercules's 
temple, throwing dice witli one hand for him- 
self, and with the other for Hercules, played 
after that manner with him for a supper and a 
wench ; if he won, at the expense of the offer- 
ings ; if he lost, at his own. The sexton lost, 
and paid the supper and the wench. Her name 
was Laurent.ina, who saw by night this god in 
her arms, who moreover told her, that the first 
she met the next day, should give her a heavenly 
reward : which proved to be Taruncius, 4 a rich 
young man, who took her home to his house, 
and in time left her his inheritrix. She, in her 
turn, thinking to do a thing that would be 
pleasing to the god, left the people of Rome 
heirs to her ; and therefore had divine honours 
attributed to her. As if it had not been suffi- 
cient that Plato was originally descended from 
the gods by a double line, and that he had 
Neptune for the common father of his race, it 
was certainly believed at Athens, that Aristo, 
having a mind to enjoy the fair Perictione, 
could not, and was warned by the god Apollo, 
in a dream, to leave her unpolluted and un- 
touched, till she should first be brought tc- 
bed. These were the father and mother of 
Plato. 5 How many ridiculous stories are there 
of like cuckoldings, committed by the gods 
against poor mortal men! And how many 
husbands injuriously scandaled in favour of the 
children! In the Mahometan religion there 
are Merlins enough found by the belief of the 
people; that is to say, children without fathers, 
spiritual, divinely conceived in the wombs of 
virgins, and carry names that signify so much 
in their language. 

We are to observe that to every thing nothing 
is more dear and estimable than 
its beino- (the lion, the eagle, the Nothing that 
dolphin, prize nothing above their {^"'feSto 
own kind); and that every thing of than its 
assimilates the qualities of all species, 
other things to its own proper 
qualities, which we may indeed extend or con- 
tract, but that's all: for beyond that relation 
and principle our imagination cannot go, can 
guess at nothing else, nor possibly go out 
thence, nor stretch beyond it: whence spring 
these ancient conclusions,— of all forms the 
most beautiful is that of man ; therefore God 
must be of that form. No one can be happy 
without virtue, nor virtue be without reason, 



« Or Tanitius, according to St. Austin : but according to 
Plutaich, who relates t hi' same story in the life of Romulus, 
the first man who met Larentia (as he calls her) was one 
Tarrutius, a very old man. 

6 Laeitius, in vita. Plutarch, Table Talk. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



273 



and reason cannot inhabit anywhere but in a 
human shape: God is therefore clothed in a 
human figure, Ita est ivformalum anticipa- 
tumque mentibus nostris, ut homini, quum de 
Deo cogitet, forma occurrat humana.* "It 
is so imprinted in our minds, and the fancy is 
so prepossessed with it, that when a man thinks 
of God, a human figure ever presents itself to 
the imagination." Therefore it was that Xeno- 
phanes pleasantly said, " That if beasts frame 
any gods to themselves, as 'tis likely they do, 
they make them certainly such as themselves 
are, and glorify themselves in it, as we do. 
For why may not a goose say thus: 'All the 
parts of the universe I have an interest in: 
the earth serves me to walk upon ; the sun to 
light me; the stars have their influence upon 
me: I have such an advantage by the winds 
and such by the waters ; there is nothing that 
yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as 
me; I am the darling of nature! Is it not 
man that keeps, lodges, and serves me! 'Tis 
for me that he both sows and grinds; if he 
eats me he does the same by his fellow-men, 
and so do I the worms that kill and devour 
him." 2 As much might be said by a crane, 
and with greater confidence, upon the account 
of the liberty of his flight, and the possession 
of that high and beautiful region. Tarn blanda 
conciliatrix, et lam sui est lena ipsa natura? 
" So flattering and wheedling a bawd is nature 
to herself." 4 

Now by the same consequence, the destinies 

are then for us; for us the world ; 
SfuhinTweS il shines, it thunders for us; 
made for him. creator and creatures, all are for 

us: 'tis the mark and point to 
which the universality of things aims. Look 
into the records that philosophy has kept for 
two thousand years and more, of the affairs of 
heaven: the gods all that while have neither 
acted nor spoken but for man. She does not 
allow them any other consultation or occupa- 
tion. See them here against us in war : 

Domitosque Herculea manu 
Telluris juvenes, uncle periculum 

Fulgens contremuit domus 
Satumis veteris.6 

"The brawny sons of earth, subdu'd by hand 
Of Hercules on the Phlegraan strand, 
Where the rude shock did such an uproar make, 
As made old Saturn's sparkling palace shake." 

And here you shall see them participate of our 



» Cicero, de Jfat. Deor. i. 18. 

" Id. ib. 27. 

s Eusebius, Prap. Evang. xiii. 13. 

* Here Montaigne is again in contradiction with him 

whose apology he is writing. Sehnnd, in our author's trans- 
"(a riioinme)— Je 



te fou 
unit 



' JCHll 



Hi,,,,,; 



lose : pour ta 



Bante douceur do pi interns, la < 
de Pantonine, les froideurs de I'l 
nique la respiration vitale, et ol 
genre de mis oiseam ; 1'eau— je 
quoi te laver. La lerre — je ti 



..i.lMI'hl 



L 1 te ntnnnii- 

lance tout le 
uoi boire, do 

;is de inoi le 



troubles, to make a return for our having so 
often shared in theirs: 

Neptunus muros, magnoque eniota tridenti 
Fundanienta ipiatit. totamqiie a sedibus urbem 
Eruit : hie Juno Scsas saivissima portas 
Prima tenet. 8 

"Amidst that smother Neptune holds his place, 
Iielow the walls' foundation drives his mace, 
And heaves the city from its solid base. 
See where in arms the cruel Juno stands, 
Full in the Sca;an gate." 

The Caunians, jealous of the authority of 
their own proper gods, armed themselves on the 
days of their devotion, and through the whole 
of their precincts ran cutting and slashing the 
air with their swords, by that means to drive 
away and banish all foreign gods 
out of their territory. 7 Their P°werofthe 

....•' .. gods limited to 

powers are limited according to certain things, 
our necessity : this cures horses, 
that men, that the plague, that the scurf, that 
the phthisic; one cures one sort of itch, 
another another: Adio minimis etiam rebus 
prava religin inserit Deos? " At such a rate 
does false religion create gods for the most 
contemptible uses." This one makes grapes 
grow, that onions; this has the presidence over 
lechery, that over merchandise ; for every sort 
of artisan a god ; this has his province and 
reputation in the east; that his in the west: 

Hie illius arma, hie currus fuit. 9 

" Here lay her armour, here her chariot stood." 

O sancte Apollo, qui umliilicumcertum terrarum obtines. 10 

" O sacred Phoebus, who with glorious ray, 
From the earth's centre, dost thy light display." 

Pallada Cecropidre, Minoia Creta Dianam, 

Vulcanuni tellus llip.-ipylica colit, 
Junonem Sparte, Pelopeia'desque Mycenae; 

Pinigerum Fauni Mffinalis ora caput; 
Mars Latio vencrandus erat." 

"Th' Athenians Pallas, Cynthia Crete adore, 
Vulcan is worshipped on the Lemnian shore. 
Proud Juno's altars are by Spartans fed, 
Th' Arcadians worship l'aunus, and 'tis said 
To Mars, by Italy, is homage paid." 

This has only one town or one family in his 
possession ; that lives alone ; that in company, 
either voluntary or upon necessity: 

Junctaque sunt magno templa nepotis avo." 

" And temples to the nephew joined are, 
To those were reared to the great-grandfather." 



pain de quoi se nourissent tes forces, le vin de quoi tu 
esjotiis tes esprits," &c. 

« Horace, Odar. ii. 12, 6. 

« JEncid, ii. 610. 

' Herod, i. 172. 

e Livy, xxvii. 23. 

&neid, i. IB. 

'"Cicero, de Divin. ii. 56. Delphi was considered the 
navel, or centre of the earth; rUXipis, uterus. See Livy, 
KXXViii. Ir=; Ovid, Met. x. 168, &c. 

ii Ovid.Jftuti, iii. 81. 

u Id. id. i. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



274 



There are some so wretched and mean (for 
the number amounts to six and thirty thou- 
sand ') that they must pack five or six together, 
to produce one ear of corn, and thence take 
their several names ; three to a door — that of 
the plank, that of the hinge, and that of the 
threshold. Four to a child — protectors of his 
swathing-clouts, his drink, meat, and sucking. 
Some certain, some uncertain and doubtful, 
and some that are not yet entered Paradise : 



" Whom, since we yet not worthy think of heaven, 
We suffer to possess the earth we've given." 

There are amongst them physicians, poets, and 
civilians. Some of a mean betwixt the divine 
and human nature; mediators betwixt God 
and us, adorned with a certain second and 
diminutive sort of adoration ; infinite in titles 
and offices; some good, others ill; some old 
and decrepid, and some that are mortal. For 
Chrysippus 4 was of opinion that in the last 
conflagration of the world all the gods were to 
die but Jupiter. Man makes a thousand pretty 
societies betwixt God and him; is he not his 
countryman] 

Jovis incunabula Creten.< 
" Crete, the cradle of Jupiter." 

And this is the excuse that, upon considera- 
tion of this subject, Scoevola, a high priest, and 
Varro, a great theologian in their times, make 
us : " That it is necessary that the people should 
be ignorant of many things that are true, and 
believe many things that are false." Quam 
verilatem qua liberelur inquirat credatur ei 
expedire, quod fallitur. 5 " Seeing he inquires 
into the truth, by which he would be made 
free, 'tis fit he should be deceived." Human 
eyes cannot perceive things but by the forms 
they know : and we do not remember what a 
leap miserable Phaeton took for attempting to 
guide his father's horses with a mortal hand. 
The mind of man falls into as great a depth, 
and is after the same manner bruised and shat- 
tered by his own rashness. If you ask of 
philosophy of what matter the heavens and the 
sun are'! what answer will she return, if not 
that it is iron, or, with Anaxagoras, 6 stone, or 
some other matter that she makes use of 1 If 
a man inquire of Zeno what nature is? "A 
lire," says he, " an artisan, proper for genera- 
tion, and regularly proceeding." Archimedes, 
master of that science which attributes to itself 
the precedency before all others for truth and 
certainty; "the sun," says he, "is a god of 
red-hot iron." Was not this a fine imagination, 



i Hesiod says only 30,000. Maximus Tyrius (Dissert, i.) 
savs the number is infinite. 

2 Ovid, Metam. i. 04. 

3 Plutarch, on the Common Conceptions, See. 
* Ovid, Metam. viii. 99, 

5 St. Angus. De Cioit. Dei, iv. 31. Montesquieu, in his 
rnliiij of the Koiimn.i in Religion, cites the opinion of Scte- 
vola anil Varro, nearly in the same terms as Montaigne, and 



extracted from the inevitable necessity of geo- 
metrical demonstra tions 1 Yet not 
so inevitable and useful but that £°53g[. tow 
Socrates 7 thought it was enough 
to know so much of geometry only as to measure 
the land a man bought or sold ; and that 
Polyeenus, 8 who had been a great and famous 
doctor in it, despised it, as full of falsity and 
manifest vanity, after he had once tasted the 
delicate fruits of the lozelly gardens of Epicurus. 
Socrates in Xenophon, 9 concerning this affair, 
says of Anaxagoras, reputed by antiquity learned 
above all others in celestial and divine matters, 
"That he had cracked his brain, as all other 
men do who too immoderately search into 
knowledges which nothing belong to them :" 
when he made the sun to be a burning stone, 
he did not consider that a stone does not shine 
in the fire; and, which is worse, that it will 
there consume : and in making the sun and fire 
one, that fire does not turn the complexions 
black in shining upon them : that we are able 
to look, fixedly upon fire: and that fire kills 
herbs and plants. 'Tis Socrates's opinion, and 
mine too, that the best judging of heaven is not 
to judge of it at all. Plato having occasion, 
in his Timseus, to speak of the demons, " This 
undertaking," says he, "exceeds my ability." 
We are therefore to believe those ancients who 
said they were begotten by them : 'tis against 
all reason to refuse a man's faith to the children 
of the gods, though what they say should not 
be proved by any necessary or probable reasons; 
seeing they engage to speak of domestic and 
familiar things. 

Let us see if we have a little more light in 
the knowledge of human and na- 



to whom, by our own confession, 
our knowledge is not able to attain, another 
body, and to lend a false form of our own 
invention : as is manifest in this motion of the 
planets ; to which, seeing our wits cannot pos- 
sibly arrive, nor conceive their natural conduct, 
we lend them material, heavy, and substantial 
springs of our own by which to move : 

Temo aureus, aurea summffi 
Curvatura rots, radiorum argenteus ordo.»° 

" Gold was the axle, and the beam was gold ; 
The wheels with silver spokes on golden circles roll'd." 

You would say that we had had coach-makers, 
carpenters, and painters, that went up on high 
to make engines of various motions, and to 
range the wheelwork and interlacings of the 
heavenly bodies of differing colours about the 
axis of necessity, according to Plato : " 



adds, " St. Augustine says that Varro has here discovered 
the whole secret of politicians and ministers of state." 

« Xenoph. Memorab. iv. 7, 7. 

i Xenophon, On Socrates. 

6 Cicero, Jiead. ii. 38. 

Xenophon, On Socrates, iv. 7, 2. 

JO Ovid, Metam. ii. 107. 
" Republic, x. 12. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



275 



Bigas acceptaU 

■' The world's a mansion tliat doth all things hold, 
Which thund'Ting zones, in number five, enfold, 
Through which a girdle, painted with twelve signs, 
And that with sparkling constellations, shines, 
In heaven's arch marks" the diurnal course 
For the sun's chariot and his fiery horse." 

These are all dreams and fanatic follies. Why 
will not nature please for once to lay open her 
bosom to us, and plainly discover to us the 
means and conduct of her movements, and pre- 
pare our eyes to see them? Good God, what 
abuse, what mistakes should we discover in our 
poor science! I am mistaken if that weak 
knowledge of ours holds any one thing as it 
really is, and I shall depart hence more igno- 
rant of all other things than my own ignorance. 
Have I not read in Plato this divine saying, 

that "nature is nothing but an 
oniv°tioetry 1S enigmatic poesy !" 2 As if a man 
sophisticated. might perhaps see a veiled and 

shady picture, breaking out here 
and there with an infinite variety of false lights 
to puzzle our conjectures : Latent ista omnia 
crassis occaltata et circumfusa tenebris ; ut nulla 
acies humani ingenii tanta sit, qux penelrare 
in calum, terram intrare possit? "All those 
things lie concealed and involved in so dark an 
obscurity that no point of human wit can be 
so sharp as to pierce heaven or penetrate the 
earth." And certainly philosophy is no other 
than sophisticated poetry. Whence do the 
ancient writers extract their authorities but 
from the poets ? and the first of them were 
poets themselves, and writ accordingly. Plato 
is but a poet unripped. Timon 4 calls him, in- 
sultingly, "a monstrous forger of miracles." 
All super-human sciences make use of the 
poetic style. Just as women make use of teeth 
of ivory where the natural are wanting, and 
instead of their true complexion make one of 
some artificial matter ; as they stuff themselves 
out with cotton to appear plump, and in the 
sight of every one do paint, patch, and trick up 
themselves with a false and borrowed beauty : 
so does science, (and even our law itself has, they 
say, legitimate fictions, whereon it builds the 
truth of its justice) ; she gives us in pre-suppo- 
sition, and for current pay, things which she 
herself informs us were invented ; for these 
epicycles, eccentrics, and concentrics, which 
astrology makes use of to carry on the motions 
of the stars, she gives us for the best she could 
invent upon that subject; as also, in all the rest, 



has in the first verse marima lioinulti : and in the last, hi<jus 
solisi/iic rcr.cptat. 

a Montaigne has here mistaken Plato's sense, whose 
words, in the second Alcibiades, ii. are:— -'"Efi rt <piau 
troirjTiKr] ij (Xi'iiniiaii amy/iarfuo^ ;" — " All poetry is in its 
nature enigmatical." Plato says this by reason of a verse 
in Homer's Manjilcs, which he explains, and which indeed 
lias something in it that is enigmatical. 



philosophy presents us not that which really is, 
or what she really believes, but what she has 
contrived with the greatest and most plausible 
likelihood of truth, and the quaintest invention. 
Plato, 5 upon the discourse of the state of human 
bodies and those of beasts, says, " I should know 
that what I have said is truth, had I the con- 
firmation of an oracle ; but this I will affirm, 
that what I have said is the most likely to be 
true of any thing I could say." 

'Tis not to heaven only that art sends her 
ropes, engines, and wheels; let 



texture. There is not more re- 
trogradation, trepidation, accession, recession, 
and astonishment, in the stars and celestial 
bodies, than they have found out in this poor 
little human body. In earnest, they have good 
reason, upon that very account, to call it the 
little world, so many tools and parts have they 
employed to erect and build it. To assist the 
motions they see in man, and the various func- 
tions that we find in ourselves, in how many 
parts have they divided the soul, in how many 
places lodged it? in how many orders have 
they divided, and to how many stories have 
they raised this poor creature, man, besides 
those that are natural and to be perceived? 
And how many offices and vocations have they 
assigned him? They make it an imaginary 
public thing. 'Tis a subject that they hold and 
handle ; and they have full power granted to 
them to rip, place, displace, piece, and stuff it, 
every one according to his own fancy, and yet 
they possess it not. They cannot, not in reality 
only, but even in dreams, so govern it that there 
will not be some cadence or sound that will 
escape their architecture, as enormous as it is, 
and botched with a thousand false and fantastic 
patches. And it is not reason to excuse them ; 
for though we are satisfied with painters when 
they paint heaven, earth, seas, mountains, and 
remote islands, that they give us some slight 
mark of them, and, as of things unknown, are 
content with a faint and obscure description; 
yet when they come and draw us after life, or 
any other creature which is known and familiar 
to us, we then require of them a perfect and 
exact representation of lineaments and colours, 
and despise them if they fail in it. 

I am very well pleased with the Milesian 
girl, 6 who observing the philosopher Thales to 
be always contemplating the celestial arch, and 
to have his eyes ever gazing upward, laid some- 
thing in his way that he might stumble over, 
to put him in mind that it would be time to 



s Cicero, Jlcad. ii. 39. 

* Timon the sillographist. See Laertius, Life of Plato. 

6 In the Timteus. 

e She was not a Milesian, but a Thracian, according to 
Plato, from whose Tlicrtctes this story is taken : but he does 
not say that he stumbled at anything laid in his way by 
his servant ; hut that as he was walking along, with his 
eyes lilted up to the stars, he fell into a well. 



276 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



take up his thoughts about things that are in 
the clouds when he had provided for those that 
were under his feet. Doubtless she advised 
him well, rather to look to himself than to 
gaze at heaven; for, as Democritus says, by 
the mouth of Cicero, — 

Quod est ante pedes, nemo spectat: 
Cceli scrutantur plagas.i 

" No man regards what is under his feet ; they are al- 
ways prying towards heaven." 

But our condition will have it so, that the 
knowledge of what we have in hand is as 
remote from us, and as much above the clouds, 
as that of the stars. As Socrates says, in 
Plato, 2 "That whoever meddles with philo- 
sophy may be reproached as Thales was by the 
woman, that he sees nothing of that which is 
before him. For every philosopher is ignorant 
of what his neighbour does ; aye, and of what 
he does himself, and is ignorant of what they 
both are, whether beasts or men." 

Those people, who find Sebond's arguments 
too weak, that are ignorant of nothing, that 
govern the world, that know all, — 

Qua? mare compescant causs, quid temperet annum ; 
Stella sponte sua, jussieve, vagentur et errent; 
Quid premat obscurum lunee, quid proferat orbein ; 
Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors; 3 

1 What governs ocean's tides, 



Or foreign power, pursue their wand'ring course; 
Why shadows darken the pale queen of night; 
Whence she renews her orli and spreads her light ; — 
What nature's jarring sympathy can mean ;" 



they not sometimes in their writings 
' the difficulties they have met with of 
knowing their own being 1 We see very well 
that the finger moves, that the foot moves, that 
some parts assume a voluntary motion of them- 
selves without our consent, and that others 
work by our direction ; that one sort of appre- 
hension occasions blushing; another paleness; 
such an imagination works upon the spleen 
only, another upon the brain ; one occasions 
laughter, another tears; another stupifies and 
astonishes all our senses, and arrests the motion 
of all our members ; at one object the stomach 
will rise, at another a member that lies some- 
thing lower; but how a spiritual impression 
should make such a breach into a massy and 
solid subject, and the nature of the connexion 
and contexture of these admirable springs and 
movements, never yet man knew: Omnia in- 
certa ralione, et in natures, majestate abdita. 
" All uncertain in reason, and concealed in 
the majesty of nature," says Pliny.* And St. 
Austin, 6 Modus, quo corporibus adherent spi- 
ritus . . . omnino mirus est, nee comprehendi 



i This Latin verse, extracted from a tragedy called Iphi- 
eenia, is not put by Cicero into the mouth of Democritus, 
but is directed against him, De Divinat. ii. 13. 

* Theetetes. 



ab homine potest ; el hoc ipse homo est. " The 
manner whereby souls adhere to bodies is alto- 
gether wonderful, and cannot be conceived by 
man, and yet this is man." And yet it is not 
so much as doubted ; for the opinions of men 
are received according to the ancient belief, by 
authority and upon trust, as if it were religion 
and law. 'Tis received as gibberish which is 
commonly spoken ; this truth, with all its clutter 
of arguments and proofs, is admitted as a firm 
and solid body, that is no more to be shaken, 
no more to be judged of; on the contrary, 
every one, according to the best of his talent, 
corroborates and fortifies this received belief 
with the utmost power of his reason, which is 
a supple utensil, pliable, and to be accommo- 
dated to any figure ; and thus the world comes 
to be filled with lies and fopperies. The reason 
that men doubt of divers things 
is that they never examine com- How it hap- 
mon impressions; they do not ^rcedoubTof 
dig to the root, where the faults things, 
and defects lie; they only de- 
bate upon the branches; they do not examine 
whether such and such a thing be true, but if 
it has been so and so understood ; it is not 
inquired into whether Galen has said anything 
to purpose, but whether he has said so or so. 
In truth it was very good reason that this 
curb to the liberty of our judgments and that 
tyranny over our opinions, should be extended 
to the schools and arts. The god of scholastic 
knowledge is Aristotle ; 'tis irreligion to ques- 
tion any of his decrees, as it was those of 
Lycurgus at Sparta ; his doctrine is a magis- 
terial law, which, peradventure, is as false as 
another. I do not know why I should not 
as willingly embrace either the ideas of Plato, 
or the atoms of Epicurus, or the plenum or 
vacuum of Leucippus and Democritus, or the 
water of Thales, or the infinity of nature of 
Anaximander, or the air of Diogenes, or the 
numbers and symmetry of Pythagoras, or the 
infinity of Parmenides, or the One of Musseus, 
or the water and fire of Apollodorus, or the 
similar parts of Anaxagoras, or the discord and 
friendship of Empedocles, or the fire of Hera- 
clitus, or any other opinion of that infinite con- 
fusion of opinions and determinations, which 
this fine human reason produces by its certi- 
tude and clear-sightedness in everything it 
meddles withal, as I should the opinion of 
Aristotle upon this subject of the principles of 
natural things; which principles he builds of 
three pieces — matter, form, and privation. And 
what can be more vain than to make inanity 
itself the cause of the production of things'? 
Privation is a negative ; of what humour could 
he then make the cause and original of things 
that arel And yet that were not to be con- 
troverted but for the exercise of logic ; there is 



' Horace, Epist. i. 12, 16. 

i JVa«. Hist. ii. 37. 

i De Civit. Dei. xxi. 10. 

1 Of Apollonia. Sextus Empiric. Pyrrh. Hypothy.iii. i. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



277 



nothing disputed therein to bring it into doubt, 
but to defend the author of the school from 
foreign objections; his authority is the non- 
ultra, beyond which it is not permitted to 
inquire. 

It is very easy, upon approved foundations, 

to build whatever we please ; for, 

The receiving acC0R ]j ng . to the ] aw and order- 

of principles . „ S 

without exami- mg or this beginning, the other 
li.n .on Habie to parts of the structure are easily 
Mistakes? carried on without any failure. 

By this way we find our reason 
well-grounded, and discourse at a venture; for 
our masters prepossess and gain before-hand as 
much room in our belief as is necessary towards 
concluding afterwards what they please, as 
geometricians do by their granted demands, 
the consent and approbation we allow them 
giving them wherewith to draw us to the right 
and left, and to whirl us about at their pleasure. 
Whatever springs from these pre-suppositions 
is our master and our God : he will take the 
level of his foundations so ample and so easy 
that by them he may mount us up to the clouds, 
if he so please. In this practice and negotia- 
tion of science we have taken the saying of 
Pythagoras, " That every expert person ought 
to be believed in his own art" for current pay. 
The logician refers the signification of words 
to the grammarians; the rhetorician borrows 
the state of arguments from the logician ; the 
poet his measure from the musician ; the geo- 
metrician his proportions from the arithmetician, 
and the metaphysicians take physical conjec- 
tures for their foundations; for every science 
has its principle pre-supposed, by which human 
judgment is everywhere kept in check. If 
you come to rush against the bar where the 
principal error lies, they have presently this 
sentence in their mouths, "That there is no 
disputing with persons who deny principles." 
Now men can have no principles if not revealed 
to them by the divinity; of all the rest the 
beginning, the middle, and the end, is nothing 
but dream and vapour. To those that contend 
upon pre-supposition we must, on the con- 
trary, pre-suppose to them the same axiom upon 
which the dispute is. For every human pre- 
supposition and declaration has as much autho- 
rity one as another, if reason do net make the 
difference. Wherefore they are all to be put 
into the balance, and first the generals and 
those that tyrannize over us. The persuasion 
of certainty is a certain testimony of folly and 
extreme incertainty; and there are not a more 
foolish sort of men, nor that are less philoso- 
phers, than the Philodoxes 1 of Plato; we must 
inquire whether fire be hot! whether snow be 
white? if there be any such things as hard or 
soft within our knowledge - ! 



And as to those answers of which they make 
old stories, as he that doubted if 
there was any such thing as heat, ™ 1 ^™ u p ,™°; 
whom they bid throw himself taTn'ty is (Jeter- 
into the fire; and he that denied minable by 
the coldness of ice, whom tb 
bid to put ice into his bosom : 
they are pitiful things, unworthy of the profes- 
sion of philosophy. If they had let us alone 
in our natural being, to receive the appearance 
of things without us, according as they present 
themselves to us by our senses, and had per- 
mitted us to follow our own natural appetites, 
governed by the condition of our birth, they 
might then have reason to talk at that rate; 
but 'tis from them we have learned to make 
ourselves judges of the world ; 'tis from them 
that we derive this fancy, "That human reason 
is controller-general of all that is without and 
within the roof of heaven; that comprehends 
everything, that can do everything; by the 
means of which everything is known and un- 
derstood." This answer would be good among 
the cannibals, who enjoy the happiness of a 
long, quiet, and peaceable life, without Aris- 
totle's precepts, and without the knowledge of 
the name of" physics; this answer would per- 
haps be of more value and greater force than 
all those they borrow from their reason and 
invention ; of this all animals, and all where 
the power of the law of nature is yet pure and 
simple, would be as capable as we, but as for 
them they have renounced it. They need not 
tell us, " It is true, for you see and feel it to 
be so:" they must tell me whether I really 
feel what I think I do; and if I do feel it, 
they must then tell me why I feel it, and how, 
and what; let them tell me the name, original, 
the parts and junctures of heat and cold, the 
qualities of the agent and patient ; or let them 
give up their profession, which is not to admit 
or approve of anything but by the way of 
reason; that is their test in all sorts of essays; 
but, certainly, 'tis a test full of falsity, error, 
weakness, and defect. 

Which way can we better prove it than by 
itself? If we are not to believe her when 
speaking of herself, she can hardly be thought 
fit to judge of foreign things; if she know any 
thing, it must at least be her own being and 
abode; she is in the soul, and either a part or 
an effect of it; for true and essential reason, 
from which we by a false colour borrow the 
name, is lodged in the bosom of the Almighty; 
there is her habitation and recess ; 'tis thence 
that she imparts her rays, when God is pleased 
to impart any beam of it to mankind, as Pallas 
issued from her father's head, to communicate 
herself to the world. 

Now let us see what human reason tells us 



i "Persons win. a re poss«s-<ort with opinions of which they This definition is taken from Plato, who has characterised 

know not the grounds ; whose heads are intoxicated with them very particularly at the end of the lillh book of his 

words; who see and affect only the appearances of things." i Republic. 

24 



278 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



of herself and of the soul ; not 
What reason f the soul in general, of which 

tells us ot the , . ,, • L ., , , ., 

nature of the almost all philosophy makes the 
soul. celestial and first bodies partici- 

pants ; nor of that which Thales ' 
attributed to things which themselves are re- 
puted inanimate, lead thereto by the consideration 
of the loadstone ; but of that which appertains 
to us, and that we ought the best to know 

Ignoratur enim, qure sit natura aniini ; 
Natasit; an, contra, nasc.entibiis iusinuetur; 
Etshnul intercut nobiscum morte dirempta ; 
An tenebras Orci visat, vastasquo lacunas, 
An pecudes alias divinitus insinuet se. 2 

" For none the nature of the soul doth know, 
Whether that it be born with us, or no; 
Or. be infused into us at our birth. 
And dies with us when we return to earth, 
Or then descends to the black shades below, 
Or into other animals does go." 

Crates and Dicasarchus were of opinion that 
there was no soul at all, but that the body thus 
stirs by a natural motion; Plato, 3 that it was 
a substance moving of itself; Thales, a nature 
without repose; 4 Asclepiades, an exercising of 
the senses; Hesiod and Anaximander, a thing 
composed of earth and water ; Parmenides, 5 of 
earth and fire ; Empedocles, 6 of blood ; 



Sangui) 



vomit ille animam: 



"He vomits up his bloody soul." 

Posidonus, 8 Cleanthes, and Galen, 9 that it was 
heat or a hot complexion : 

lgneus est ollis vigor, et ccelestis origo : '» 

Their vigour of fire and of heavenly race.') 

Hippocrates, 11 a spirit diffused all over the body; 
Varro, 12 that it was an air received at the mouth, 
heated in the lungs, moistened in the heart, and 
diffused throughout the whole body; Zeno, the 
quintessence of the four elements; 13 Heraclides 
Ponticus, 14 that it was the light; Zenocrates 15 
and the Egyptians, a mobile number; the Chal- 
deans, a virtue without any determinate form ; 



i Laertius, in vita. 
i Lucret. i. 113. 

* Thales added, " and which moves of itself." Plutarch. 
On the Opinions of the Philosophers, who also gives th6 
opinion of the physician Asclepiades, ovyyjxuaaiav rSn 
aiaQnazoiv. 

5 Macrob. in Sonn. Scip. i. 14. 

6 Cicero, Tusc. Quies. i. 9. 



neid, 
e Laertius, 



:u:i. 



See Galen, quod tmimi mnrrs sequan'ur corporis i 



ere tins physician repeatedly de- 
ture to affirm any thing as to the 
, de Natura. Hominis, 



peramentum; hut elsewhc 
Clares that 

nature of the soul. See N 
c. 2. &c. 

io JErteid, vi. 730. 

11 Macrob. ut supra, i. 14. 

12 Laetant. De Opif. Dei. c. 17. 

« "1 know not," says Mr. Coste, "where Montaigne had 
this; for Cicero expressly says that this quintessence, or fifth 
nature is a thought uf Alisiotle, who makes the soul to be 
composed ol it; and that '/.<: o thought the soul to be fire," 
Cicero. Tusc. Quas. i. 9. After this, Cicero adds, " that 
Aristotle calls the mind, which he derives from that fifth na. 
ture entclechia, a new-coined word, signifying a perpetual 



Let us not forget Aristotle, who held the soul 
to be that which naturally causes the body to 
move, which he calls entelechia, 17 with as cold 
an invention as any of the rest ; for he neither 
speaks of the essence, nor of the original, nor 
of the nature of the soul, but only takes notice 
of the effect. Lactantius, 18 Seneca, 19 and most 
of the Dogmatists, have confessed that it was a 
thing they did not understand ; after all this 
enumeration of opinions, 20 Harum sententiarum 
qua vera sit, Deus aliquis viderit. " Of these 
opinions which is the true, let some god deter- 
mine," says Cicero. "I know by myself," 
says St. Bernard, 21 " how incomprehensible God 
is, seeing I cannot comprehend the parts of my 
own being." Heraclitus, 22 who was of opinion 
that every being was full of souls and demons, 
did nevertheless maintain that no one could 
advance so far towards the knowledge of the 
soul as ever to arrive at it; so profound was 
the essence of it. 

Neither is there less controversy and debate 
about seating of it. Hippocrates 
and Hierophilus 23 place it in the jg» "JM" „, 

... V. . i i • tv ul man me suut 

ventricle of the brain ; Democri- resides, 
tus and Aristotle 24 throughout the 
whole body ; 



As when the body's health they do it call. 
When of a sound man that's no part at all.' 



Epicurus in the stomach ; 



The Stoics, 27 about and within the heart ; Erasis- 
tratus, 28 adjoining the membrane of the epicra- 



motion." Though Montaigne has copied these last words, in 
what he proceeds to tell us of Aristotle, he censures him for 
not having spoken of the origin and nature of the soul. But 
had he only cast his eye on what Cicero had said a little 
before, he would have been convinced that Aristotle hud 
taken care to explain himself concerning the origin of the 
soul, before he remarked the effect of it. If he has not there- 
by fully demonstrated what the nature of it is, Zeno has not 
given us much better light into it, when he says, " the soul 
or mind seems to be fire ;" and it would not be difficult to 
show that in this article the other philosophers have not 
succeeded better than Zeno and Aristotle. 
" Stob. Eclog. Phys. i. 40. 

15 Macrob. ut supra. 
M Lucret. iii. 100. 

« Cicero, Tuse. Qua;s. i. 10. 

1 6 Dc Opif. Dei. c. 17. 

19 Mat. Quids, vii. 14. 
» Tusc. Quas. i. 11. 

21 Lib. de Jivima. c. 1. 

22 Laertius, in vita, 

as Plutarch, On the Opinions of the Philosophers. 
2) Sextus Empiricus, .Ido. Math. 
2s Lucret. iii. 103. 

20 Id. ib. 142. 

27 2J pimarch, ut supra. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



279 



ilium ; Empedocles, 1 in the blood ; as also Moses, 2 
which was the reason why he interdicted eating 
the blood of beasts, because the soul is there 
seated ; Galen thought that every part of the 
body had its soul ; Strato 2 has placed it betwixt 
the eyebrows : Qua facie quidem sit animus, 
aut ubi habitet, ne quarendum quidem est: 4 
" What figure the soul is of, or what part it 
inhabits, is not to be inquired into," says Cicero. 
I very willingly deliver this author to you in 
his own words; for should I alter eloquence 
itself? Besides, it were but a poor prize to steal 
the matter of his inventions; they are neither 
very frequent, nor of any great weight, and 
sufficiently known. But the reason where Chry- 
sippus argues it to be about the heart, as all the 
rest of that sect do, is not to be omitted : " It 
is," says he, " because when we would affirm 
any thing, we lay our hand upon our breasts; 
and when we would pronounce iyu>, which 
signifies I, we let the lower jaw fall towards 
the stomach." This place ought not to be 
passed over without a remark upon the vanity 
of so great a man ; for besides that these con- 
siderations are infinitely light in themselves, 
the last is only a proof to the Greeks that they 
have their souls lodged in that part. No human 
judgment is so sprightly and vigilant that it 
does not sometimes sleep. Why do we fear to 
say 1 The Stoics, 6 the fathers of human pru- 
dence, think that the soul of a man, crushed 
under a ruin, long labours and strives to get out, 
like a mouse caught in a trap, before it can dis- 
engage itself from the burden. Some hold that 
the world was made to give bodies, by way of 
punishment, to the spirits fallen, by their own 
fault, from the purity wherein they had been 
created, the first creation having been incor- 
poreal; and that, according as they are more 
or less depraved from their spirituality, so are 
they more or less jocundly or dully incorpo- 
rated ; and that thence proceeds all the variety 
of so much created matter. But the spirit that 
for his punishment was invested with the body 
of the sun must certainly have a very rare and 
particular measure of change. 

The extremities of our perquisition do all fall 
into astonishment and blindness; as Plutarch 

says 7 of the testimony of his- 
Xopiucaf tories, ^at. according to charts, 
iuciuirii's. and maps, the utmost bounds of 

known countries are taken up 
with marshes, impenetrable forests, deserts, 
and uninhabitable places: this is the reason 
why the most gross and childish ravings were 
most found in those authors who treat of the 
most elevated subjects, and proceed the furthest 
in them, losing themselves in their own curi- 
osity and presumption. The beginning and end 



1 Plutarch, ut supra. 

» Qcywsis, ix. 4. Levit. vii. 26. 

9 Plutarch, ut supra. 

* Tusc. Qurns. i. 28. 

o Gal. On the. Opinions of Hippocrates and Plato. 

« Seneca, Epist. 57. 



of knowledge are equally foolish: observe to 
what a p^tch Plato flies in his poetic clouds : 
do but take notice there of the gibberish of the 
gods; but what did he dream of when he de- 
fined a man to he "a two-legged animal with- 
out feathers:" 8 giving those who had a mind to 
deride him a pleasant occasion; for, having 
pulled a capon alive, they went about calling it 
" the man of Plato." 

And what did the Epicureans think of, out of 
what simplicity did they first imagine that their 
atoms that they said were bodies 
having some weight, and a natu- ^EpicUn"*' 
ral motion downwards, had made an's, what? 
the world : till they were put in 
mind, by their adversaries, that, according to 
this description, it was impossible they should 
unite and join to one another, their fall being 
so direct and perpendicular, and making so 
many parallel lines throughout ! Wherefore 
there was a necessity that they should since add 
a fortuitous and sideways motion, and that they 
should moreover accoutre their atoms with 
hooked tails, by which they might unite and 
cling to one another. And even then do not 
those that attack them upon this second consi- 
deration put them hardly to itl "If the atoms 
have by chance formed so many sorts of figures, 
why did it never fall out that they made a 
house or a shoe ] Why at the same rate should 
we not believe that an infinite number of Greek 
letters, strewed all over a certain place, might 
fall into the contexture of the Iliad?" 3 — 
" Whatever is capable of reason," says Zeno, 10 
" is better than that which is not capable : there 
is nothing better than the world : the world is 
therefore capable of reason "" Cotta, by this 
way of argumentation, makes the world a ma- 
thematician ; and 'tis also made a musician and 
an organist by this other argumentation of'Zeno : 
"The whole is more than a part; we are capa- 
ble of wisdom, and are part of the world: 
therefore the world is wise." There are infi- 
nite like examples, not only of arguments that 
are false in themselves, but silly ones, that do 
not hold in themselves, and that accuse their 
authors not so much of ignorance as impru- 
dence, in the reproaches the philosophers dash 
one another in the teeth withal, upon their dis- 
sensions in their sects and opinions. 

Whoever should bundle up a lusty faggot of 
the fooleries of human wisdom would produce 
wonders. I willingly muster up these few for 
a pattern, by a certain meaning not less profita- 
ble to consider than the most sound and mode- 
rate instructions. Let us judge by these what 
opinion we are to have of man, of his sense 
and reason, when in these great persons that 
have raised human knowledge so high, so 



' Life of Tlueseus. 
<* Laertius, in vit&, 
» Cicero, de Nat. Deor. ii. 37. 
io Id. ib. iii. 9. 
» Id. ib. iii. 9, ii. 12. 



280 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



many gross mistakes and manifest errors are 
to be found. 

For my part, I am apt to believe that they 
have treated of knowledge casually, and like a 
„ TL t ,. toy, with both hands: and have 

Whether the J . , , , . ' e 

ancient phiio- contended about reason as ot a 
sophers treated vain and frivolous instrument, 
sea k o n u siy edse settin g on foot all sorts of fancies 
and inventions, sometimes more 
sinewy, and sometimes weaker. This same 
Plato, who defines man as if he were a cock, 
says elsewhere, 1 after Socrates, "That he does 
not, in truth, know what man is, and that he is 
a member of the world the hardest to under- 
stand." By this variety and instability of 
opinions, they tacitly lead us, as it were by the 
hand, to this resolution of their irresolution. 
They profess not always to deliver their opinions 
barefaced and apparent to us; they have one 
while disguised them in the fabulous shadows of 
poetry, and at another in some other vizor : for 
our imperfection carries this also along with it, 
that crude meat is not always proper for our 
stomachs; we must dry, alter, and mix it: they 
do the same : they sometimes conceal their real 
opinions and judgments, and falsify them to 
accommodate themselves to the public use. 
They will not make an open profession of igno- 
rance, and of the imbecility of human reason, 
that they may not fright children: but they 
sufficiently discover it to us under the appear- 
ance of a troubled and inconstant science. 

I advised a person in Italy, who had a great 
mind to speak Italian, that provided he only had 
a desire to make himself under- 
Phiiosophy full stood, without being ambitious 



gance. should only make use of the first 

word that came to the tongue's 
end, whether Latin, French, Spanish, or Gas- 
con, and that, by adding the Italian termination, 
he could not fail of hitting upon some idiom of 
the country, either Tuscan, Roman, Venetian, 
Piedmontese, or Neapolitan, and so fall in with 
some one of those many forms. I say the 
same of Philosophy; she has so many faces, so 
much variety, and has said so many things, that 
all our dreams and ravings are there to be found. 
Human fancy can conceive nothing good or bad 
that is not there : Nihil tan absurde did potest, 
quod non dicatur, ab aliquo phUosophorum* 
"Nothing can be said so absurd, that has not 
been said before by some of the philosophers." 
And I am the more willing to expose my whim- 
sies to the public ; forasmuch as, though they 
are spun out of myself, and without any pattern, 
I know they will be found related to some 
ancient humour, and some will not stick to say, 
" See whence he took it !" My manners are 



natural, I have not called in the assistance of 
any discipline to erect them ; but, weak as they 
are, when it came into my head to lay them 
open to the world's view, and that to expose 
them to the light in a little more decent garb I 
went to adorn them with reasons and examples, 
it was a wonder to myself accidentally to find 
them conformable to so many philosophical 
discourses and examples. I never knew what 
regimen my life was of till it was near worn out 
and spent: a new figure — an unpremeditated 
and accidental philosopher. 

But to return to the soul. 3 Inasmuch as 
Plato has placed reason in the 
brain, anger in the heart, and babie™iiypo P - r °' 
concupiscence in the liver: 'tis thesis concern- 
likely that it was rather an inter- ^, Uie human 
pretation of the movements of the 
soul, than that he intended a division and sepa- 
ration of it, as of a body, into several members. 
And the most likely of their opinions is that 'tis 
always a soul, that by its faculty, reasons, 
remembers, comprehends, judges, desires, and 
exercises all its other operations by divers in- 
struments of the body ; as the pilot guides his 
ship according to his experience, one while 
straining or slacking the cordage, one while 
hoisting the main-yard, or removing the rudder, 
by one and the same power carrying on several 
effects: and that it is lodged in the brain; 
which appears in that the wounds and accidents 
that touch that part do immediately offend the 
faculties of the soul; and 'tis not incongruous 
that it should thence diffuse itself through the 
other parts of the body ; 



"Phxebus ne'er deviates from the zodiac's way; 
Yet all things doth illustrate with his ray." 

As the sun sheds from heaven its light and in- 
fluence, and fills the world with them : 



Some have said that there was a general 
soul, as it were a great body, whence all the 
particular souls were extracted, and thither 
again return, always restoring themselves to 
that universal matter : 

Deum namque ire per omnes 
Terrasque, tractusque maris, crclumque profundum; 
Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum. 



i In the first Mcibiades. It is Socrates who, by his argu- 
ments, reduces Alcihiades to say this. 

a Cicero, de Divinat. ii. 58. 

a The edition of ]588 adds here, " (for I have selected the 
soul as the most apt for instancing our weakness and 
vanity)." The following analysis of the doctrine of Plato 



Quemque sibi tenues nascentem 



vitas: 



; hue reddi deinde, ac resoluta retern 

Omnia ; nee morti esse locum : 8 

" For God goes forth, and spreads throughout the whole 
Heaven, earth, and sea, the universal soul; 
Each at its birth, from linn all brings share, 
Both man and brute, the breath of vital air ; 



is taken from the second part of the Timaus. See also 
Laertius, Life of Plato. 

* Claudian. Dc Sexto Consul. Honorii. 411. 

s Lucret. iii. 144. 

« Virgil, Qeorgic. iv. 221. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



291 



To him return, .'mil, loos'd from can lily chain, 
Fly whence they sprung, and rest in God again, 
Spurn at the grave, and, fearless of decay, 
Dwell in high heaven, and star th' etherial way." 

Others, that they only rejoined and re-united 
themselves to it ; others, that they were pro- 
duced from the divine substance ; others, by the 
angels of fire and air ; others, that they were 
from all antiquity ; and some that they were 
created at the very point of time the bodies 
wanted them; others make them to descend 
from the orb of the moon, and return thither; 
the generality of the ancients believed that they 
were begotten from father to son, after a like 
manner, and produced with all other natural 
things; taking their argument from the likeness 
of children to their fathers; 



"Thou hast thy father's virtues with his blood: 
For still the brave spring from the brave and good ;" 

and that we see descend from fathers to their 
children not only bodily marks, but moreover 
a resemblance of humours, complexions, and 
inclinations of the soul : 

Denique cur acris violentia triste leonum 
Seminiuin sequitur? dolus vulpibus, et fuga cervis 
A patribus datur, et patrius pavor iucitat artus ? 

Si non certa suo quia semine, seminioque 
Vis animi pariter crescit cumcorpore toto. a 

"For why should rage from the fierce lion's seed, 
Or from the subtle lux's craft, proceed; 
Or why the tim'rous and flying hart 
His fear and trembling to bis race impart; 
But that a certain force of mind does grow, 
And still increases as the bodies do?" 

That thereupon the divine justice is grounded, 
punishing in the children the faults of their 
fathers; forasmuch as the contagion of paternal 
vices is in some sort imprinted in the soul of 
children, and that the ill government of their 
will extends to them: 8 moreover, 
The opinion of that if souls had any other de- 

the pre-exist- • .. A , •> , 

enccofthe nvation than a natural conse- 

souis before quence, and that they had been 

o^fr bodies" l ° some otner tnin ? out of> tne 1)0tl y> 

confuted. they would retain some memory 

of their first being, the natural 

faculties that are proper to them of discoursing, 

reasoning, and remembering, being considered : 

Si in corpus nascentibus insinuatur, 
Cur super anteactam a-tatem meminisse nequimus, 
Nee vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus? 4 

"For at our birth if it infused be, 
Why do we then retain no memory 
Of our foregoing life, and why no more 
Remember anything we did before?" 

for, to make the condition of our souls such 
as we would have it to be, we must suppose 
them all-knowing, even in their natural sim- 
plicity and purity: by these means they had 
been such, being free from the prison of the 



' Horace, Od. iv. 4, 29. 

3 Lucret. iii. 741. 

» Plutarch, Why Divine Justice, %c. 

24* 



body, as well before they entered into it, as 
we hope they shall be after they are gone out 
of it : and from this knowledge it should follow 
that they should remember, being got in the 
body, as Plato said, 5 " That what we learn is 
no other than a remembrance of what we knew 
before;" a thing which every one by expe- 
rience may maintain to be false. Forasmuch, 
in the first place, as that we do not justly 
remember anything but what we have been 
taught, and that if the memory did purely per- 
form its office it would at least suggest to us 
something more than what we have learned. 
Secondly, that which she knew being in her 
purity, was a true knowledge, knowing things 
as they are by her divine intelligence : whereas 
here we make her receive falsehood and vice 
when we instruct her; wherein she cannot 
employ her reminiscence, that image and con- 
ception having never been planted in her. To 
say that the corporal prison does in such sort 
suffocate her natural faculties, that they are 
there utterly extinct, is first contrary to this 
other belief of acknowledging her power to be 
so great, and the operations of it that men 
sensibly perceive in this life so admirable, as 
to have thereby concluded that divinity and 
eternity past, and the immortality to come : 

Nam si tantopere est animi mutata potestas, 
Omnis ut actaruin exciderit retinentia rerum, 
Non, ut opinor, ea ab letho jam Iongior errat. 6 
"For if the mind be changed to that degree 
As of past things to lose all memory, 
So great a change as that, 1 must confess, 
Appears tome than death but little less." 

Furthermore, 'tis here with us. and not else- 
where, that the force and effects of the soul 
ought to be considered; all the rest of her 
perfections are vain and useless to her; 'tis by 
her present condition that all her immortality 
is to be rewarded and paid, and of the life c 
man only that she is to render an account, if. 
had been injustice to have stripped her of her 
means and powers; to have disarmed her in 
order, in the time of her captivity and imprison- 
ment in the flesh, of her weakness and infirmity 
in the time wherein she was forced and com- 
pelled, to pass an infinite and perpetual sentence 
and condemnation, and to insist upon the con- 
sideration of so short a time, peradventure but 
an hour or two, or at the most but a century, 
which has no more proportion with infinity 
than an instant; in this momentary interval 
to ordain and definitely to determine of her 
whole being; it were an unreasonable dispro- 
portion, too, to assign an eternal recompense in 
consequence of so short a life. Plato, 7 to de- 
fend himself from this inconvenience, wiii have 
future payments limited to the term of a him- 
dred years, relatively to human duration ; and 
of us ourselves there are enough who have 
given them temporal limits. By this they 



Lucret. iii. (171. 
In the Plucdo. 
Lucret. iii. 074. 



282 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



That the soul 
is born, and 
grows strong 
and weak with 



judged that the generation of the 
soul followed the common con- 
dition of human things, as also 
her life, according to the opi- 
nion of Epicurus and Democritus, 
which has been the most re- 
ceived; in consequence of these fine appear- 
ances that they saw it born, and that, according 
as the body grew more capable, they saw it 
increase in vigour as the other did ; that its 
feebleness in infancy was very manifest, and in 
time its better strength and maturity, and after 
that its declension and old age, and at last its 
decrepitude : 



They perceived it to be capable of divers pas- 
sions, and agitated with divers painful motions, 
whence it fell into lassitude and uneasiness; 
capable of alteration and change, of cheerful- 
ness, of stupidity and languor, and subject to 
diseases and injuries, as the stomach or the 



dazzled and intoxicated with the fumes of 
wine, justled from her seat by the vapours of a 
burning fever, laid asleep by the application of 
6ome medicaments, and roused by others, — 



"There must be of necessity, we find, 
A nature that's corporeal of the mind, 
Because we evidently see it smarts 
And wounded is with shafts the body darts ;" 

they saw it astonished and overthrown in all 
its faculties through the mere bite of a mad 
dog, and in that condition to have no stability 
of reason, no sufficiency, no virtue, no philo- 
sophical resolution, no resistance that could 
exempt it from the subjection of such accidents; 
the slaver of a contemptible cur shed upon the 
hand of Socrates, to shake all his wisdom and 
all his great and regulated imaginations, and 
so to annihilate them, as that there remained 
no trace of his former knowledge, — 

Vis animali 

Conturbatur ut . . . . divisa seorsum 
Disjectatur, eodem illo distracta veneno ;* 

The power of the soul's disturbed; and when 
That once is but sequestered from her, then 
By the same poison 'tis dispersed abroad;" 

and this poison to find no more resistance in 
that great soul than in an infant of four years 



i Lucret. iii. 446. 
2 Id. ib. 446. 
a Id. ib. 509. 



old : a poison sufficient to make all philosophy, 
if it were incarnate, become furious and mad ; 
insomuch that Cato, who ever disdained death 
and fortune, could not endure the sight of a 
looking-glass, or of water, overwhelmed with 
horror and affright at the thought of falling, 
by the contagion of a mad dog, into the disease 
called by physicians hydrophobia : 

Vis morbi distracta per artus 
Turbat agens aniniam, spumanles srquore salso 
Ventorum utvalidis lervescunt viribus undaj.s 

"Throughout the limbs diffused, the fierce disease 
Disturbs the soul, as in the briny seas, 
The foaming waves to swell and boil we see, 
Stirred by the wind's impetuosity." 

Now, as to this particular, philosophy has suf- 
ficiently armed man to encounter all other 
accidents either with patience, or, if the search 
of that costs too dear, by an infallible defeat, 
in totally depriving himself of all sentiment: 
but these are expedients that are only of use to 
a soul being itself, and in its full power, capable 
of reason and deliberation; but not at all proper 
for this inconvenience, where, in a philosopher, 
the soul becomes the soul of a madman, troubled, 
overturned, and lost : which many occasions may 
produce, as a too vehement agitation that any 
violent passion of the soul may beget in itself; 
or a wound in a certain part of the person, or 
vapours from the stomach, any of which may 
stupify the understanding and turn the brain. 

Morbis in corporis avius errat 
Saepe animus ; dementit enim, deliraque fatur; 
Interdumque gravi lethargo fertur in altum 
jEternumque soporem, oculis nutuque cadenti:^ 

"For when the body's sick, and ill at ease, 
The mind doth often share in the disease ; 
Wonders, grows wild, and raves, and sometimes by 
A heavy and a stupid lethargy, 
Is overcome and cast into a deep, 
A most profound and everlasting sleep." 

The philosophers, methinks, have not much 
touched this string, no more than another of 
equal importance: they have this dilemma 
continually in their mouths, to console our 
mortal condition: "The soul is either mortal 
or immortal ; if mortal, it will suffer no pain ; 
if immortal, it will change for the better." — 
They never touch the other branch, " What if 
she change for the worse V and leave to the 
poets the menaces of future torments. But 
thereby they make themselves a good game. 
These are two omissions that I often meet with 
in their discourses. I return to the first. 

This soul loses the use of the sovereign stoical 
good, so constant and so firm. Our fine human 
wisdom must here yield, and give up her arms. 
As to the rest, they also considered, by the 
vanity of human reason, that the mixture and 
association of two so contrary things as the 
mortal and the immortal, was unimaginable : 



* Lucret. iii. 176. 
6 Id. ib. 498. 
« Id. ib. 491. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Quippe etenim mortale rctorno jungcre, et una 
Conseutire putare et fungi mutua posse, 
Desipere est. Quid enim diversius esse putandum est, 
Aut magis inter no disjunctum discrc pitansque, 
Quam, inorlale quod est, irninortali at(|ue perenni 
Jnnctum, in concilio, sa;vas tolerare procellas? 1 

" The mortal and th' eternal, thon, to blend, 
And think they can pursue one common end, 
Is madness: for what things more dilPrent are, 
Distinct in nature, and disposed to jar? 
How can it then he thought that these should hear, 
When thus conjoined, of harms an equal share? 

Moreover, they perceived the soul tending to- 
wards death, as well as the body : 

Simul a;vo fessa fatiscit : a 

" Fatigued together with the weight of years :" 

which, according to Zeno, the image of sleep 
does sufficiently demonstrate to us ; for he looks 
upon it " as a fainting and fall of the soul, as 
well as of the body:" Conlrahi animum, et 
quasi labi putet alque decidere: 3 and, what 
they perceived in some, that the soul maintained 
its force and vigour to the last gasp of life, they 
attributed to the variety of diseases, as it is ob- 
servable in men at the last extremity, that some 
retain one sense, and some another ; one the 
hearing, and another the smell, without any 
manner of defect or alteration; and that there 
is not so universal a deprivation that some parts 
do not remain vigorous and entire : 

Non alio pacto, quam si, pes cum dolet a:gri, 
In nullo caput interea sit forte dolore. 4 

"So, often of gout a man complains, 
Whose head is, at the same time, free from pains." 

The sight of our judgment is, to truth, the 
same that the owl's eyes are to the splendour of 
the sun, says Aristotle. 5 By what can we bet- 
ter convince him, than by so gross blindness in 
so apparent a light ! For the contrary opinion 
of the immortality of the soul, which, Cicero 
says, was first introduced, according to the tes- 
timony of books at least, by Pherecides Syrius, 6 
in the time of King Tullus (though some attri- 
bute it to Thales, and others to others), 'tis the 
part of human science that is treated of with 
the greatest doubt and reservation. The most 
positive dogmatists are fain, in this point prin- 
cipally, to fly to the refuge of the Academy. 
No one doubts what Aristotle has established 
upon this subject, no more than all the ancients 
in general, who handle it with a wavering be- 
lief: Rem gratissimam promittentium magis 
quam probantium : 7 "A thing more acceptable 
in the promisors than the provcrs." He conceals 
himself in clouds of words of difficult, unintelli- 
gible sense, and has left to those of his sect as 
great a dispute about his judgment as about 
the matter itself 

Two things rendered this opinion plausible to 



1 Lucret. iii. 801. 

9 Cicero, de Divinat. ii. 58. 
< Lucret. iii. 111. 
5 Mctaphys. ii. 1. 



them; one, that, without the immortality of 
souls, there would be nothing 
whereon to ground the vain hopes T !'° foundation 
of glory, which is a consideration ',', t lb l ",',',', "i'''' 
of wonderful repute in the world ; immortality. 
the other, that it is a very profit- 
able impression, as Plato says, 8 that vices, when 
they escape the discovery and cognizance of 
human justice, are still within the reach of the 
divine, which will pursue them even after the 
death of the guilty. Man is excessively soli- 
citous to prolong his being, and has to the utmost 
of his power provided for it: there are monu- 
ments for the conservation of the body, and 
glory to preserve the name. He has employed 
all his wit and opinion to the rebuilding of 
himself, impatient of his fortune, and to prop 
himself by his inventions. The soul, by reason of 
its anxiety and impotence, being unable to stand 
by itself, wanders up and down to seek out 
consolations, hopes, and foundations, and alien 
circumstances, to which she adheres and fixes ; 
and how light or fantastic soever invention de- 
livers them to her, relies more willingly, and 
with greater assurance, upon them than upon 
herself. But 'tis wonderful to observe how the 
most constant and obstinate maintainers of this 
just and clear persuasion of the immortality of 
the soul fall short, and how weak their argu- 
ments are, when they go about to prove it by 
human reason: Somnia sunt non docenlis, sed 
optantis : " They are dreams not of the teacher, 
but wisher," says one of the ancients. 9 By 
which testimony man may know that he owes 
the truth he himself finds out to fortune and 
accident; since that even then, when it is fallen 
into his hand, he has not wherewith to hold 
and maintain it, and that his reason has not 
force to make use of it. All things produced 
by our own meditation and understanding, 
whether true or false, are subject to incertitude 
and controversy. 'Twas for the chastisement 
of our pride, and for the instruction of our 
miserable condition and incapacity, that God 
wrought the perplexity and confusion of the 
tower of Babel. Whatever we undertake with- 
out his assistance, whatever we see without the 
lamp of his grace, is but vanity and folly. We 
corrupt the very essence of truth, which is uni- 
form and constant, by our weakness, when 
fortune puts it into our possession. What 
course soever man takes of* himself, God still 
permits it to come to the same confusion, the 
image whereof he so lively represents to us in 
the just chastisement wherewith he crushed 
Nimrod's presumption, and frustrated the vain 
attempt of his proud structure ; Perdam sapien- 
tiam sapientium, et priidentiam prudeniium 
reprobabo. 10 "I will destroy the wisdom of the 
wise, and will bring to nothing the understand- 



» Of Siiros. Cicero, Tuse. Qiurs. i. If,, from whose text it 
WOnld appear that we should rather read Sing Tuliius. 
' Seneca, Epist. 1<K!. 
e Laws, x. Ki. 
» Cicero, Acad. ii. 38. 
io St, I'aul, 1 Corinthians, i. 19. 



284 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ing of the prudent." The diversity of idioms 
and tongues, with which he disturbed this work, 
what are they other than this infinite and per- 
petual alteration and discordance of opinions 
and reasons, which accompany and confound 
the vain building of human wisdom, and to 
very good effect too : for what would hold us, 
if we had but the least grain of knowledge? 
This saint has very much obliged me : Ipsa 
veritatis occultatio aut humilitalis exercitalio 
est, aut elationis attrition "The very conceal- 
ment of the truth is either an exercise of humi- 
lity or a quelling of presumption." To what a 
pitch of presumption and insolence do we raise 
our blindness and folly ! 

But to return to my subject. It was truly 

very good reason that we should 
Hon we r ar V e °e beholden to God only, and to 
assured of the the favour of his grace, for the 
taiHy immor ' truth of so noble a belief, since 

from his sole bounty we receive 
the fruit of immortality, which consists in the 
enjoyment of eternal beatitude. Let us inge- 
nuously confess that God alone has dictated it 
to us, and faith ; for 'tis no lesson of nature and 
our own reason. And whoever will inquire 
into his own being and power, both within and 
without, without this divine privilege; whoever 
shall consider man impartially, and without 
flattery, will see in him no efficacy or faculty 
that relishes of any thing but death and earth. 
The more we give and confess to owe and ren- 
der to God, we do it with the greater Christ- 
ianity That which this Stoic philosopher says 
he holds from the fortuitous consent of the 
popular voice : had it not been better that he 
had held it from God ] Cum de animorum 
seternitate disserimus, non leve momentum apud 
nos hapet consensus hominum aut timentium 
inferos, aut coleniium. Utor hac publico per- 
suasione. 2 " When we discourse of the immor- 
tality of souls, the consent of men that either 
fear or adore the infernal powers, is of no 
small advantage. I make use of this public 
persuasion." 

Now the weakness of human arguments upon 
this subject is particularly manifested by the 

fabulous circumstances they have 
tutes theToui's superaddedasconsequencesofthis 
immortality, opinion, to find out of what con- 
Be^erai n p S iiioso. dltion this immortality of ours 
phers. was. Let us omit the Stoics, 

{usuram nobis largiunlur lan- 
quam cornicibus ; diu mansuros aiunt animos ,- 
semper, negant? " They give us a long life, as 
also they do to crows; they say our soul shall 
continue long, but that it shall continue always 
they deny,") who give to souls a life after this, 
but finite. The most universal and received 



i St. August, de Civit. Dei, xi. 22. 

2 Seneca, Ej/ist. 117. 

s Cicero, Tuse. Qnces. i. 31. 

« In Persia, Hiridostan, and elsewhere. 

6 Laertius, in vitti. 

e JEneid, vi. 719. 



fancy, and that continues down to our times in 
various places, 4 is that of which they make 
Pythagoras the author; not that he was the 
original inventor, but because it received a great 
deal of weight and repute by the authority of 
his approbation : " That souls, at their depar- 
ture out of us, did nothing but shift from one 
body to another, from a lion to a horse, from a 
horse to a king, continually travelling at this 
rate from habitation to habitation ;" and he 
himself said that he remembered he had been 
iEthalides, 6 since that Euphorbus, afterwards 
Hermotimus, and, finally, from Pyrrhus was 
passed into Pythagoras; having a memory of 
himself of two hundred and six years. And 
some have added that these very souls some- 
times mount up to heaven, and come down 
again : 

O pater, anne aliquas ad cceltim hinc ire putandum est 
Sublimes auimas, iterumque ad tarda rrverti 
Corpora? dure lucis miseris tam dira cupido?" 
" O, father, is it then to be conceiv'd 
That any of these spirits, so sublime, 
Should hence to th« celestial regions climb, 
And thence return to earth to re-assume 
Their sluggish bodies rotting in a tomb? 
For wretched life whence does such fondness come V 

Origen makes them eternally to go and come 
from a better to a worse estate. The opinion 
that Varro 7 mentions is that, after four hundred 
and forty years' revolution, they should be re- 
united to their first bodies; Chrysippus 8 held 
that this would happen after a certain space of 
time unknown and unlimited. Plato, 9 who pro- 
fesses to have embraced this belief from Pindar 
and the ancient poets, that we are to undergo 
infinite vicissitudes of mutation, for which the 
soul is prepared, having neither punishment nor 
reward in the other world but what is temporal, 
as its life here is but temporal, concludes that 
it has a singular knowledge of the affairs of 
heaven, of hell, of the world, through all which 
it has passed, re-passed, and made stay in several 
voyages ; fit matters for her memory. Observe 
her progress elsewhere : 10 " The soul that has 
lived well is re-united to the stars to which it is 
assigned ; that which has lived ill removes into 
a woman, and if it do not there reform, is again 
removed into a beast of condition suitable to its 
vicious manners, and shall see no end of its 
punishments till it be returned to its natural 
constitution, and that it has, by the force of 
reason, purged itself from those gross, stupid, 
and elementary qualities it was polluted with." 
But I will not omit the objection the Epicureans 
make against this transmigration from one body 
to another ; 'tis a pleasant one ; they ask what 
expedient would be found out if the number of 
the dying should chance to be greater than that 
of those who are coming into the world. For 



'As that of some "casters of nativities," trcnrililiari 
quidam. The passage is in St. August, de Civit. Dei, 
xxii. 28. 

s Lactantius, Div. Inst. vii. 23. 

» In the Merton. 

» In the Timteus. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



285 



the souls, turned out of their old habitation, 
would scuffle and crowd which should first get 
possession of their new lodging; and they fur- 
ther demand how they shall pass away their 
time, whilst waiting till new quarters are 
made ready for them'! Or, on the contrary, if 
more animals should be born than die, the body, 
they say, would be but in an ill condition whilst 
waiting for a soul to be infused into it; and it 
would fall out that some bodies would die before 
they had been alive. 

Dcnique connubia ad veneris, partusque ferarum 
Esse anurias pnesto, deridiciilum esse videtur; 
Et spectare immortales mortalia membra 
Innum ro numcro, certareque prceproperanter 
Inter se, qua; prima potissimaque insinueter.i 
"Absurd to think that whilst wild beasts beget, 
Or bear their young, a thousand souls do wait, 
Expect the (ailing body, fight and strive 
Which first shall enter in and make it live." 

Others have arrested the soul in the body of the 
deceased, with it to animate serpents, worms, 
and other beasts, which are said to be bred out 
of the corruption of our members, and even out 
of our ashes; others divide them into two parts, 
the one mortal, the other immortal; others 
make it corporeal, and nevertheless immortal. 
Some make it immortal, without sense or know- 
ledge. There are others, even among ourselves, 
who have believed that devils were made of the 
souls of the damned; as Plutarch thinks that 
gods were made of those that were saved; for 
there are few things which that author is so 
positive in as he is in this; maintaining else- 
where a doubtful and ambiguous way of expres- 
sion. " We are told," says he, " and stedfastly 
should believe, that the souls of virtuous men, 
both according to nature and the divine justice, 
become saints, and from saints demi-gods, and 
from demi-gods, after they are perfectly, as in 
sacrifices of purgation, cleansed and purified, 
being delivered from all passibility and all mor- 
tality, they become, not by any civil decree, but 
in real truth, and according to all probability of 
reason, entire and perfect gods, in receiving a 
most happy and glorious end." But who de- 
sires to see him — him, who is yet the most sober 
and moderate of the whole gang of philosophers, 
lay about him with greater boldness, and relate 
his miracles upon this subject, I refer him to the 
treatise of the Moon, and of the Damon of 
Socrates, where he may, as evidently as in any 
other place whatever, satisfy himself 2 that the 
mysteries of philosophy have many strange 
things in common with those of poetry ; human 
understanding losing itself in attempting to 
sound and search all things to the bottom ; even 
as we, tired and worn out with a long course of 
life, return to infancy and dotage. See here the 
fine and certain instructions which we extract 
from human knowledge concerning the soul. 
Neither is there less temerity in what they 



teach us touching our corporal parts. Let us 
choose out one or two examples ; for otherwise 
we should lose ourselves in this vast and trou- 
bled ocean of medical errors. Let us first know 
whether, at least, they agree about 
the matter whereof men produce Opinions as to 
one another; for as to their first SSaSSS*^™* 
production it is no wonder if, in human body, 
a thing so high and so long since 
past, human understanding finds itself puzzled 
and perplexed. Archelaus, the physician, whose 
disciple and favourite Socrates was, according 
to Aristoxenus, said 3 that both men and beasts 
were made of a lacteous slime, expressed by the 
heat of the earth; Pythagoras says 4 that our 
seed is the foam or cream of our better blood ; 
Plato, that it is the distillation of the marrow of 
the back-bone; raising his argument from this, 
that that part is first sensible of being weary of 
the work; Alcmeon, that it is part of the sub- 
stance of the brain, and that it is so, says he, is 
proved by the weakness of the eyes in those who 
are immoderate in that exercise; Democritus, 
that it is a substance extracted from the whole 
mass of the body ; Epicurus, an extract 
from soul and body; Aristotle, an excrement 
drawn from the aliment of the blood, the last 
which is diffused over our members; others, 
that it is a blood concocted and digested by the 
heat of the genitals, which they judge, by reason 
that in excessive endeavours a man voids pure 
blood ; wherein there seems to be more likeli- 
hood, could a man extract any appearance from 
so infinite a confusion. Now, to bring this seed 
to do its work, how many contrary opinions do 
they set on foot? Aristotle 5 and Democritus 
are of opinion that women have no sperm, and 
that 'tis nothing but a sweat that they distil 
in the heat of pleasure and motion, and that 
contributes nothing at all to generation. Galen, 
on the contrary, and his followers, believe that 
without the concurrence of seeds there can be 
no generation. Here are the physicians, the 
philosophers, the lawyers, and divines, by the 
ears with our wives about the Time of w0 
dispute, " For what term women mens preg- 
carry their fruit?" and I, for my nancy undeter- 
part, by the example of myself mi " e ' 
stick with those that maintain a woman goes 
eleven months with child. The world is built 
upon this experience; there is no so common- 
place a woman that cannot give her judgment 
in all these controversies; and yet we cannot 
agree. 

'Here is enough to verify that man is no 
better instructed in the knowledge of himself, 
in his corporal than in his spiritual part. We 
have proposed himself to himself, and his reason 
to his reason, to see what she could say. I 
think I have sufficiently demonstrated how 
little she understands herself in herself; and 



i Lucret. iii. 777. 

= Life of Romulus, c. 14. 

' Laertius, in vita. 



* Plutarch, On the Op. of the Pltilos., whenco the follow. 
ing examples are also taken. 

' Plutarch, ut supra, adds Zeno to Aristotle, and snys 
expressly that Democritus, on the contrary, held thai 

lnn;iLs .-bed their seed. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



who understands not himself in himself, in 
what can he] Quasi vero mensuram ullius 
rei pos.sit agere, qui sui nesciat. 1 " As if he 
could understand the measure of any other 
thing, that knows not his own." In earnest, 
Protagoras 2 told as a pretty flam in making 
man the measure of all things, that never knew 
so much as his own ; and if it be not he, his 
dignity will not permit that any other creature 
should have this advantage ; now he being so 
contrary in himself, and one judgment so in- 
cessantly subverting another, this favourable 
proposition was but a mockery, which induced 
us necessarily to conclude the nullity of the 
compass and the compasser. When Thales 3 
reputes the knowledge of man very difficult for 
man to comprehend, he at the same time gives 
him to understand that all other knowledge is 
impossible. 

You," for whom I have taken the pains, con- 
trary to my custom, to write so long a dis- 
course, will not refuse to support your Sebond 
by the ordinary forms of arguing, wherewith 
you are every day instructed, and in this will 
exercise both your wit and learning; for this 
last fencing trick is never to be made use of 
but as an extreme remedy ; 'tis a desperate 
thrust, wherein you are to quit your own arms 
to make your adversary abandon his; and a 
6ecret sleight, which must be very rarely, and 
then very reservedly, put in practice. Tis 
great temerity to lose yourself that you may 
destroy another; you must not die to be re- 
venged, as Gobrias did; for, being closely 
grappled in combat with a lord of Persia, 
Darius coming in sword in hand, and fearing 
to strike lest he should kill Gobrias, he called 
out to him boldly to fall on, though he should 
run them both through at once. 5 I have known 
desperate weapons, and conditions of single 
combat, and wherein he that offered them put 
himself and his adversary upon terms of in- 
evitable death to them both, censured for unjust. 
The Portuguese, in the Indian Sea, took cer- 
tain Turks prisoners, who, impatient of their 
captivity, resolved, and it succeeded, by striking 
the nails of the ship one against another, and 
making a spark to fall into the barrels of 
powder that were set in the place where they 
were guarded, to blow up and reduce them- 
selves, their masters, and the vessel to ashes. 
We here touch the out-plate and utmost limits 
of sciences, wherein the extremity is vicious, 
as in virtue. Keep yourselves in the common 
road ; it is not good to be so subtle and cunning. 
Remember the Tuscan proverb : 

Clii troppo s'assottiglia. si scavezza. 6 

"Who makes himself too wise, becomes a fool." 

I advise you that, in all your opinions and dis- 



' Plinv, Jfat. Hist. ii. 1. 

2 Sextus Empiric. Mv. Math. 

3 Laertius, in vita. 

i The author, as we have already mentioned, is addressing 
Margaret de Valois, Q.ueen of Navarre. 



courses, as well as in your manners and all 
other things, you keep yourself moderate and 
temperate, and avoid novelty ; I am an enemy 
to all extravagant ways. You, who by the 
a'uthority of your grandeur, and yet more by 
the advantages which those qualities give you 
that are more your own, may with the twinkle 
of an eye command whom you please, ought to 
have given this charge to some one who made 
profession of letters, who might after a better 
manner have proved and illustrated these things 
to you. But here is as much as you will stand 
in need of. 

Epicurus said of the laws, 7 " That the worst 
were so necessary for us that 
without them men would devour J f h f a ^?o S keep 
one another." And Plato 8 affirms, men in order. 
"That without laws we should 
live like beasts." Our wit is a wandering, 
dangerous, and temerarious utensil ; it is hard 
to couple any order or measure to it; in those 
of our own time, who are endued with any 
rare excellence above others, or any extraor- 
dinary vivacity of understanding, we see them 
almost all lash out into licentiousness of opinions 
and manners ; and 'tis almost a miracle to find 
one temperate and sociable. 'Tis all the reason 
in the world to limit human wit within the 
strictest limits imaginable; in study, as in all 
the rest, we ought to have its steps and advances 
numbered and fixed, and that the limits of its 
inquisition be bounded by art. It is curbed and 
fettered by religions, laws, customs, sciences, 
precepts, mortal and immortal penalties. And 
yet we see that it escapes from all these bonds 
by its volubility and dissolution; 'tis a vain 
body which has nothing to lay hold on or to 
seize ; a various and difform body, incapable of 
being either bound or held. In earnest, there 
are few souls so regular, firm, and well de- 
scended, as are to be trusted with their own 
conduct, and that can with moderation, and 
without temerity, sail in the liberty of their 
own judgments, beyond the common and re- 
ceived opinions; 'tis more expedient to put 
them under pupilage. Wit is a dangerous 
weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not 
how to use it discreetly; and there is not a 
beast to whom a head-board is more justly to 
be given, to keep his looks down and before 
his feet, and to hinder him from wandering 
here and there out of the tracks which custom 
and the laws have laid before him. And there- 
fore it will be better for you to keep yourself in 
the beaten path, let it be what it will, than to 
fly out at a venture with this unbridled liberty. 
But if any of these new doctors will pretend to 
be ingenious in your presence, at the expense 
both of your soul and his own, to avoid this 
dangerous plague, which is every day laid in 

6 Herod, iii. 78. 
o Petrarch, canz. xi. v. 48. 
' Plutarch, Jlgainst Colotes. 
6 Laws, ix. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



287 



your way to infect you, this preservative, in 
the extrnmest necessity, will prevent the danger 
and hinder the contagion of this poison from 
offending either you or your company. 

The liberty, then, and frolic forwardness of 
these ancient wits produced in philosophy and 
human sciences several sects of different opi- 
nions, every one undertaking to judge and 
make choice of what he would stick to and 
maintain. But now that men go all one way, 
Qui cerlis quibusdam destinalisqve sententiis 
addicti el consecrali sunt, ut etiam, qum non 
probanl, cngantur defendere, 1 "Who are so 
tied and obliged to certain opinions that they 
are bound to defend even those they do not 
approve," and that we receive the arts by civil 
authority and decree, so that the schools have 
but one pattern, and a like circumscribed in- 
stitution and discipline, we no more take notice 
what the coin weighs, and is really worth, but 
every one receives it according to the estimate 
that common approbation and use puts upon it ; 
the alloy is not questioned, but how much it is 
current for. In like manner all things pass; 
we take physic as we do geometry ; and tricks 
of hocus-pocus, enchantments, and love-spells, 
the correspondence of the souls of the dead, 
prognostications, domifications, 2 and even this 
ridiculous pursuit of the philosophers' stone, all 
things pass for current pay, without any man- 
ner of scruple or contradiction. We need to 
know no more but that Mars' house is in the 
middle of the triangle of the hand, that of 
Venus in the thumb, and that of Mercury in 
the little finger ; that when the table-line cuts 
the tubercle of the fore-finger 'tis a sign of 
cruelty, that when it falls short of the middle 
finger, and that the natural median-line makes 
an angle with the vital in the same side, 'tis a 
sign of a miserable death ; that if in a woman 
the natural line be open, and does not close the 
angle with the vital, this denotes that she shall 
not be very chaste. I leave you to judge whether 
a man qualified with such knowledge may 
not pass with reputation and esteem in all 
companies. 

Theophrastus said that human knowledge, 

guided by the senses, might judge of the causes 

of things to a certain degree; 

The extent of Dut t | lat \j em „ arr i ve d to first 

human know- , ° 

icige. and extreme causes, it must stop 

short and retire, by reason either 

of its own infirmity or the difficulty of things. 

'Tis a moderate and gentle opinion, that our 

own understandings may conduct us to the 

knowledge of some things, and that it has 

certain measures of power, beyond which 'tis 

temerity to employ it: this opinion is plausible, 

and introduced by men of well composed minds, 

but 'tis hard to limit our wit, which is curious 

and greedy, and will no more stop at a thou- 



' Cicero, T\ao. Qva-s. ii. 2. 

a A term of astrology, signifying Hie arrangement of the 
lumens into twelve house*, for the purpose of casting 
nativiles. 



sand than at fifty paces; having experimentally 
found that, wherein one has failed, the other 
has hit, and that what was unknown to one 
age, the age following has explained ; and that 
arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but 
are formed and perfected by degrees, by often 
handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick 
their cubs into form ; what my force cannot 
discover, I do not yet desist to sound and to 
try; and by handling and kneading this new 
matter over and over again, by turning and 
heating it, I lay open to him that shall succeed 
me, a kind of facility to enjoy it more at his 
ease, and make it more maniable and supple 
for him, 

Ut hymettia sole 
Cera remollesrit, tractmaque pollice multas 
Vertitur in facies, ipsoque fit utilis usu; 8 

"As wax doth softer in the sun become, 
And, tempered 'twixt the finger and the thumb, 
Will various forms, and several shapes admit, 
Till for the present use 'tis rendered fit ;" 

as much will the second do for the third : which 
is the cause that the difficulty ought not to 
make me despair, and my own incapacity as 
little; for 'tis nothing but my own. 

Man is as capable of all things as of some ; 
and if he confesses, as Theophrastus says, the 
ignorance of first causes, let him 
at once surrender all the rest T h '; t h, 1 " n 1! n " " n " 
of his knowledge; if he is defec- capable of S '" 
tive in foundation, his reason is attaining to 
aground : disputation and inquiry k^mvj'edge'of 
have no other aim nor stop but things, 
principles; if this aim do not stop 
fiis career, he runs into an infinite irresolution. 
Non potest aliud alio magis minusve compre- 
kendi quo niam omnium rerum una est definitio 
comprehendendi : 4 " One thing can no more or 
less be comprehended than another, because the 
definition of comprehending all things is the 
same." Now 'tis very likely that, if the soul 
knew any thing, it would in the first place 
know itself; and if it knew any thing out of 
itself, it would be its own body and case, before 
any thing else. If we see the gods of physic to 
this very day debating about our anatomy, 

Mulciber in Trojam, pro Troja stabat Apollo ; & 
" Vulcan against, for Troy Apollo stood j" 

when are we to expect that they will be agreed ? 
We are nearer neighbours to ourselves than 
whiteness to snow, or weight to stones. If man 
do not know himself, how should he know his 
force and functions? It is not, perhaps, that we 
have not some real knowledge in us ; but 'tis 
by chance; forasmuch as errors are received 
into our soul by the same way, after the same 
manner, and by the same conduct, it has not 
wherewithal to distinguish them, nor where- 
withal to choose the truth from falsehood. 



a Ovid, Met. x. 294. 
• Cicero, Acad. ii. 41. 
5 Ovid, Trist. i. 2, 5. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The Academics admitted a certain partiality 
of judgment, and thought it too crude to say 
that it was not more likely to say that snow 
was white than black; and that we were no 
more assured of the motion of a stone, thrown 
by the hand, than of that of the eighth sphere. 
And to avoid this difficulty and strangeness, 
that can in truth hardly lodge in our imagina- 
tion, though they concluded that we were in no 
sort capable of knowledge, and that truth is 
engulfed in so profound an abyss as is not to be 
penetrated by human sight; yet they acknow- 
ledged some things to be more likely than 
others, and received into their judgment this 
faculty, that they had a power to incline to one 
appearance more than another, they allowed 
him this propension, interdicting all resolution. 
The Pyrrhonian opinion is more bold, and also 
. . somewhat more likely; for this 

th/ Academics academic inclination, and this 
not so easy to propension to one proposition 

ftattfttePy" rather than another . what is il 
rhonists. other than a recognition of some 

more apparent truth in this than 
in that? If our understanding be capable of 
the form, lineaments, port, and face of truth, 
it might as well see it entire as by halves, 
springing and imperfect. This appearance of 
likelihood, which makes them rather take the 
left hand than the right, augments it : multiply 
this ounce of verisimilitude that turns the scales 
to a hundred, to a thousand, ounces; it will 
happen in the end that the balance will itself 
end the controversy, and determine one choice, 
one entire truth. But why do they suffer them- 
selves to incline to and be swayed by verisimi- 
litude, if they know not the truth? How 
should they know the similitude of that where- 
of they do not know the essence 1 Either we 
can absolutely judge, or absolutely we cannot. 
If our intellectual and sensible faculties are 
without foot or foundation, if they only pull 
and drive, 'tis to no purpose that we suffer our 
judgments to be carried away with any part of 
their operation, what appearance soever they 
may seem to present us; and the surest and 
most happy seat of our understanding would 
be that where it kept itself temperate, upright, 
and inflexible, without tottering, or without 
agitation : Inter visa vera, aut falsa, ad animi 
assensum, nihil interest: 1 "Amongst things 
that seem, whether true or false, it signifies 
nothing to the assent of the mind." That 
things do not lodge in us in their form and 
essence, and do not there make their entry by 
their own force and authority, we sufficiently see: 
because, if it were so, we should receive them 
after the same manner ; wine would have the 
same relish with the sick as with the healthful ; 
he who has his finger chapt or benumbed would 
find the same hardness in wood or iron that he 
handles that another does ; foreign subjects then 
surrender themselves to our mercy, and are 



seated in us as we please. Now if on our part 
we received any thing without alteration, if 
human grasp were capable and strong enough 
to seize on truth by our own means, these means 
being common to all men, this truth would be 
conveyed from hand to hand, from one to an- 
other; and at least there would be some one 
thing to be found in the world, amongst so 
many as there are, that would be believed by 
men with an universal «onsent: but this, that 
there is no one proposition that is not debated 
and controverted amongst us, or that may not 
be, makes it very manifest that our natural 
judgment does not very clearly discern what it 
embraces ; for my judgment cannot make my 
companions approve of what it approves : which 
is a sign that I seized it by some other means 
than by a natural power that is in me and in 
all other men. 

Let us lay aside this infinite confusion of 
opinions, which we see even amongst the phi- 
losophers themselves, and this perpetual and 
universal dispute about the knowledge of things : 
for this is truly pre-supposed, that men, I mean 
the most knowing, the best born, and of the 
best parts, are not agreed about any one thing, 
not that heaven is over our heads ; for they that 
doubt of every thing do also doubt of that ; and 
they who deny that we are able to comprehend 
any thing say that we have not comprehended 
that the heaven is over our heads, and these 
two opinions are, without comparison, the 
stronger in number. 

Besides this infinite diversity and division, 
through the trouble that our judgment gives 
ourselves, and the incertainty that every one is 
sensible of in himself, 'tis easy to 
perceive that its seat is very un- wnX'vfryone 
stable and insecure. How vari- may perceive in 
ously do we judge of things? — JUentT" ^' dg 
How often do we alter our opi- 
nions? What I hold and believe to-day I hold 
and believe with my whole belief; all my in- 
struments and engines seize and take hold of 
this opinion, and become responsible to me for 
it, at least as much as in them lies ; I could not 
embrace nor conserve any truth with greater 
confidence and assurance than I do this; I am 
wholly and entirely possessed with it : but has 
it not befallen me, not only once, but a hun- 
dred, a thousand times, every day, to have em- 
braced some other thing with all the same 
instruments, and in the same condition, which 
I have since judged to be false? A man must 
at least become wise at his own expense: if I 
have often found myself betrayed under this 
colour; if my touch proves commonly false, 
and my balance unequal and unjust, what assu- 
rance can I now have more than at other times? 
Is it not stupidity and madness to suffer myself 
to be so often deceived by my guide? Never- 
theless let fortune remove and shift us five 
hundred times from place to place, let her do 
nothing but incessantly empty and fill into our 
belief, as into a vessel, other and other opinions ; 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



289 



yet still the present and the last is the certain 
and infallible one: for this we must abandon 
goods, honour, lite, health, and all. 



Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we 
learn, we should still remember that it is man 
that gives and man that receives ; 'tis a mortal 
hand that presents it to us, 'tis a mortal hand 
that accepts it. The things that come to us 
from heaven have the sole right and authority 
of persuasion, the sole mark of truth : which 
also we do not see with our own eyes, nor 
receive by our own means ; that great and 
sacred image could not abide in so wretched a 
habitation if God for this end did not prepare 
it, if God did not by his particular and super- 
natural grace and favour fortify and reform it. 
At least our frail and defective condition ought 
to make us behave ourselves with more reserved- 
ness and moderation in our innovations and 
changes: we ought to remember that, whatever 
we receive into the understanding, we often 
receive things that are false, and that it is by 
the same instruments that so often give them- 
selves the lie and are so often deceived. 

Now it is no wonder they should so often 
contradict themselves, being so easy to be turned 
and swayed by very light occurrences. It is 
certain that our apprehensions, 
The judgment our judgment, and the faculties 
depends very f t | ie sou ] j n general, suffer ac- 

niiicli on tlie >• . ., n . , 

altera i ions of cording to the movements and 
the body. alterations of the body, which 

alterations are continual. Are 
not our minds more sprightly, our memories 
more prompt and quick, and our thoughts more 
lively, in health than in sickness? Do not joy 
and gaiety make us receive subjects that pre- 
sent themselves to our souls quite otherwise 
than care and melancholy! Do you believe 
that Catullus's verses, or those of Sappho, please 
an old doting miser as they do a vigorous, 
amorous young man? Cleomenes, the son of 
Anexandridas, being sick, his friends reproached 
him that he had humours and whimsies that 
were new and unaccustomed ; " I believe it," 
said he; 2 "neither am I the same man now as 
when I am in health : being now another per- 
son, my opinions and fancies are also other 
than they were before." In our courts of 
justice this word is much in use, which is spoken 
of criminals when they find the judges in a 
good humour, gentle and mild, Gaudeat de 
bona for tuna ,• " Let him rejoice in his good 
fortune;" for it is most certain that men's 
judgments are sometimes more prone to con- 
demnation, more sharp and severe, and at 
others more facile, easy, and inclined to excuse : 
he that carries with "him from his house the 



i Lucret, v. 1413. 

' Plutarch, jjpotli. qfthc Lacedemonians. 

25 



pain of the gout, jealousy, or theft by his man, 
having his whole soul possessed with anger, it 
is not to be doubted hut that his judgment will 
lean this way. That venerable senate of the 
Areopagites used to hear and determine by 
night, for fear lest the sight of the parties 
might corrupt their justice. The very air 
itself; and the serenity of heaven, will cause 
some mutation in us, according to these verses 
in Cicero : 

Tales sunt hominum mentes. qiiales pater ipse 
Jupiter auctifera lustravit lampade terras.' 
" Men's minds are influene'd by tlf external air, 
Dark or serene, as days are foul or fair." 

'Tis not only fevers, debauches, and great acci- 
dents, that overthrow our judgments, — the least 
things in the world will do it; and we are not 
to doubt, though we may not be sensible of it, 
that if a continued fever can overwhelm the 
soul, a tertian will in some proportionate mea- 
sure alter it; if an apoplexy can stupify and 
totally extinguish the sight of our understand- 
ing, we are not to doubt but that a great cold 
will dazzle it: and consequently there is hardly 
one single hour in a man's whole life wherein 
our judgment is in its due place and right 
condition, our bodies being subject to so many 
continual mutations, and stuffed with so many 
several sorts of springs, that I believe the phy- 
sicians, that it is hard but that there must be 
always some one or other out of order. 

As to what remains, this malady does not 
very easily discover itself, unless The weakness 
it be extreme and past remedy; ofourjuri»- 
forasmuch as reason goes always merit not easy to 
lame, halting, and that too as be d " c ^ e '^- 
well with falsehood as with truth ; and there- 
fore 'tis hard to discover her deviations and 
mistakes. I always call that appearance of 
meditation which every one forges in himself, 
reason: this reason, of the condition of which 
there may be a hundred contrary ones about 
one and the same subject, is an instrument of 
lead and of wax, ductile, pliable, and accom- 
modate to all sorts of biasses, and to all measures; 
so that nothing remains but the art and skill 
how to turn and mould it. How uprightly 
soever a judge may mean, if he does not look 
well to himself! which few care to do, his 
inclination to friendship, to relationship, to 
beauty or revenge, and not only things of that 
weight, but even the fortuitous instinct that 
makes us favour one thing more than anothei, 
and that, without reason's permission, puts the 
choice upon us in two equal subjects, or some 
shadow of like vanity, may insensibly insinuate 
into his judgment the recommendation or dis- 
favour of a cause, and make the balance dip. 

I, that watch myself as narrowly as I can, 
and that have my eyes continually bent upon 
myself, like one that has DO great business 
to do elsewhere, 



s Verses translated liv Cicero from the Oi/vssfi/, xviii. 135. 
and preserved by St. AugUStin, de Cult. Vci v. 8. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Gluis suh Arcto 
r?f\ scli'liR metuatur one. 
Quid Tiridatem terreat, unice 
Securas.i 



dare hardly tell the weakness and vanity I find 
in myself. My foot is so unstable and unsteady, 
I find myself so apt to totter and reel, and my 
sight so disordered, that, fasting-, I am quite 
another man than when full ; if health and a 
fair day smile upon me, I am a very affable, 
good-natured man; if a corn trouble my toe, 
I am sullen, out of humour, and not to be seen. 
The same pace of a horse seems to rne one 
while hard, and another easy; and the same 
way one while shorter, and another longer; 
and the same form one while more, another 
less agreeable : I am one while for doing every 
thing, and another for doing nothing at all; 
and what pleases me now would be a trouble 
to me at another time. I have a thousand 
senseless and casual actions within myself; 
either I am possessed by melancholy or swayed 
by choler; now by its own private autho- 
rity sadness predominates in me, and by and 
bye, I am as merry as a cricket. When I 
take a book in hand I have then discovered 
admirable graces in such and such passages, 
and such as have struck my soul ; let me light 
upon them at another time, I may turn and 
toss, tumble and rattle the leaves to no pur- 
pose; 'tis then to me an inform and undis- 
covered mass. Even in my own writings I do 
not always find the air of my first fancy: 1 
know not what I would have said, and am 
often put to it to correct and pump for a new 
sense, because I have lost the first that was 
better. I do nothing but go and come : my 
judgment does not always advance — it floats 
and roams: 

Deprensa i 



Very often, as I am apt to do, having for 
exercise taken to maintain an opinion contrary 
to my own, my mind, bending and applying 
itself that way, does so engage me that way 
that I no more discern the reason of my former 
belief, and forsake it. I am, as it were, misled 
by the side to which I incline, be it what it 
will, and carried away by my own weight. 
Every one almost would say the same of him- 
self, if he considered himself as I do. Preachers 
very well know that the emotions which steal 
upon them in speaking animate them towards 
belief; and that in passion we are more warm 
in the defence of our proposition, take ourselves 
a deeper impression of it, and embrace it with 
greater vehemence and approbation than we 
do in our colder and more temperate state. 



You only give your counsel a simple brief of 
your cause: he returns you a dubious and 
uncertain answer, by which you find him in- 
different which side he takes. Have you feed 
him well that he may relish it the better, does 
he begin to be really concerned, and do you 
find him interested and zealous in your quarrel ! 
his reason and learning will by degrees grovr 
hot in your cause; behold an apparent and 
undoubted truth presents itself to his under- 
standing; he discovers a new light in your 
business, and does in good earnest believe and 
persuade himself that it is so. Nay, I do not 
know whether the ardour that springs from 
spite and obstinacy, against the power and 
violence of the magistrate and danger, or the 
interest of reputation, may not have made 
some men, even at the stake, maintain the 
opinion for which, at liberty, and amongst 
friends, they would not have burned a finger. 
The shocks and justles that the soul receives 
from the body's passions can do much in it, 
but its own can do a great deal more: to which 
it is so subjected that perhaps it may be made 
good that it has no other pace and motion. but 
from the breath of those winds, without the 
agitation of which it would be becalmed and 
without action, like a ship in the middle of the 
sea, to which the winds have denied their as- 
sistance. And whoever should maintain this, 
siding with the Peripatetics, would do us no 
great wrong, seeing it is very well known that 
the greatest and most noble actions of the soul 
proceed from, and stand in need of, this impulse 
of the passions. Valour, they say, cannot be 
perfect without the assistance of anger : Semper 
Ajax fortis, fortissimus tamen in furore i^ 
"Ajax was always brave, but most when in 
a fury :" neither do we encounter the wicked 
and the enemy vigorously enough if we be not 
angry ; nay, the advocate, it is said, is to inspire 
the judges with indignation, to obtain justice. 

Irregular desires moved Themistocles, and 
Demosthenes, and have pushed 
on the philosophers to watching, Jons'animaw 
fasting, and pilgrimages; and and accompany 
lead us to honour, learning, and ^""tues"''' 
health, which are all very useful 
ends. And this meanness of soul, in suffering 
anxiety and trouble, serves to breed remorse 
and repentance in the conscience, and to make 
us sensible of the scourge of God, and politic 
correction for the chastisement of our offences ; 
compassion is a spur to clemency; and the 
prudence of preserving and governing ourselves 
is roused by our fear; and how many brave 
actions by ambition ! How many by presump- 
tion ! In short, there is no brave and spiritual 
virtue without some irregular agitation. May 
not this be one of the reasons that moved the 
Epicureans to discharge God from all care and 
solicitude of our affairs ; because even the effects 

' Cicero, 7Vi.sc Quits, iv. 23. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



201 



of his goodness could not be exercised in our 
behalf without disturbing its repose, by the 
means of passions which are so many spurs and 
instruments pricking on the soul to virtuous 
actions; or have they thought otherwise, and 
taken them for tempests, that shamefully hurry 
the soul from her tranquillity'! Ut maris tran- 
quillitas intelligitur, nulla, ne minima quidem, 
aurajluctus cmnmovenle: Sic animi quietus el 
placatus status cernitur ; quum perlurbatio 
nulla est, qua rnoveri queat. 1 "As it is under- 
stood to be a calm sea when there is not the 
least breath of air stirring: so the state of 
the soul is discerned to be quiet and appeased 
when there is no perturbation to move it." 

What varieties of sense and reason, what 
contrariety of imagination does the diversity of 
our passions inspire us with ! What assurance 
then can we take of a thing so mobile and un- 
stable, subject by its condition to the dominion 
of trouble, and never going other than a forced 
and borrowed pace? If our judgment be in 
the power even of sickness and perturbation ; 
if it be from folly and rashness that it is to 
receive the impression of things, what security 
can we expect from if! 

Is it not a great boldness in philosophy to 
believe that men perform the greatest actions, 
and nearest approaching the Divinity, when 
they are furious, mad, and beside themselves? 2 
We better ourselves by the privation of our 
reason, and by drilling it. The 
way"ofeii- tw0 natural ways to enter into 
trance into the the cabinet of the gods, and there 
gods'.' 6 ' ° f " ie t0 fore * ee the co,lrse of destiny, 
are fury and sleep. 3 This is plea- 
sant to consider; by the dislocation that pas- 
sions cause in our reason, we become virtuous ; 
by its extirpation, occasioned by madness or the 
image of death, we become diviners and pro- 
phets. I was never so willing to believe phi- 
losophy in any thing as this. 'Tis a pure 
enthusiasm wherewith sacred truth has inspired 
the spirit of philosophy, which makes it confess, 
contrary to its own proposition, that the most 
calm, composed, and healthful estate of the soul 
that philosophy can seat it in is not its best 
condition: our waking is more a sleep than 
sleep itself our wisdom less wise than folly; 
our dreams are worth more than our meditation ; 
and the worst place we can take is in ourselves. 
But does not philosophy think that we are wise 
enough to consider that the voice that the spirit 
utters, when dismissed from man, so clear- 
sighted, so great, and so perfect, and whilst it 
is in man so terrestrial, ignorant, and dark, is 
a voice proceeding from the spirit of dark, ter- 
restrial and ignorant man, and for this reason 
a voice not to be trusted and believed ? 

I, being of a soft and heavy complexion, 
have no great experience of these vehement agi- 
tations, the most of which surprise the sou Ion 



What an aecen- 



a sudden, without giving it leisure 

to recollect itself. But the pas- ,1.,.,, , 

sion that is said to be produced -i 

by idleness in the hearts of JJ£J,| he hum8n 
young men, though it proceed 
leisurely, and with a measured progress, does 
evidently manifest, to those who have tried to 
oppose its power, the violence our judgment 
suffers in this alteration and conversion. I have 
formerly attempted to withstand and repel it; 
for I am so far from being one of those that 
invite vices, that I do not so much as follow 
them, if they do not haul me along: I per- 
ceived it to spring, grow, and increase, in spite 
of my resistance; and at last, living and seeing 
as I was, wholly to seize and possess me. So 
that, as if rousing from drunkenness, the images 
of things began to appear to me quite other 
than they used to be: I evidently saw the 
advantages of the object I desired, grow, and 
increase, and expand by the influence of my 
imagination, and the difficulties of my attempt 
to grow more easy and smooth ; and both my 
reason and conscience to be laid aside: but this 
fire being evaporated in an instant, as from a 
flash of lightning, I was aware that my soul 
resumed another kind of sight, another state, 
and another judgment; the difficulties of retreat 
appeared great and invincible, and the same 
things had quite another taste and aspect than 
the heat of desire had presented them to me ; 
which of the two most truly 1 ? Pyrrho knows 
nothing about it. We are never without sick- 
ness. Agues have their hot and cold fits ; from 
the effects of an ardent passion we fall again to 
shivering: as much as I had advanced, so 
much I retired : 

Quabis ubi altcrno proenrrens gurgite pontus, 
Nunc ruit ad terras, scopulosquo superjacit nndam 
Spumeus, extremamque sinu perfundit arenam; 
Nunc rapidua retro, atque tfstu revoluta resnrbens; 
Saxa, fugit, littusque vado labente reliquit. 1 

" So swelling surges, with a thundering roar. 

Hound o'er the racks, encroach upon the laud, 
And far upon the beach heave up the sand ; 
Then backward rapidly they take their way, 
Repulsed from upper ground, and seek the sea." 

Now, from the knowledge of this volubility 
of mine, T have accidentally begot 
in myself a certain constancy of W }'J Mon- 
opinions, and have not much ^[y embrace 
altered those that were first and novel opinions, 
natural in me: for what appear- 
ance soever there may be in novelty, I do not 
easily change, for fear of losing by the bargain; 
and, as I am not capable of choosing, I take 
other men's choice, and keep myself in the sta- 
tion wherein God has placed me: I could noi 
otherwise keep myself from perpetual rolling. 
Thus have I, by the grace of God, preserved 
myself entire, without anxiety or trouble of 
conscience, in the ancient faith of our religion, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



amidst so many sects and divisions as our age 
has produced. The writings of the ancients, 
the best authors I mean, being full and solid, 
tempt and carry me which way almost they 
will : he that I am reading seems always to 
have the most force ; and I find that every one 
in his turn is in the right, though they contra- 
dict one another. The facility that good wits 
have of rendering every thing likely they would 
recommend, and that nothing is so strange to 
which they do not undertake to give colour 
enough to deceive such simplicity as mine, this 
evidently shows the weakness of their testimony. 
The heavens and the stars have been three thou- 
sand years in motion ; all the world were of 
that belief till Cleanthes the Samian, 1 or, ac- 
cording to Theophrastus, Nicetas 2 of Syracuse, 
took it into his head to maintain that it was the 
earth that moved, turning about its axis by the 
oblique circle of the zodiac. And Copernicus 
has in our times so grounded this doctrine that 
it very regularly serves to all astrological con- 
sequences: what use can we make of this, if 
not that we ought not much to care which is 
the true opinion ]_, And who knows but that 
a third, a thousand years hence, may overthrow 
the two former. 



Sic volvenda retas commutat tempnra rerum 
Quod fuit in pretio, fit nullo denique Jionore; 
Porro aliud succedit, et e contemptibus exit, 
Inque dies magis appetitur, floretque rupertum 
Laudibus, et miro est niortales inter honore. 3 

"That ev'ry thing is changed in course of time, 
What now is valued passes soon its prime; 
To which some other thing, despised before, 
Succeeds, and grows in vogue still more and more ; 
And once received, loo faint all praises seem, 
So highly it is rais'd in men's esteem." 

So that when any new doctrine presents itself 
to us, we have great reason to 

nTon^aTtote ™f USt > and l ° «™ider that, 

distrusted. before that was set on foot, the 

contrary had been generally re- 
ceived ; and that, as that has been overthrown 
by this, a third invention, in time to come, may 
start up which may damn the second. Before 
the principles that Aristotle introduced were in 
reputation, other principles contented human 
reason, as these satisfy us now. What patent 
have these people, what particular privilege, 
that the career of our invention must be stopped 
by them, and that the possession of our whole 
future belief should belong to them 7 They are 
no more exempt from being thrust out of doors 



i Plutarch, in his Treatise Of the Face that appears in the 
Moon's Orb, vvherche says that Aristarchus was of opinion 
that the Grecians ought to have brought Cleanthes, of Sa- 
ntos, to justice, and to have condemned him for blasphemy 
against the gods, for giving out that the heavens remained 
immoveable', and that it was the earth which moved through 
the oblique circle of the zodiac turning round its own axis. 
But, as it appears elsewhere that Aristarchus of Santos 
believed the earth's motion, there must be some mistake in 
this place, as is the opinion of Menage, who by a little 
variation only of Plutarch's text, makes him sav, not that 
Aristarchus meant to accuse ('leant lies ol impiety for having 
maintained the earth's motion ; but that, on the contrary, 
Cleanthes would have imputed it to Aristarchus as a crime. 
—Menage, Commentary upon Diogenes, viii. 85. 



than their predecessors were. When any one 
presses me with a new argument, I ought to 
believe that what I cannot answer another can ; 
for to believe all likelihoods that a man cannot 
confute is great simplicity : it would by that 
means come to pass that all the vulgar (and we 
are all of the vulgar,) would have their belief 
as turnable as a weathercock: for their souls, 
being so easy to be imposed upon, and without 
any resistance, must offeree incessantly receive 
other and other impressions, the last still effacing 
all footsteps of that which went before. He 
that finds himself weak ought to answer, 
according to practice, that he will speak with 
his counsel, or refer himself to the wiser, from 
whom he received his instruction. How long 
is it that physic has been practised in the world 1 
'Tis said that a new comer, called Paracelsus, 4 
changes and overthrows the whole order of 
ancient rules, and maintains that, till now, it 
has been of no other use but to kill men. I 
believe he will easily make this good, but I do 
not think it were wisdom to venture my life in 
making trial of his own experience. We are 
not to believe every one, says the precept, 
because every one can say all things. A man 
of this profession of novelties and physical re- 
formations not long since told me that all the 
ancients were notoriously mistaken in the nature 
and motions of the winds, which he would evi- 
dently demonstrate to me if I would give him 
the hearing. After I had with some patience 
heard his arguments, which were all full of like- 
lihood of truth: "What, then," said I, "did 
those that sailed according to Theophrastus 
make way westward, when they had the prow 
towards the east! did they go sideward or 
backward?" "That's fortune," answered he, 
"but so it is that they were mistaken." I 
replied that I had rather follow effects than 
reason. Now these are things that often inter- 
fere with one another, and I have been told 
that in geometry (which pretends to have 
gained the highest point of certainty of all 
science,) there are inevitable demonstrations 
found which subvert the truth of all experience; 
as Jaques Pelletier told me, at my own house, 
that he had found out two lines stretching 
themselves one towards the other to meet, 
which nevertheless he affirmed, though ex- 
tended to infinity, could never arrive to touch 
one another. 5 And the Pyrrhonians make no 
other use of their arguments and their reason 



2 The best commentators upon Cicero (Acad. ii. 39,) read 
Hildas, instead of Mcctas. 

a Luc. v. 1275. 

« A noted alchemist, born in the canton of Schwitz in 
1423. Being called to a chair in the University of Bale, he 
began by publicly burning the works of Avicenna and Galen, 
saying that the points of his hose knew as much of physic 
as they. He was consulted by Erasmus, and despised by 
almost every body. He announced the discovery of the 
Philosopher's Stone, and died in the hospital at Saltzbonrg, 
in 15-11. The voluminous collection of his works is a inasf 
of gibberish that people have long ceased to read. 

6 The hyperbole, mill Hie right lines, which not being ahl9 
to reach it. have been for that reason termed asymptotes.— 
See the Conic Sections of Apollonius, book ii. prob. 1 and 14. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



293 



than to ruin the appearance of experience ; and 
'tis a wonder how far the suppleness of our 
reason has followed them in this design of con- 
troverting the evidence of effects; for they 
affirm that we do not move, that we do not 
speak, and that there is neither weight nor 
heat, with the same force of argument that we 
affirm the most likely things. Ptolemy, who 
was a great man, had established the bounds of 
this world of ours ; all the ancient philosophers 
thought they had the measure of it, excepting 
some remote isles that might escape their know- 
ledge ; it had been Pyrrhonism, a thousand 
years ago, to doubt the science of cosmography, 
and the opinions that every one had received 
from it; it was heresy to admit the antipodes; 
and behold, in this age of ours, there is an 
infinite extent of terra firma discovered, not an 
island or single country, but a division of the 
world, nearly equal in greatness to that we 
knew before. The geographers of our time 
stick not to assure us that now all is found ; all 
is seen : 

Nam quod adest prasto, placet, et pollere videturji 
■' What's present pleases, and appears the best ;" 

but it remains to be seen whether, as Ptolemy 
was therein formerly deceived upon the foun- 
dation of his reason, it were not very foolish 
to trust now in what these people say? And 
whether it is not more likely that this great 
body, which we call the world, is not quite 
another thing than what we imagine. 

Plato says 2 that it changes countenance in 
all respects : that the heavens, the stars, and 
the sun, have all of them sometimes motions 
retrograde to what we see, changing east into 

west. The Egyptian priests told 
nlonTconcen. Herodotus3 that from th e time of 
"ng n the°\vorid. their first king, which was eleven 

thousand and odd years since 
(and they showed him the effigies of all their 
kings in statues taken from the life), the sun 
had four times altered his course; that the sea 
and the earth did alternately change into one 
another; that the beginning of the world is 
undetermined; Aristotle and Cicero both say 
the same ; and some amongst us are of opinion 
that it has been from all eternity, is mortal, 
and renewed again by several vicissitudes ; 
calling Solomon and Isaiah to witness; to 
evade those oppositions, that God has once 
been a creator without a creature; that he has 
had nothing to do, that he got rid of that idle- 
ness by putting his hand to this work ; and that 
consequently he is subject to change. In the 
most famous of the Greek schools 4 the world is 



1 Lucret. v. 1411. 
5 In the Politician. 
s Herod, ii. I !•_'. 

• Thai of PlaiO. 

'■[ Loeitius, m vit&. 

• De 2}<v> s<„ ratit. 

As to this letter, which is now lost, the reader mav con- 
n>lt St Austin, de ari,. Dei. v,,i. .",, v,i. lit; St. Cvprian, 
de Vaiul. Idol, c 'Jl ; Fabriciua, BM. Graxa, ii. 10, 17 — 

25* 



taken for a god, made by another god greater 
than he, and composed of a body, and a soul 
fixed in his centre, and dilatinp; himself by 
musical numbers to his circumference; divine, 
infinitely happy, and infinitely great, infinitely 
wise and eternal; in him are other gods, the 
sea, the earth, the stars, who entertain one 
another with an harmonious arid perpetual 
agitation and divine dance, sometimes meeting, 
sometimes retiring from one another: conceal- 
ing and discovering themselves; changing their 
order, one while before, and another behind. 
Heraclitus 6 was positive that the world was 
composed of fire; and, by the order of destiny, 
I was one day to be enflamed and consumed in 
fire, and then to be again renewed. And 
[Apuleius 6 says of men: Sigillatim mortales, 
J cunctim perpetui. " That they are mortal in 
> particular, and immortal in general." Alex- 
j ander 7 writ to his mother the narration of an 
j Egyptian priest, drawn from their monuments, 
testifying the antiquity of that nation to be 
infinite, and comprising the birth and progress 
of other countries. Cicero and Diodorus 8 say 
that in their time the Chaldees kept a register 
of four hundred thousand and odd years. 
Aristotle, Pliny, 9 and others, that Zoroaster 
flourished six thousand years before Plato's 
time. Plato says 10 that they of the city of Sais 
have records in writing of eight thousand years; 
and that the city of Athens was built a thousand 
years before the said city of Sais; Epicurus, 
that at the same time things are here in the 
posture we see, they are alike and in the same 
manner in several other worlds ; which he 
would have delivered with greater assurance, 
had he seen the similitude and concordance of 
the new discovered world of the West Indies 
with ours, present and past, in so many strange 
examples. 

In earnest, considering what is come to our 
knowledge from the course of this terrestrial 
polity, I have often wondered to see in so vast 
a distance of places and times such a concur- 
rence of so great a number of popular and wild 
opinions, and of savage manners and beliefs, 
which by no means seem to proceed from our 
natural meditation. The human mind is a 
great worker of miracles! But this relation 
has, moreover, I know not what of extraordinary 
in it : 'tis found to be in names, afso, and a 
thousand other things: for they found nations 
there (that, for aught we know, never heard of 
us) where circumcision was in use; " where there 
were states and great civil governments main- 
tained by women only, without men; where 
our fasts and Lent were represented, to which 



The name of the Egyptian priest mentioned in the letter 
, was Leo. The learned Jablousky, Protegom. ad Panth. 
I JEgigl-. 15. !•'•• considers the letter to he a" forgery by one 
i 'hristian writers. 
8 Cicero, de JHvinat. i. 19. Diod. ii 31. 
' JVat. Hist XXX. 1. >° In the Timaus. 

I " The various stories which follitw mav be found in 
much the same terms in De Solis, History of the Conquest 
I of Mexico. 



294 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



was added abstinence from women ; where our 
crosses were several ways in repute; here they 
were made use of to honour and adorn their 
sepultures, there they were erected, and parti- 
cularly that of St. Andrew, to protect them- 
selves from nocturnal visions, and to lay upon 
the cradles of infants against enchantments; 
elsewhere there was found one of wood, of very 
great height, which was adored for the god of 
rain, and this a great way in the interior : 
there was seen an express image of our penance 
priests, the use of mitres, the celibacy of priests, 
the art of divination by the entrails of sacrificed 
beasts, abstinence from all sorts of flesh and fish 
in their diet, the manner of priests officiating in 
a particular and not a vulgar language; and 
this fancy, that the first god was driven away 
by a second, his younger brother; that they 
were created with all sorts of necessaries and 
conveniences, which have since been in a degree 
taken from them for their sins, their territory 
changed, and their natural condition made 
worse ; that they were of old overwhelmed by 
the inundation of water from heaven ; that but 
few families escaped, who retired into caves on 
high mountains, the mouths of which they 
stopped so that the waters could not get in, 
having shut up, together with themselves, 
several sorts of animals ; that when they per- 
ceived the rain to cease they sent out dogs, 
which returning clean and wet, they judged 
that the water was not much abated; after- 
wards sending out others, and seeing them 
return dirty, they issued out to re-people the 
world, which they found only full of serpents. 
In one place we met with the belief of a day 
of judgment ; insomuch that they were marvel- 
lously displeased at the Spaniards for discom- 
posing the bones of the dead, in rifling the 
sepultures for riciies, saying that those bones so 
disordered could not easily rejoin; the traffic 
by exchange, and no other way; fairs and 
markets for that end ; dwarfs and deformed 
people for the ornament of the tables of princes ; 
the use of falconry, according to the nature of 
their hawks; tyrannical subsidies; nicety in 
gardens; dancing, tumbling tricks, music of 
instruments, coats of arms, tennis-courts, dice 
and lotteries, wherein they are sometimes so 
eager and hot as to stake themselves and their 
liberty; physic, no otherwise than by charms; 
the way of writing in cypher ; the belief of 
only one first man, the father of all nations; 
the adoration of one God, who formerly lived a 
man in perfect virginity, fasting, and penitence, 
preaching the laws of nature, and the ceremo- 
nies of religion, and that vanished from the 
world without a natural death ; the theory of 
giants; the custom of making themselves drunk 
with their beverages, and drinking to the 
utmost; religious ornaments painted with bones 
and dead men's skulls; surplices, holy vJater 
sprinkled; wives and servants, who present 



i Veget. i. 2. 



themselves with emulation, burnt and interred 
with the dead husband or master; a law by 
which the eldest succeeds to all the estate, no 
part being left for the younger but obedience ; 
the custom that, upon promotion to a certain 
office of great authority, the promoted is to 
take upon him a new name, and to leave that 
which he had before; another to strew lime 
upon the knee of the new-born child, with 
these words: "From dust thou earnest, and to 
dust thou must return;" as also the art of 
augury. The vain shadows of our religion, 
which are observable in some of these examples, 
are testimonies of its dignity and divinity. It 
is not only in some sort insinuated into all the 
infidel nations on this side of the world, by a 
certain imitation, but in these barbarians also, 
as by a common and supernatural inspiration ; 
for we find there the belief of 
purgatory, but of a new form ; purgatory.'' ° 
that which we give to the fire 
they give to the cold, and imagine that souls 
are purged and punished by the rigour of an 
excessive coldness. And this example puts me 
in mind of another pleasant diversity; for as 
there were there some people who delighted to 
unmufHe the ends of their instruments, and 
clipped off the prepuce after the Mahometan 
and Jewish manner; there were others who 
made so great conscience of laying it bare, that 
they carefully pursed it up with little strings to 
keep that end from peeping into the air ; and of 
this other diversity, that whereas we, to honour 
kings and festivals, put on the best clothes we 
have; in some regions, to express their dis- 
parity and submission to their king, his subjects 
present themselves before him in their vilest 
habits, and entering his palace, throw some old 
tattered garment over their better apparel, to 
the end that all the lustre and ornament may 
solely be in him. But to proceed, 

If nature enclose within the bounds of her 
ordinary progress the beliefs, judgments, and 
opinions of men, as well as all other things; if 
they have their revolution, their season, their 
birth and death, like cabbage plants; if the 
heavens agitate and rule them at their pleasure, 
what magisterial and permanent authority do 
we attribute to them? If we experimentally 
see that the form of our beings depends upon 
the air, upon the climate, and upon the soil, 
where we are born, and not only the colour, 
the stature, the complexion, and the counte- 
nances, but moreover the very faculties of the 
soul itself: El plaga cceli non solum ad robur 
corpnrum, sed eliam animorum facit : ' " The 
climate is of great efficacy, not only to the 
strength of bodies, but to that of souls also," 
says Vegetius ; and that the goddess who 
founded the city of Athens chose to situate it in 
a temperature of air fit to make men prudent, 
as the Egyptian priests told Solon: 2 Athenis 
tenue ccelum ; ex quo etiam acutiores putantur 



2 Plato, Ttmaus. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



295 



Allici ; Crassum Thebis ,- itaque pingues The- 
bani, el valenles : l " The air of Athens is subtle 
and thin; whence also the Athenians are re- 
puted to be more acute ; and at Thebes more 
gross and thick; wherefore the Thebans are 
looked upon as more heavy-witted and more 
strong." In such sort that, as fruits and ani- 
mals grow different, men are also more or less 
warlike, just, temperate, and docile; here given 
to wine, elsewhere to theft or uncleanness; here 
inclined to superstition, elsewhere to unbelief; 
in one place to liberty, in another to servitude ; 
capable of one science or of one art, dull or 
ingenious, obedient or mutinous, good or bad. 
according as the place where they are seated 
inclines them ; and assume a new complexion, 
if removed, like trees, which was the reason 
why Cyrus would not grant the Persians leave 
to quit their rough and craggy country to re- 
move to another more pleasant and even, saying, 
that fertile and tender soils made men effemi- 
nate and soft. 2 If we see one while one art and 
one belief flourish, and another while another, 
through some celestial influence ; such an age 
to produce such natures, and to incline mankind 
to such and such a propension, the spirits of 
men one while gay and another grum, like our 
fields, what becomes of all those fine preroga- 
tives we so soothe ourselves withal ? Seeing that 
a wise man may be mistaken, and a hundred 
men and a hundred nations, nay, that even 
human nature itself, as we believe, is many ages 
wide in one thing or another, what assurances 
have we that she should cease to be mistaken, 
or that in this very age of ours she is not so? 

Methinks that amongst other testimonies of 
„, . our imbecility, this ought not to 

cy of'ma" ''s 3 "' be forgotten, that man cannot, 
desires a good by his own wish and desire, find 

weakness''' 3 0Ut what he Wants '> that not in 

fruition only, but in imagination 
and wish, we cannot agree about what we 
would have to satisfy and content us. Let us 
leave it to our own thought to cut out and 
make up at pleasure: it cannot so much as 
covet what is proper for it, and satisfy itself: 



Quid enim ratione timemus, 
Aut cupiinus ? Cluid tain dextro pede concipis, ut te, 
Conatus noil pceniteat, votique peracti?^ 

• For what, with reason, do we speak or shun, 
What plan, how happily soe'er begun, 
That, when achieved, we do not wish undone?" 



And therefore it was that Socrates only begged 
of the gods that they would give 
him what they knew to be best 
for him; and the private and 
public prayer of the Lacedcemonians 4 was simply 
for good and useful things, referring the choice 



Socrates" 

prayer. 



' Cicero, de Faio, c. 4. 

2 Herod, iv. Ml. 

I .1 ivenal, x. 4. 

< Plato, Second Jlkibiadcs. 

» Juvenal, x. 3J;i. 



and election of them to the discretion of the 
Supreme Power: 

Conjugium petimus, partemqne uxoris; at illis 
Notuni, qui pueri, qualisque future sit uxor ; > 

" We ask for wives and children ; they above 
Know only, when we have them, what they'll prove ;" 

and Christians pray to God, "Thy will be 
done," that they may not fall into the incon- 
venience the poet feigns of King Midas. He 
prayed to the gods that all he touched might 
be turned into gold: his prayer was heard; his 
wine was gold, his bread was gold, the feathers 
of his bed, his shirt, his clothes, were all gold; 
so that he found himself overwhelmed with the 
fruition of his desire, and endowed with an 
intolerable benefit, and was fain to unpray his 
prayers. 



"Astonished at the strangeness of the ill, 
To be so rich, yet miserable still ; 
He wishes now he could his wealth evade, 
And hates the thing for which before he prayed." 

To instance in myself: being young, I desired 
of fortune, above all things, the order of St. 
Michael, which was then the utmost distinction 
of honour amongst the French nobles, and very 
rare. She pleasantly gratified my longing: 
instead of raising me, and lifting me up from 
my own place to attain to it, she was much 
kinder to me; for she brought it so low, and 
made it so cheap, that it stooped down to my 
shoulders, and lower. Cleobis and Bito, 7 Tro- 
phoniu and Agamedes, 8 having requested, the 
first of their goddess, the last of their god, a 
recompense worthy of their piety, had death 
for a reward; so differing from ours are hea- 
venly opinions concerning what is fit for us. 
God might grant us riches, honours, life, and 
even health, to our own hurt; for every thing 
that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. 
If he sends us death, or an increase of sickness, 
instead of a cure, Virga tua, et baculus tuus 
ipsa me consnlata sunt, 9 "Thy rod and thy 
staff have comforted me," he does it by the rule 
of his providence, which better and more cer- 
tainly discerns what is proper for us than we 
can do; and we ought to take it in good part, 
as coming from a wise and most friendly hand ; 

Si consilium vis: 
Permittes ipsis expendcre numinibus, quid 
Conveniat nobis, rebusque si i utile nostris - • • 
Carior est illis homo quam sibi ; 10 

"If thou'lt be rul'd, to th' gods thy fortunes trust, 
Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just. 
What best may profit or delight they know, 
And real good, lor fancied bliss, bestow; 
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan, 
More dear to them, than to himself, is man;" 



« Ovid, Mctam. xi. 128. 

• Herod, i. 31. 

* Plutarch, Consol. to Jpollonius. 

Psalm xxii. 4. 
io Juvenal, x. 346. 



296 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



for to require of him honours and com- 
mands, is to require that he may throw you 
into a battle, set you upon a cast at dice, or 
something of the like nature, whereof the issue 
is to you unknown, and the fruit doubtful. 

There is no dispute so sharp and violent 
amongst the philosophers, as about the question 
of the sovereign good of man ; whence, by the 
calculation of Varro, 1 rose two hundred and 
eighty-eight sects. Qui autem de summo bono 
dissentit, de lota philosophies ratione dispulat. 
"For whoever enters into controversy con- 
cerning the supreme good, disputes upon the 
whole matter of philosophy." 2 

Tres mihi convivffi prope dissentire videntur, 
Poscentes vario multuni diversa palato: 
Quid dem ? Quid non ilem ? Renuis tu quod juhet alter ; 
Quod petis, id sane est invisum acidumque duobus:^ 



" I have three guests invited to a feast, 
And all appear to have a different taste ; 
What shall I give them ? What shall I refuse? 
What one dislikes the other two shall choose; 
And e'en the very dish you like the best 
Is acid or insipid to the rest :" 

nature should say the same to their contests 
and debates. Some say that our well-being 
lies in virtue, others in pleasure, others in sub- 
mitting to nature; one in knowledge, another 
in being exempt from pain, another in not suf- 
fering ourselves to be carried away by appear- 
ances; and this fancy seems to have some 
relation to that of the ancient Pythagoras, 



" Not to admire's the only art I know 
Can make us happy, and can keep us so ;" 

which is the drift of the Pyrrhonian sect: 
Aristotle 5 attributes the admiring nothing to 
magnanimity : and Arcesilaus said, 6 that con- 
stancy and a right inflexible state of judgment 
were the true good, and consent and application 
the sin and evil; and there, it is true, in being 
thus positive, and establishing a certain axiom, 
he quitted Pyrrhonism: for the Pyrrhonians, 
when they say that ataraxy, 7 which is the im- 
mobility of judgment, is the sovereign good, do 
not design to speak it affirmatively ; but that 
the same motion of soul which makes them 
avoid precipices, and take shelter from the 
cold, presents them such a fancy, and makes 
them refuse another. 

How much do I wish that, whilst I live, either 
some other or Justus Lipsius, the most learned 

man now living, of a most polite 
Plan of a trea- an( ] judicious understanding, truly 
ferent sects of resembling my Turnebus, had both 
philosophers. the will and health, and leisure 

sufficient, carefully and conscien- 



1 St. Augustin, de Civit. Dei, xix. 2. 

2 Cicero, de Finib. v. 5. 

a Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 61. 

» Id. ib. i. 6, 1. 

6 Ethics, iv. 3. 

« Sextus Empiricus, Pijrrh. Jlypotyp. i. 33. 

1 Perfect repose. 



tiously to collect into a register, according to 
their divisions and classes, as many as are to be 
found, of the opinions of the ancient philo- 
sophers, about the subject of our being and 
manners, their controversies, the succession and 
reputation of sects; with the application of the 
lives of the authors and their disciples to their 
own precepts, in memorable accidents, and 
upon exemplary occasions. What a beautiful 
and useful work that would be ! 8 

As to what remains, if it be from ourselves 
that we are to extract the rules of our manners, 
upon what a confusion do we throw ourselves! 
For that which our reason advises us to, as the 
most likely, is generally for every one to 
obey the laws of his country, as was the 
advice of Socrates, inspired, as he says, by a 
divine counsel; and by that, what would it 
say, but that our duty has no other rule but 
what is accidental '! Truth ought to have 
a like and universal visage: if man could know 
equity and justice that had a body and a true 
being, he would not fetter it to the conditions 
of this country or that; it would not be from 
the whimsies of the Persians or Indians that 
virtue would receive its form. There is nothing 
more subject to perpetual agitation than the 
laws: since I was born, I have 
known those of the English, our *- aws s " b J ec ' 

« ' to continual 

neighbours, three or four times changes, 
changed, not only in matters of 
civil regimen, which is the only thing wherein 
constancy may be dispensed with, but in the 
most important subject that can be, namely, 
religion, at which I am the more troubled and 
ashamed, because it is a nation with whom 
those of my province have formerly had so 
great familiarity and acquaintance, that there 
yet remains in my house some footsteps of our 
ancient kindred ; and here with us, at home, 
I have known a thing that was capital to be- 
come lawful; and we that hold of others are 
likewise, according to the chance of war, in a 
possibility of being one day found guilty of 
high-treason, both divine and human, should 
the justice of our arms fall into the power of 
injustice, and, after a few years' possession, 
take a quite contrary being. How could that 
ancient god 9 more clearly accuse the igno- 
rance of human knowledge concerning the 
divine Being, and give men to understand that 
their religion was but a thing of their own con- 
trivance, useful as a bond to their society, than 
declaring as he did to those who came to his 
tripod tor instruction, that every one's true 
worship was that which he found in use in the 
place where he chanced to be 1 O God, what 
infinite obligation have we to the bounty of our 



s Justus Lipsius, a learned Belgian, who corresponded 
with Montaigne, executed a part of ihis design in his large 
work on Stoicism, Manudnctio ad Stoicam Philosophiam, 
published lb04, twelve years alter Montaigne's death ; who, 
however, in all probability, would not have been altogether 
satisfied with the work. 

9 Apollo. See Xenophon, Mem. on Socrates, i. 3, 1. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



297 



sovereign Creator, for having disabused our 
belief from these wandering and arbitrary de- 
votions, and for having seated it upon the 
eternal foundation of his holy word ] But 
what then will philosophers say to us in this 
necessity] "That we follow the laws of our 
country :" that is to say, this floating sea of 
the opinions of a republic, or a prince, that will 
paint out justice for me in as many colours, and 
form it as many ways as there are changes of 
passions in themselves: I cannot suffer my- 
judgment to be so flexible. What kind of 
virtue is that which I see one day in repute, 
and that to-morrow shall be in none, and 
which the crossing of a river makes a crime'? 
What sort of truth can that be, which these 
mountains 1 limit to us, and make a lie to all the 
world beyond them 1 

But they are pleasant, when, to give some 
certainty to the laws, they say, 

vhl'i'ii'! 'u" S ' tnat tnere are some nrm > P cr P e " 
changeable, tual, and immovable, which they 

call natural, that are imprinted 
in human kind by the condition of their own 
proper being ; and of these some reckon three, 
some four, some more, some less : a sign that it 
is a mark as doubtful as the rest. Now they 
are so unfortunate (for what can I call it else 
but misfortune that, of so infinite a number of 
laws, there should not be found one at least 
that fortune and the temerity of chance has 
suffered to be universally received by the con- 
sent of all nations?), they are, I say, so miser- 
able, that of these three or four select laws, 
there is not so much as one that is not contra- 
dicted and disowned, not only by one nation, 
but by many. Now, the only likely sign, by 
which they can argue or infer some natural 
laws, is the universality of approbation; for 
we should, without doubt, follow with a com- 
mon consent that which nature had truly 
ordained us; and not only every nation, but 
every private man, would resent the force and 
violence that any one should do him who 
would tempt him to any thing contrary to this 
law. But let them produce me one of this 

condition. Protagoras and Aristo 
of'tife j "sUcl°of £ ave no other essenc e to the jus- 
laws, tice of laws than the authority 

and opinion of the legislator; and 
that, these laid aside, the honest and the good 
lost their qualities, and remained empty names 
of indifferent things: Thrasymachus, in Plato, 
is of opinion that there is no other right but 
the convenience of the superior. There is not 
any thing wherein the world is so various as in 
laws and customs; such a thing is abominable 
here which is elsewhere in esteem, as in Lace- 
dwmon dexterity in stealing ; marriages be- 
tween near relations are capitally interdicted 
amongst us; they are elsewhere in honour: 



' " Plaisante justice n:i'iine riviere on une moninigne 
borne! Write an Ueca (las Pyrenees, erreur au delii."- 
Pcnsees de Pascul. 



Gcntes esse feruntur, 
In quibus et. nato genitrix, el nala parent! 
Jungitur, ot pietas geniinato crescit amore ; 3 

"There are some nations in tbe world, 'tis said, 
Where fathers daughters, sons their mothers wed; 
And their affections thereby higher rise. 
More firm and constant by these double tics; - ' 

the murder of infants, the murder of fathers, the 
community of wives, traffic of robberies, license 
in all sorts of voluptuousness ; in short, there is 
nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the 
custom of some nation or other. 

It is credible that there are natural laws for 
us, as we see them in other creatures; but they 
are lost in us, this fine human reason every 
where so insinuating itself to govern and com- 
mand, as to shuffle and confound the face of 
things, according to its own vanity and incon- 
stancy : Nihil ilaque amplius nostrum est ; 
qnod nostrum dico, artis est: "Therefore no- 
thing is any more truly ours: what we call ours 
belongs to art." Subjects have divers lustres 
and divers considerations, and thence the diver- 
sity of opinions principally proceeds: one na- 
tion considers a subject in one aspect, and stops 
there ; another takes it in a different point of 
view. 

There is nothing of greater horror to be ima- 
gined than for a man to eat his 
father ; and yet the people, whose The bodies of 
ancient custom it was so to do, their deceased 

, , , ., ... r. lathers eaten 

looked upon it as a testimony of by soine pe o P i e , 
piety and affection, seeking there- and why. 
by to give their progenitors the 
most worthy and honourable sepulture; storing 
up in themselves, and as it were in their own 
marrow, the bodies and relics of their fathers ; 
and in some sort regenerating them by trans- 
mutation into their living flesh, by means of 
nourishment and digestion.* It is easy to con- 
sider what a cruelty and abomination it must 
have appeared to men possessed and imbued 
with this superstition to throw their fathers' 
remains to the corruption of the earth, and the 
nourishment of beasts and worms. 

Lycurgns considered in theft the vivacity, 
diligence, boldness, and dexterity 
Of purloining anything from our i^" 
neighbours, and the benefit that and why." 
redounded to the public that 
every one should look more narrowly to the 
conservation of what was his own ; and be- 
lieved that, from this double institution of 
assaulting and defending, advantage was to 
be made for military discipline (which was the 
principal science and virtue to which he would 
inure that nation), of greater consideration than 
the disorder and injustice of taking another 
man's goods.* 

Dionysius, the tyrant, offered Plato a robe 
of the Persian fashion, long, damasked, and 
perfumed; Plato refused it, saying, "That 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



being bora a man, he would not willingly 
dress himself in women's clothes; but Aristip- 
pus accepted it with this answer, "That no 
accoutrement could corrupt a chaste courage." ' 
His friends reproaching him with meanness of 
spirit, for laying it no more to heart that Dio- 
nysius had spit in his face, " Fishermen," said 
he, "suffer themselves to be drenched with the 
waves of the sea from head to foot to catch a 
gudgeon." 2 Diogenes was washing cahbages, 
and seeing him pass by, " If thou couldst live 
on cabbage," said he, "thou wouldst not fawn 
upon a tyrant;" to whom Aristippus replied, 
"And if thou knewest how to live amongst 
men, thou wouldst not be washing cabbages." 3 
Thus reason finds appearances for divers effects : 
'tis a pot with two ears that a man may take 
by the right or left: 

Bellum, o terra hospita, portas: 

Bello armantur equi ; bellum tec annenta minantur. 

Serl tamen ide 

Ctuadrupedes, 

Spes est pads. 

"War, war is threatened frnin this foreign ground, 
(My father cried), where warlike steeds are found. 
Yet, since reclaimed, to chariots they submit. 
And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit, 
Peace may succeed to war." 

Solon, heing lectured by his friends not to 
shed powerless and unprofitable tears for the 
death of his son, " It is for that reason that I 
the more justly shed them," said he, " because 
they are powerless and unprofitable." 4 Socrates's 
wife exasperated her grief by this circumstance : 
"Oh, how unjustly do these wicked judges 
put him to death!" "Why," replied he, 
"hadst thou rather they should execute me 
justly I" 5 We have our ears bored : the Greeks 
looked upon that as a mark of slavery. 6 We 
retire in private to enjoy our wives : the Indians 
do it in public. The Scythians immolated 
strangers in their temples; elsewhere temples 
were a refuge : 8 

Inde furor vulgi, quod numina viclnorum 

Odit quisque locus, cum solos credat habendos 

Esse deos, quos ipse colit.9 

Thus 'tis the popular fury that creates 

That all their neighbours' gods each nation hates; 

Each thinks its own the genuine; in a word, 

The only deities to be adored." 

I have heard of a judge who, coming upon a 
sharp conflict betwixt Bartohis and Baldus, 10 
and some point controverted with many con- 
trarieties, writ in the margin of his book, " a 
question for a friend;" that is to say, that 
truth was there so controverted and disputed 



J Laertiug in vita.. 
s Id. ib. 
s Id. ib. 
* Id. ib. 
6 Id. ib. 

6 Sextus Empiric. Pyrrh. Hijpotyp. iii. 24. Plutarch, Lift 
of Cicero, c. 26. 
' Sext. Empiric, ib. i. 11, iii. 24. 
e Id. ib. 
» Juv. xv. 37. 



that in a like cause he might favour which of 
the parties he thought fit. 'Twas only for 
want of wit that he did not write " a question 
for a friend" throughout. The advocates and 
judges of our times find bias enough in all 
causes to accommodate them to what they 
themselves think fit. In so infinite a science, 
depending upon the authority of so many opi- 
nions, and so arbitrary a subject, it cannot be 
but that of necessity an extreme confusion of 
judgments must arise: there is hardly any suit 
so clear wherein opinions do not very much 
differ; what one court has determined one way 
another determines quite contrary, and itself 
contrary to that at another time. Of which 
we see very frequent examples, owing to that 
practice admitted amongst us, and which is a 
marvellous blemish to the ceremonious autho- 
rity and lustre of our justice, of not abiding 
by one sentence, but running from judge to 
judge, and court to court, to decide one and 
the same cause. 

As to the liberty of philosophical opinions 
concerning vice and virtue, 'tis not necessary 
to be insisted upon ; therein are found many 
opinions that are better concealed than 
published to weak minds. Arcesilaus said," 
" That in venery it was no matter where, or 
with whom, it was committed:" El obsccenas 
voluptates, si natura requiril, non genere, aut 
loco, aul ordine, sed forma, selate, figura, 

metiendas Epicurus putat 12 ne amores 

quidem sanctos a sapiente alienos esse arbi- 

tranlur. 13 Queeramus, ad quam usque 

setatem juvenes amandi sint. u " And obscene 
pleasures, if nature requires them," Epicurus 
thinks, "are not to be measured either by 
race, kind, place, or rank, but by age, shape, 

and beauty Neither are sacred loves 

thought to be foreign to wise men; ... we are 
to inquire till what age young men are to be 
loved." These two last stoical quotations, and 
the reproach that DicEarchus threw into the 
teeth of Plato himself 15 upon this account, show 
how much the soundest philosophy indulges 
licenses and excesses very remote from common 
custom. 

Laws derive their authority from possession 
and custom. 'Tis dangerous to trace them 
back to their beginning; they grow great, and 
ennoble themselves, like our rivers, by running 
on; but follow them upward to 
their source, 'tis but a little ll^by^ut 
spring, scarce discernible, that toms. 
swells thus, and thus fortifies 



io Two celehni led jurisc i insults of I he fourteen th century, 
who, as Pasquicr expresses it, " se deborderent en torrent, 
en l'explication du droit." Bartolus was bom at Sasso- 
Ferrato, in Umbria; his disciple Aldus at I'erusia. 

'i Plutaich, Rules and Precepts of Health. But Arcesi. 
laus said this in reprobation of all debauchery whatsoever. 
He lays it down that, no matter where vice is committed, 
'tis equally to be condemned. 

w Cicero, Tusc. Qucs. v. 33. 

M Id. de Finib. iii. 20. 

M Seneca, Epist. 123. 

« Cicero, Tusc. Quws. iv. 34. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



299 



itself, by growing 1 old. Do but consult the 
ancient considerations that gave the first motion 
to this famous torrent, so full of dignity, awe, 
and reverence, you will find them so light and 
weak that it is no wonder if these people, who 
weigh and reduce every thing to reason, and 
who admit nothing by authority, or upon 
trust, have their judgments often very remote, 
and differing from those of the public. It is 
no wonder if people who take their pattern 
from the first image of nature should in most 
of their opinions swerve from the common 
path : as, for example, few amongst them 
would have approved of the strict conditions 
of our marriages, and most of them have been 
for having wives in common, and without 
obligation: they would refuse our ceremonies. 
Chrysippus said, 1 " That a philosopher would 
make a dozen somersaults, aye, and without 
his breeches, for a dozen of olives." That phi- 
losopher would hardly have advised Clisthenes 
to have refused Hippoclides the fair Agarista 
his daughter, for having seen him stand on his 
head upon a table. Metrocles somewhat in- 
discreetly broke wind backwards while in dis- 
putation, in the presence of a great auditory 
in his school, and kept himself hid in his own 
house for shame, till Crates coming to visit 
him, and adding to his consolations and reasons 
the example of his own liberty, by falling to 
try with him who should sound most, cured 
him of that scruple, and withal drew him to 
his own stoical sect, more free than that more 
reserved one of the Peripatetics, of which be had 
been till then. 8 That which we call decencr, 
not to dare to do that in public which is decent 
enough to do in private, the Stoics call fop- 
pery ; and to mince it, and to be so modest as to 
conceal and disown what nature, custom, and 
our desires publish and proclaim of our actions, 
they reputed a vice. 4 The other thought it was 
to undervalue the mysteries of Venus to draw 
them out of the private oratory, to expose them 
to the view of the people : and that to bring 
them out from behind the curtain was to debase 
them. Modesty is a thing of weight ; secresy, 
reservation, and circumspection, are parts of 
esteem. Pleasure did very ingeniously when, 
under the mask of virtue, she sued not to be 
prostituted in the open streets, trodden under 
foot, and exposed to the public view, wanting 
the dignity and convenience of her private 
cabinets. Hence some say that to put down 
public stews is not only to disperse fornication 
into all places, that was confined to one, but 
moreover, by the difficulty, to incite wild and 
idle people to this vice : 

Mici-lius cs Aufnlia', qui vir, Sriovino. fuisti : 
nivalis ftieral qui tuns, ille vir est. 

Cur alieha placet tibi, qua- tua non placet uxor? 
Nuiuquitl sucurus noil pntes urrigere?« 



This experience diversifies itself in a thousand 
examples: 

Nullus in urbe fuit tola, qui taneore vellct 

IJxorem gratis, Ca-cilia;ip, (nam, 
Duin licuit: sod nunc, posilis cnsiu.Iihus. insens 
Turba fututorum est. Ingeniosue homo os. 6 
A philosopher being taken in the very act, 
and asked what he was doing, coldly replied, 
"I am planting man;" 6 no more blushing to 
be so caught than if they had found him 
planting garlic. 

It is, I suppose, out of tenderness and respect 
to the natural modesty of mankind that a great 
and religious author 7 is of opinion that this act 
is so necessarily obliged to privacy and shame 
that he cannot persuade himself there could be 
any absolute peribrmance in those impudent 
embraces of the Cynics, but that they con- 
tented themselves to represent Thei dence 
lascivious gestures only, to ot - t)ie Cynics. 
maintain the impudence of their 
school's profession; and that, to eject what 
shame had withheld and restrained, it was 
afterward necessary for them to withdraw into 
the shade. But he had not thoroughly ex- 
amined their debauches : for Diogenes, playing 
the beast with himself in public, wished, in the 
presence of all that saw him, that he could fill 
his belly by that exercise. 8 To those who 
asked him why he did not find out a more 
commodious place to eat in than in the open 
street, he made answer, "Because I am hungry 
in the open street." The women philosophers 
who mixed with their sect, mixed also with 
their persons, in all places, without reservation ; 
and Hipparchia was not received into Crates's 
society, but upon condition that she should, in 
all things, follow the practice and customs of 
his rule. 9 These philosophers set a great price 
upon virtue, and renounce all other discipline 
but the moral; and yet, in all their actions, 
they attributed the sovereign authority to the 
election of their sage, and above the laws; and 
gave no other curb to voluptuousness but mo- 
deration only, and the conservation of the 
liberty of others. 

Ileraclitus and Protagoras, 10 forasmuch as 
wine seemed bitter to the sick, and pleasant to 
the sound, the rudder crooked in the water, 
and straight when out, and such like contrary 
appearances as are (bund in subjects, argued 
thence that all subjects had, in themselves, 
i the causes of these appearances ; and there 
j was some bitterness in the wine which had 
some sympathy with the sick man's taste, and 
the rudder some bending quality sympathising 
with him that looks upon it in the water; and 
so of all the rest ; which is to say, that all is 
in all things, and, consequently, nothing in 
any one : for, where all is, there is nothing. 
This opinion put me in mind of the experi- 



l'hitarch, on the Contradictions of the Stoic Philoso- 

'Herod, vi. 129. 

I Laartius, in vita. * Martini, iii. "0. 

- Martial, i. 74. 

i This anecdote lias been generally told af fliogenes the 



Cynic; but Itayle, in his Dictionary, article Hipparchia, 
savs Hi: rv is nti uroiind fur charging liiui with it. 

i St. August, de Civit. Dei, xiv. 20. 

11 Laertiue, in vita. 

• Id. ibid. 
'» Sextus Empiric. Fijrrh. Jit/pot. i. 29. 



300 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ence we have that there is no sense or aspect 
of any thing, whether bitter or sweet, straight 
or crooked, that the human mind does not find 
out in the writings it undertakes to tumble 
over. Into the cleanest, purest, and most per- 
fect words that can possibly be, how many 
lies and falsities have we suggested! What 
heresy has not there found ground and testi- 
mony sufficient to make itself embraced and 
defended! 'Tis for this that the authors of 
such errors will never depart from proof of the 
testimony of the interpretation of words. A 
person of dignity, who would approve to me, 
by authority, the search of the philosopher's 
stone, wherein he was head over ears engaged, 
lately alleged to me at least five or six passages 
of the Bible upon which, he said, he first 
founded his attempt, for the discharge of his 
conscience (for he is a divine) ; and, in truth, 
the idea was not only pleasant, but, moreover, 
very well accommodated to the defence of this 
fine science. 

By this way the reputation of divining fables 
is acquired. There is no fortune-teller, if we 
have this authority, but, if a man will take the 
pains to tumble and toss, and narrowly to peep 
into all the folds and glosses of his words, he 
may make him, like the Sibyls, say what he 
will. There are so many ways of interpretation 
that it will be hard but that, either obliquely 
or in a direct line, an ingenious wit will find 
out, in every subject, some air that will serve 
for his purpose: therefore we find a cloudy and 
ambiguous style in so frequent and ancient use. 
Let the author but make himself master of that, 
to busy posterity about his predictions, which 
not only his own parts, but the accidental 
favour of the matter itself, may do for him; 
and, as to the rest, express himself; whether 
after a foolish or a subtle manner, somewhat 
obscurely or contradictorily, 'tis no matter; — 
a number of wits, shaking and sifting him, 
will bring out a great many several forms, 
either according to his meaning, or collateral, 
or contrary, to it, which will all redound to 
his honour ; he will see himself enriched by 
the means of his disciples, like the regents of 
colleges by their pupils' yearly presents. This 
it is which has given reputation to many things 
of no worth at all ; that has brought several 
writings in vogue, and given them the fame of 
containing all sorts of matter can be desired ; 
one and the same thing receiving a thousand 
and a thousand images and various consider- 
ations ; nay, as many as we please . 

Is it possible that Homer could design to say 

Homer the a '^ t ' mt W ^ md ^ e mm sa y> and 

general leader tna ^ ne designed so many and so 
of ail sorts of various figures, as that the divines, 
people. lawgivers, captains, philosophers, 

and all sorts of men who treat of sciences, how 



variously and opposite soever, should indiffer- 
ently quote him, and support their arguments 
by his authority, as the sovereign lord and 
master of all offices, works, and artizans, and 
counsellor-general of all enterprizes? Who- 
ever has had occasion for oracles and predic- 
tions has there found sufficient to serve his 
turn. 'Tis a wonder how many and how ad- 
mirable concurrences an intelligent person, 
and a particular friend of mine, has there 
found out in favour of our religion ; and cannot 
easily be put out of the conceit that it was 
Horner's design; and yet he is as well ac- 
quainted with this author as any man whatever 
of his time. And what he has found in favour 
of our religion there, very many anciently have 
found in favour of theirs. Do but observe how 
Plato is tumbled and tossed about; every one 
ennobling his own -opinions by applying him 
to himself, and making him take what side they 
please. They draw him in, and engage him in 
all the new opinions the world receives; and 
make him, according to the different course of 
things, differ from himself: every one makes 
him disavow, according to his own sense, the 
manners and customs lawful in his age, because 
they are unlawful in ours: and all this with 
vivacity and power, according to the force and 
sprightliness of the wit of the interpreter. From 
the same foundation that Heraclitus and this 
sentence of his had, " that all things had in 
them those forms that we discern," ' Democritus 
drew quite a contrary conclusion, — "that ob- 
jects have in them nothing that we discern in 
them ;" and because honey is sweet to one and 
bitter to another, he thence argued that it was 
neither sweet nor bitter. 2 The Pyirhonians 
would say that they knew not whether it is 
sweet or bitter, or whether the one or the other, 
or both; for these always gained the highest 
point of dubitation. The Cyrenaics 3 held that 
nothing was perceptible from without, and that 
that only was perceptible that inwardly touched 
us, as pain and pleasure ; acknowledging neither 
sound nor colour^ but certain affections only 
that we receive from them ; and that man's 
judgment had no other seat. Protagoras be- 
lieved that " what seems true to every one, is 
true to every one." 4 The Epicureans lodged 
all judgment in the senses, and in the know- 
ledge of things, and in pleasure. Plato 5 would 
have the judgment of truth, and truth itself, 
derived from opinions and the senses, to belong 
to the wit and cogitation. 

This discourse has put me upon the consider- 
ation of the senses, in which lies 
the greatest foundation and proof common"^' ge 
of our ignorance. Whatsoever and terminates 
is known, is doubtless known by in *&»'■«•»**■ 
the faculty of the knower; for, seeing the 
judgment proceeds from the operation of him 



i Sextns Empiric. Pyrrh Hijpotyp. i. 29. 

2 Id. Silvers. Math. c. 163. 

3 Cicero, Mad. ii. 7. 



' In the Pliado and Thcetctes. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



301 



that judges, 'tis reason that this operation be 
performed by his means and will, not by the 
constraint of another; as it would happen if 
we knew things by the power, and according 
to the law of their essence. Now all knowledge 
is conveyed to us by the senses; they are our 
masters : 

Via qua munita fidei 

pectus, templaque mentis; 1 

" It is the surest path that faith can find 
By which to enter human heart and mind." 

Science begins by them, and is resolved into 
them. After all, we should know no more 
than a stone if we did not know there is sound, 
odour, light, taste, measure, weight, softness, 
hardness, sharpness, colour, smoothness, breadth, 
and depth : these are the platforms and princi- 
ples of the structure of all our knowledge; and, 
according- to some, science is nothing else but 
sense. lie that could make me contradict the 
senses, would have me by the throat ; he could 
not make me go further back. The senses are 
the beginning and the end of human knowledge : 



Iiiveiiics piimis nli scnsilius esse I 

Nolii iaui vi'l'i ; ncpie srilsns posse ri'l'"lli. . . 

Quid majore fide porro, quain sensus, haberi 
Debet?" 

•Of truth, whate'er discoveries are made, 
An- by the senses to us first conveyed; 



Let us attribute to them the least we can, 
we must, however, of necessity grant them 
this, that it is by their means and mediation 
that all our instruction is directed. Cicero 
says, 3 that Chrysippus having attempted to 
extenuate the force and virtue of the senses, 
presented to himself arguments and so vehe- 
ment oppositions to the contrary that he could 
not satisfy himself therein: whereupon Car- 
neades, who maintained the contrary side, 
boasted that he would make use of the very 
words and arguments of Chrysippus to contro- 
vert and confute him, and therefore thus cried 
out against him: "O miserable! thy force has 
destroyed thee." There can be nothing absurd 
to a greater degree than to maintain that fire 
does not warm, that light does not shine, and 
that there is no weight nor solidity in iron, 
which are things conveyed to us by the senses; 
neither is there belief nor knowledge in man 
that can be compared to that for certainty. 

The first consideration I have upon the sub- 
ject of the senses is that I make a doubt whether 

or no man be furnished with all 
t*er man W has natural senses. I see several 
ail the senses, animals who live an entire and 

perfect life, some without sight, 
others without hearing: who knows whether 
to us also one, two, three, or many other senses 
may not be wanting 1 For if any one be want- 



I.ncret. v. 103. 
i Id. iv. 179, 483. 

2G 



ng, our examination cannot discover the defect. 
'Tis the privilege of the senses to be the utmost 
limit of our discovery; there is nothing beyond 
them that can assist us in exploration, not so 
much as one sense in the discovery of another : 

An poterunt oculos aures reprehendcre ? an aures 
Tactus? an nunc porro tactum sapor arguet oris? 
An confutabunt nares, oculive reviucent?< 

"Can ears the eyes, the touch the ears, correct? 
Or is that touch by tasting to be cheok'd ? 
Or th' other senses, shall the nose or eyes 
Confute in their peculiar faculties?" 

They all make the extremest limits of our 

ability : 



" Each has its power distinctly and alone, 
And every sense's power is its own." 

It is impossible to make a man naturally blind 
conceive that he does not see; impossible to 
make him desire sight, or to regret his defect: 
for which reason we ought not to derive any 
assurance from the soul's being contented and 
satisfied with those we have ; considering that 
it cannot be sensible herein of its infirmity 
and imperfection, if there be any such thing. 
It is impossible to say anything to this blind 
man, either by reasoning, argument, or simili- 
tude, that can possess his imagination with any 
apprehension of light, colour or sight ; there's 
nothing remains behind that can push on the 
senses to evidence. Those that are born blind, 
whom we hear wish they could see, it is not 
that they understand what they desire: they 
have learned from us that they want some- 
thing; that there is something to be desired 
that we have, which they can name indeed 
and speak of its effects and consequences ; but 
yet they know not what it is, nor apprehend 
it at all. 

I have seen a gentleman of a good family 
who was born blind, or at least blind from 
such an age that he knows not what sight is ; 
who is so little sensible of his defect that he 
ma kes use as we do of words proper for seeing, 
and applies them after a manner wholly par- 
ticular and his own. They brought him a 
child to which he was god-father, which having 
taken into his arms, "Good God," said he, 
"what a fine child! How beautiful to look 
upon! what a pretty face it has!" He will 
say, like one of us, " This room has a very fine 
prospect; — it is clear weather; — the sun shines 
bright." And moreover, being that hunting, 
tennis, and butts are our exercises, and he has 
heard so, he has taken a liking to them, will 
ride a-hunting, and believes he has as good 
share of the sport as we have; and will express 
himself as angry or pleased as the best of us 
all, and yet knows nothing of it but by the 



302 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ear. One cries out to him, " Here's a hare !" 
when he is upon some even plain where he 
may safely ride; and afterwards, when they 
tell him, "The hare is killed," he will be as 
overjoyed and proud of it as he hears others 
say they are. He will take a tennis-ball in 
his left hand and strike it away with the 
racket: he will shoot with a harquebuss at 
random, and is contented with what his people 
tell him, that he is over, or wide. 

Who knows whether all human kind commit 
not the like absurdity, for want of some sense, 
and that through this default the greatest part 
of the face of things is concealed from us? 
What do we know but that the difficulties 
which we find in several works of nature pro- 
ceed hence? and that several effects of animals, 
which exceed our capacity, are not produced 
by faculty of some sense that we are defective 
in? and whether some of them have not by 
this means a life more full and entire than 
ours? We seize an apple with all our senses ; ' 
we there find redness, smoothness, odour, and 
sweetness; but it may have other virtues be- 
sides these, as to heat or binding, which no 
sense of ours can have any reference unto. Is 
it not likely that there are sensitive faculties in 
nature that are fit to judge of and to discern 
those which we call the occult properties in 
several things, as for the loadstone to attract 
iron; and that the want of such faculties is 
the cause that we are ignorant of the true 
essence of such things? 'Tis perhaps some 
particular sense that gives cocks to understand 
what hour it is at midnight, and when it grows 
to be towards day, and that makes them crow 
accordingly ; that teaches chickens, before they 
have any experience of the matter, to fear a 
sparrow-hawk, and not a goose or a peacock, 
though birds of a much larger size ; that cautions 
them against the hostile quality the cat has 
against them, and makes them not to fear a 
dog; to arm themselves against the mewing, 
a kind of flattering voice, of the one, and not 
against the barking, a shrill and threatening 
voice, of the other; that teaches wasps, ants, 
and rats, to fall upon the best pear and the 
best cheese before they have tasted them, and 
inspires the stag, elephant, and serpent, with 
the knowledge of a certain herb proper for 
their cure. There is no sense that has not a 
mighty dominion, and that does not by its 
power introduce an infinite number of know- 
ledges. If we were defective in the intelligence 
of sounds, of harmony, and of the voice, it 
would cause an unimaginable confusion in all 
the rest of our science : for, besides what 
belongs to the proper effect of every sense, how 
many arguments, consequences, and conclu- 
sions do we draw to other things, by comparing 
one sense with another? Let an understandinar 



1 Sext. Empiric. Pyrrh. Hijpotyp. i. 14. 

2 Lucret. v. 577. What Lucretius says here of the moon, 
Montaigne applies to the sun, of which, according to Epi- 
curus'e principles, the same thing may he affirmed. 



man imagine human nature originally produced 
without the sense of seeing, and consider what 
ignorance and trouble such a defect would 
bring upon him, what a darkness and blindness 
in the soul ; he will then see by that of how 
great importance to the knowledge of truth the 
privation of such another sense, or of two or 
three, should we be so deprived, would be. 
We have formed a truth by the consultation 
and concurrence of our five senses ; but perhaps 
we should have the consent and contribution of 
eight or ten to make a certain discovery of it 
in its essence. 

The sects that controvert the knowledge of 
man do it principally by the un- 
certainty and weakness of our , Hl ! ma " „ k "" w " 

J ~ . ,, , , , ledge contro- 

senses: for since all knowledge verted by the 
is by their means and mediation weakness and 
conveyed unto us, if they fail in our^n"^ 
their report, if they corrupt or 
alter what they bring us from without, if the 
light which by them creeps into the soul be 
obscured in the passage, we have nothing else 
to hold by. From this extreme difficulty all 
these fancies proceed : " That every subject 
has in itself all we there find. That it has 
nothing in it of what we think we there find ;" 
and that of the Epicureans, " That the sun is 
no bigger than 'tis judged by our sight to be :" 



" But be it what it will in our esteems, 
It is no bigger than to us it seems:" 

" that the appearances which represent a body 
great to him that is near, and less to him that 
is more remote, are both true : 

Nee tamen hicoculis falli concedimus hihim . . . 
Proinde animi vitium hoc oculis adfingcre noli :3 

" Yet that the eye's deluded we deny ; 
Charge not the mind's faults, therefore, on the eye:" 

"and, resolutely, that there is no deceit in 
the senses ; that we are to lie at their mercy, 
and seek elsewhere reasons to excuse the differ- 
ence and contradictions we there find, even to 
the inventing of lies and other flams, if it come 
to that, rather than accuse the senses." Ti- 
magoras vowed 4 that, by pressing or turning 
his eye, he could never perceive the light of 
the candle to double, and that the seeming so 
proceeded from the vice of opinion, and not 
from the instrument. The most absurd of all 
absurdities, with the Epicureans, is to deny 
the force and effect of the i 



Proinde, quod in quorpie est his visum tempore, verui 
Et, si non poterit ratio (iissolvere rausam, 
Cur ea, qua; fuerint juxtim quadrats, procul sint 
"Visa rotunda; tamen pra.'stat ratinnis egentem 
Redtlere niendose causas utriusque figurffl, 
Quam manibus nianif.'sta suis emittere qutequam, 
Et violare fldein prininni, ft convellere tota 
Fundamenta, quibus nixatur vita, salusque: 



a Lucret. iv. 380, 387. 
1 Cicero, Jlcad. ii. 25. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Non mndo enim ratio rust munis, vjln iinoque ipsa 
C'oncidat. cxtciiiiplo, nisi credere sonsibus ausis, 
Prow;i|iitcsi|tie locos vitare, et ctetera, qua; sint 
In genere hoc fugienda.i 

"That what vvu see exists I will maintain, 
Ami it' our feeble reason can't explain 
Why tilings seem square when they are very near, 
Ami at a greater distance round appear; 
"1'is hitter yet, tor him that's at a pause, 
T assign to either figure a (also cause, 
Than shock his faith, and the foundations rend 
On which our safety and our life depend : 
For reason not alone, but life and all, 
Together will with sudden ruin fall : 
Unless we trust our senses, nor despise 
To shun the various dangers thai arise." 

This so desperate and unphilosophical advice 
expresses only this, — that human knowledge 
cannot support itself but by reason unreason- 
able, foolish, and mad ; but that it is yet better 
that man, to set a greater value upon himself, 
make use of any other remedy, how fantastic 
soever, than to confess his necessary ignorance 
— a truth so disadvantageous to him. He 
cannot avoid owning that the senses are the 
sovereign lords of his knowledge; but they 
are uncertain, and falsifiable in all circum- 
stances : 'tis there that he is to fight it out to the 
last; and if his just forces fail him, as they do, 
to supply that defect with obstinacy, temerity, 
and impudence. In case what the Epicureans 
say be true, viz., "that we have no knowledge 
if the senses' appearances be false;" and if that 
also be true which the Stoics say, "that the 
appearances of the senses are so false that they 
can furnish us with no manner of knowledge," 
we shall conclude, to the disadvantage of these 
two great dogmatical sects, that there is no 
science at all. 

As to the error and uncertainty of the ope- 
The error and rat ' on or " tlie senses, every one 
uncertainty of may furnish himself with as many 
the op,- ration examples as he pleases: so ordi- 
ot the senses. nary afe the fauUg and ^^ 

they put upon us. In the echo of a valley 
the sound of a trumpet seems to meet us, which 
comes from a place behind. 

Kxstnntosque prncul medio de gurcite montes, 



ICt I'uL'en 




m colles campinue videutur, 


auosagi 






Uhi i 






FJumitie, 


equi cor| 


US iran-v.isuiu ferre videtur 


Vis, et u 


adversu 


n flumen contrudere raptim. 3 


And r..c\- 


si' th'sc 


s that proudly raise their head, 


Though i 


ir disjoii 


ed, though roval navies spread. 


1 heir. -mi 


S brlwci 


n ; yet if from distance shown, 



And all things sceni'd to move on every side." 

Take a musket-ball under the fore-finger, the 



middle finger being lapped over it, it feels 
so like two that a man will have much ado to 
persuade himself there is but one; the end of 
the two fingers feeling each of them one at the 
same time : for that the senses are very often 
masters of our reason, and con- „,, , .. 

. , . .' . That the senses 

strain it to receive impressions sometimes im- 
which it judges and knows to be P os,: u p°» our 
false, is frequently seen. I set rea30n - 
aside the sense of feeling, that has its functions 
nearer, more lively, and substantial, that so 
often, by the effects of the pains it helps the 
body to, subverts and overthrows all those fine 
Stoical resolutions, and compels him to cry out 
of his belly, who has resolutely established this 
doctrine in his soul — "That the colic, and all 
other pains and diseases, are indifferent things, 
not having the power to abate anything of the 
sovereign felicity wherein the wise man is seated 
by his virtue." There is no heart so effeminate 
that the rattle and sound of our drums and 
trumpets will not inflame with courage; nor 
so sullen that the harmony of our music will 
not rouse and cheer; nor so stubborn a soul 
that will not feel itself struck with some reve- 
rence in considering the gloomy vastness of our 
churches, the variety of ornaments, and order 
of our ceremonies; and in hearing the solemn 
music of our organs, and the grace and devout 
harmony of our voices. Even those that come 
in with contempt feel a certain shivering in 
their hearts, and something of dread that makes 
them begin to doubt their opinions. For my 
part I do not think myself strong enough to 
hear an ode of Horace or Catullus sung by a 
beautiful young mouth without emotion: and 
Zeno had reason to say " that the 
voice was the flower of beauty." ™ w J r ° f e the 
One would once make me believe beauty. 
j that a certain person, whom all 
I we Frenchmen know, had imposed upon me 
j in repeating some verses that he had made ; 
j that they were not the same upon paper that 
j they were in the air ; and that my eyes would 
j make a contrary judgment to my ears : so great 
j a power has pronunciation to give fashion and 
I value to works that are left to the efficacy and 
modulation of the voice. 3 And therefore Phi- 
loxenus was not so much to blame, hearing one 
j giving an ill accent to some composition of his, 
in spurning and breakiug certain earthen vessels 
of his, saying, " I break what is thine, because 
thou corruptest what is mine." 4 To what end 
did those men who have, with a firm resolution, 
! destroyed themselves, turn away their faces that 
j they might not see the blow that was by them- 
| selves appointed'! And that those who, for 
their health, desire and command incisions to 
be made, and cauteries to be applied to them, 
j cannot endure the sight of the preparations, 
instruments, and operations of the surgeon, 
being that the sight is not in any way to par- 

» T.aertius, in vita. 



304 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ticipate in the pain 1 Are not these proper ex- 
amples to verity the authority the senses have 
over the imagination! 'Tis to much purpose 
that we know these tresses were borrowed from ; 
a page or a lacquey ; that this rouge came from j 
Spain, and this pearl-powder from the Ocean 
Sea. Our sight will, nevertheless, compel us 
to confess their subject more agreeable and 
more lovely against all reason; for in this 
there is nothing of its own : 

Auferiraur cultu ; gemmis, auroque teguntur 
Criinina; pars minima est ipsa puellasui. 

Sa?pe, ubi sit quod anies, inter tarn multa requiras: 
Decipic hac oculos tegide dives amor.i 

•' By dress we're won ; gold, gems, and rich brocades 
Make up the pageant that your heart invades ; 
In all that glittering figure which you see, 
The far least part of her own self is she ; 
In vain for her you love amidst such cost 
You search, the mistress in such dress is lost." 



What a strange power do the poets attribute to 
the senses, that make Narcissus so desperately j 
in love with his own shadow, 

Cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipse; 
Se cupit impriiriens, et, qui probat, ipse probatur; 
Dumque petit, petitur pariterque accendit, et ardet : 2 

" Admireth all ; for which to he admired ; 
And inconsiderately himself desir'd. 
The praises which he gives his beauty claim'd, 
Who seeks is sought, th' enflamer is enflam'd :" 

and Pygmalion's judgment so troubled by the 
impression of the sight of his ivory statue that 
he loves and adores it as if it were a living 
woman! 

Oscula dat, reddique putat : sequiturque, tenetque, 
Et credit tactis digitos insidere membris; 
Et metuit, pressos veniat ne livor in artus.a 

" He kisses, and believes he's kissed again ; 
Seizes, and 'tvvi.xt his arms his love doth strain. 
And thinks the polish'd ivory thus held 
Doth to his fingers amorous pressure yield, 
And has a timorous fear, lest black and blue 
Should in the parts with ardour press'd ensue." 

Put a philosopher into a cage of small thin 
set bars of iron, and hang him 
EKb^.he °? the top of the high tower of 
eye, the ear, &c. Notre Dame at Paris: he will 
see, by manifest reason, that he 
cannot possibly fall, and yet he will find (unless 
he has been used to the plumber's trade) that 
he cannot help but the sight of the excessive 
height will fright and astound him: for we 
have enough to do to assure ourselves in the 
galleries of our steeples, if they are made with 
open work, although they are of stone; and 
some there are that cannot endure so much 
as to think of it. Let there be a beam thrown 
over betwixt these two towers, of breadth suf- 
ficient to walk upon, there is no philosophical 
wisdom so firm that can give us the courage to 
walk over it as we should do upon the ground. 
I have often tried this upon our mountains in 
these parts; and though I am one who am not 



i Ovid, de Remed. Amor, i. 343. 

2 Id. ib. iii. 421. 

3 Id. ih. x. •2.V>. The text has loquiturquc, lenctqu 
<Livy, xliv. (i. 



the most subject to be afraid, I was not able to 
endure to look into that infinite depth without 
horror and trembling, though I stood above my 
length from the edge of the precipice, and could 
not have fallen unless I would. Where I also 
observed that, what height soever the precipice 
was, provided there were some tree, or some 
jutting out of a rock, a little to support and 
divide the sight, it a little eases our fears, and 
gives greater assurance; as if they were things 
by which in falling we might have some relief; 
but that direct precipices we are not to look 
upon without being giddy; Ut despici sine 
vertigine simul oculorum animique nonpossit ; 4 
"To that one cannot look without dizziness:" 
which is a manifest imposture of the sight. 
And therefore it was that that fine philosopher 5 
put out his own eyes, to free the soul from 
being diverted by them, and that he might phi- 
losophise at greater liberty ; but, by the same 
rule, he should have dammed up his ears, that 
Theophrastus says 6 are the most dangerous 
instruments about us for receiving violent im- 
pressions to alter and disturb us; and, finally, 
should have deprived himself of all his other 
senses, that is to say, of his life and being ; for 
they have all the power to command our soul 
and reason: Fit etiam ssepe specie quadam, 
saepe vocum gravitate et cantibus, ut pellanlur 
animi vehementius ,- ssepe etiam euro, et timore? 
" For it often falls out that the minds are more 
vehemently struck by some sight, by the quality 
and sound of the voice, or by singing; and 
oft-times also by grief and fear." Physicians 
hold that there are certain complexions that 
are agitated by the same sounds and instru- 
ments even to fury. I have seen some who 
could not hear a bone gnawed under the table 
without impatience; and there is scarce any 
man who is not disturbed at the sharp and 
shrill noise that the file makes in grating upon 
the iron; as also to hear chewing near them, 
or to hear any one speak who has an impedi- 
ment in the throat or nose, will move some 
people even to anger and hatred. Of what use 
was that piping prompter of Gracchus, who 
softened, raised, and moved his master's voice 
whilst he declaimed at Rome, if the move- 
ments and quality of the sound had not the 
power to move and alter the judgments of the 
auditory ! In earnest, there is wonderful reason 
to keep such a clutter about the firmness of 
this fine piece, that suffers itself to be turned 
and twined by the motions and accidents of so 
light a wind. 

The same cheat that the senses put upon our 
understanding they have in turn 
put upon them; the soul also ^^amUor." 
sometimes has its revenge : they rupted by the 
lie and contend which should passions of the 
most deceive one another. What 



6 Democritus. Tic. de Hnio. v. 20. But Cicero only 
spoke of it as a thing uncertain; and Plutarch says posi- 
tively that it is a falsehood. Pec his discourse, of Curiosity. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



305 



we see and hear when we are transported with 
passion, we neither see nor hear as it is : 

Et solem geminum, et duplices se ostendere Thebas.i 
" Thebes seems two cities, and the sun two suns." 

The object that we love appears to us more 
beautiful than it really is ; 



and that we hate more ugly : to a discontented 
and afflicted man the light of the day seems 
dark and overcast. Our senses are not only 
depraved, but very often stupified by the pas- 
sions of the soul : how many things do we see 
that we do not take notice of, if the mind be 
occupied with other thoughts ? 

In rebus quoque apertis noscere possis, 
Si non advortas aiiiinum, proinde esse quasi omni 
Tempore semota; fueriut, longcque remota;:^ 

" Nay, even in plainest things, unless the mind 
Take heed, unless she sots herself to find, 
The thing no more is seen, no more bclov'd, 
Than if the most obscure and most remov'd :" 

it would appear that the soul retires within, 
and amuses the powers of the senses. And so 
both the inside and the outside of man is full 
of infirmity and falsehood. 

They who have compared our lives to a 
dream were, perhaps, more in the 
™m,!a£d toT 'jg]« than jhey w«e aware of. 
dream. When we dream, the soul lives, 

works, and exercises all its facul- 
ties, neither more nor less than when awake ; 
but more largely and obscurely, yet not so 
much, neither, that the difference should be as 
great as betwixt night and the meridian bright- 
ness of the sun, but as betwixt night and shade ; 
there she sleeps, here she slumbers : but, whether 
more or less-', 'tis still dark, and Cimmerian 
darkness. We wake sleeping, and sleep wakino - . 
I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to 
my being awake, I never found it clear enough 
and free from clouds : moreover, sleep, when 
it is profound, sometimes rocks even dreams 
themselves asleep; but our waking is never so 
sprightly that it rightly purges and dissipates 
those whimsies, which are waking dreams, and 
worse than dreams. Our reason and soul re- 
ceiving those fancies and opinions that come 
in dreams, and authorizing the actions of our 
dreams with the like approbation that they do 
those of the day, wherefore do we not doubt 
whether our thought, our action, is not another 
sort of dreaming, and our waking a certain 
kind of sleep'! 

If the senses be our first judges, it is not ours 
that we are alone to consult ; for, in this faculty, 



beasts have as great, or greater, than we : it is 
certain that some of them have the sense of 
hearing more quick than man; others that 
of seeing, others that of feeling, others that of 
touch and taste. Democritus said, 4 that the 
gods and brutes had the sen- The very great 
sitive faculties more perfect than liifi; ' r ' ! 
man. But betwixt the effects of f olVsensea 
their senses and ours the differ- and those of 
ence is extreme. Our spittle a,lilnals - 
cleanses and dries up our wounds : it kills the 
serpent : 

Tantaque in his rebus dislantia, clifieritasque est, 
Ut quod ;il i i s cilnis est, aliis mat acre venenum. 
Sa-pe etenim serpens, hnniinis coutacta saliva, 
Dispcrit, ac sese rnuiiiicudo conficit ipsa: 5 

" And in those things the difference is so great 
That what's one's poison is another's meat ; 
For serpents often have been seen, 'tis said, 
When touch'd with human spittle, to go mad. 
And bite themselves to death:" 

what quality shall we attribute to our spittle ? 
as it affects ourselves, or as it affects the ser- 
pent? By which of the two senses shall we 
prove the true essence that we seek for 1 Pliny 
says 6 there are certain sea-hares in the Indies 
that are poison to us, and we to them; inso- 
much that, with the least touch, we kill them. 
Which shall be truly poison, the man or the 
fish 1 Which shall we believe, the fish of the 
man, or the man of the fish] One quality of 
the air infects a man, that does the ox no harm ; 
some other infects the ox, but hurts not the 
man. Which of the two shall, in truth and 
nature, be the pestilent quality 1 To them who 
have the jaundice, all things seem yellow and 
paler than to us: 

Lurida praterea (hint, qua:cunque tuentur 
Arquati.' 

" Besides, whatever jaundie'd eyes do view 
Looks pale as well as those, and yellow too. 

They who are troubled with the disease that 
the physicians call hyposphagma — which is a 
suffusion of blood under the skin — see all things 
red and bloody. 8 What do we know but that 
these humours, which thus alter the operations 
of sight, predominate in beasts, and are usual 
with them ? for we see some whose eyes are 
yellow, like us who have the jaundice; and 
others of a bloody colour : 'tis likely that the 
colours of objects seem other to them than to 
us. Which of the two shall make a right judg- 
ment ? for it is not said that the essence of 
things has a relation to man only ; hardness, 
whiteness, depth, and sharpness, have reference 
to the service and knowledge of animals as well 
as to us, and nature has equally designed them 
for their use. When we press down the eye, 
the body that we look upon we perceive to be 
longer and more extended ; — many beasts have 



1 JEncid, iv. 470. 


o Lucret. iv. 638. 




» Lucret. iv. 115-2. 


« JVat Hist, xxxii. 




I id. ii. 818. 


' Lucret. iv. 333. 




« Plutarch, on the Ooin. of the Philos. 


8 Scxtus Empiric. Pyrr/i Ilijpotyp. 


. 14. 


26* 


V 





306 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



their eyes so pressed down : this length, there- 
fore, is perhaps the true form of that body, and 
not that which our eyes give it in the usual 
state. If we close the lower part of the eye 
things appear double to us: 



If our ears be hindered, or the passage stopped 
with any thing, we receive the sound quite 
otherwise than we usually do: animals, like- 
wise, who have either the ears hairy, or but a 
very little hole instead of an ear, do not, conse- 
quently, hear aswe do, but receive another kind 
of sound. 2 We see at festivals and theatres 
that, opposing a painted glass of a certain 
colour to the light of the flambeaux, all things 
in the place appear to us green, yellow, or 
violet : 

Et vulgo faciunt id lutea russaque vela, 
Et ferrugina, cum, magnis intenta theatris, 
Per rnalos vulgata trabesque, trementia pendent: 
Namque ilii cousessum caveai sulrter, et omnem 
Scanai speciem, patrum, matrumque, deorumque 
Inflciunt, coguntque suo fluitare colore: 3 

" Thus when pale curtains, or the deeper red, 
O'er all the spacious theatre are spread. 
Which mighty masts and sturdy pillars bear, 
And the loose curtains wanton in the air; 
Whole streams of colours from the summit flow, 
The rays divide them in their passage through, 
And stain the scenes, and men, and gods below :" 

'tis likely that the eyes of animals, which we 
see to be of divers colours, produce the ap- 
pearance of bodies the same with their eyes. 

We should, therefore, to make a right judg- 
ment of the oppositions of the senses, be first 
agreed with beasts, and secondly amongst our- 
selves ; which we by no means are, but enter 
into dispute. every time that one hears, sees, or 
tastes something otherwise than another does, 
and contests, as much as upon any other thing, 
about the diversity of the images that the senses 
represent to us. A child, by the ordinary rule 
of nature, hears, sees, and talks otherwise than 
a man of thirty years old ; and he than one of 
threescore. The senses are, in some, more ob- 
scure and dusky, and more open and quick in 
others. We receive things variously, according 
as we are, and according as they appear to us. 
Those rings which are cut out in the form 
of feathers, which are called endless feathers, 
no eye can discern their size, or can keep itself 
from the deception that on one side they enlarge, 
and on the other contract, and come to a point, 
even when the ring is being turned round the 
finger; yet, when you feel them, they seem 
all of an equal size. Now, our perception being 
so uncertain and so controverted, it is no more 
a wonder if we are told that we may declare 



1 Lucre t. iv. 451. 

'Sextus Empiric. Pyrrh. H> 

' Lucret. iv. 7.'). 

1 Sextus Empiric, id supra. 



that snow appears white to us; but that to 
affirm that it is in its own essence really sc 
more than we are able to justify: and, this 
foundation being shaken, all the knowledge in 
the world must of necessity fall to ruin. What! 
do our senses themselves hinder one another] 
A picture seems raised and embossed to the 
sight; in the handling it seems flat to the 
touch. 4 Shall we say that musk, which delights 
the smell, and is offensive to the taste, is agree- 
able or no? There are herbs and unguents 
proper for one part of the body, that are hurt- 
ful to another: honey is pleasant to the taste, 
but offensive to the sight. 5 They who, to 
assist their lust, used in ancient times to make 
use of magnify ing-glasses to represent the mem- 
bers they were to employ bigger, by that ocular 
tumidity to please themselves the more: 6 to 
which of their senses did they give the prize, — 
whether to the sight, that represented the mem- 
bers as large and great as they would desire, 
or to the feeling, which represented them little 
and contemptible] Are they our senses that 
supply the subject with these different condi- 
tions, and have the subjects themselves, never- 
theless, but one ] As we see in the bread we 
eat, it is nothing but bread, but, by being eaten, 
it becomes bones, blood, flesh, hair, and nails : 



the humidity sucked up by the root of a tree 
becomes trunk, leaf, and fruit; 8 and the air, 
being but one, is modulated, in a trumpet, to 
a thousand sorts of sounds : are they our senses, 
I would fain know, that, in like manner, form 
these' subjects into so many divers qualities, or 
have they them really such in themselves] And 
upon this doubt what can we determine of their 
true essence ] Moreover, since the accidents of 
disease, of raving, or sleep, make things appear 
otherwise to us than they do to the healthful, 
the wise, and those that are awake, is it not 
likely that our right posture of health and un- 
derstanding, and our natural humours, have, 
also, wherewith to give a being to things that 
have a relation to their own condition, and ac- 
commodate them to themselves, as well as when 
they are disordered ; — that health is as capable 
of giving them an aspect as sickness ] Why 
has not the temperate a certain form of objects 
relative to it, as well as the intemperate] 9 and 
why may it not as well stamp it with its own 
character as the other] He whose mouth is 
out of taste, says the wine is flat ; the health- 
ful man commends its flavour, and the thirsty 
its briskness. Now, our condition always ac- 
commodating things to itself, and transforming 
them according to its own posture, we cannot 



s Sextus Empiric, ut supra. 
o Seneca, JW. Quas. i. 16. 
■> Lucret. iii. 703. 
* Sextus Empiric, ut supra. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAVS. 



307 



know what things truly are in themselves, 
seeing that nothing comes to us but what is 
falsified and altered by the senses. Where 
the compass, the square, and the rule, are 
crooked, all propositions drawn thence, and all 
buildings erected by those guides, must, of neces- 
sity, be also defective ; the uncertainty of our 
senses renders everything uncertain that they 
produce : 

Deniquo ut in fabrics, si prava est regula prima, 
Norniaque si fallax rectis regionibus exit, 
Et lihella aliqua si ex parte claudical hilum; 
Omnia meiidose fieri. atqnr; olistipa necessum est, 

Jain men; ut qiuednni videantur velle, ruanlque 
Prodita jmlieiis fallaubus omnia primis: 
Sic igitur ratio tibi rernin prava necesse est, 
Falsaque sit, falsis qutEcunqiic ab sensibus orta est." 

" But lastly, as in building, if the line 
lie not exact and straight, tlie rule decline, 
Or level false, how vain is the design ! 
Uneven, an illshap'd anil tottering wall 
Must rise; this part must sink, that part must fall, 
Because the rules were false that fashion'd all: 
Thus reason's rules are false if all commence 
And rise fiwm failing and from erring sense." 

As to what remains, who can be fit to judge of 
and to determine those differences] As we say 
in controversies of religion that we must have 
a judge neither inclining to the one side nor 
the other, free from all choice and affection, 
which cannot be amongst Christians, just so it 
falls out in this; for if he be old he cannot 
judge of the sense of old age, being himself a 
party in the case; if young, there is the same 
exception ; if healthful, sick, asleep, or awake, 
he is still the same incompetent judge. We 
must have some one exempt from all these 
propositions, as of things indifferent to him; 
and by this rule we must have a judge that 
never was. 

To judge of the appearances that we receive 
it is impossible of subjects, we ought to have a 
to judge defi- deciding instrument ; to verify 

6ubect y b° f the th ' S instn]ment we mus t have 
appearances we demonstration; to verify this de- 
receive of it monstration an instrument; and 
from the senses. hae we are round agajn ^ 

the wheel, and no further advanced. Seeing 
the senses cannot determine our dispute, being 
full of uncertainty themselves, it must then be 
reason that must do it ; but no reason can be 
erected upon any other foundation than that 
of another reason ; and so we run back to all 
infinity. Our fancy does not apply itself to 
things that are strange, but is conceived by the 
mediation of the senses; and the senses do not 
comprehend a foreign subject, but only their 
own passions : by which means fancy and ap- 
pearance are no part of the subject, but only of 
the passion and sufferance of sense ; which pas- 
sion and subject are different things; wherefore 
whoever judges by appearances judges by ano- 



ther thing than the subject. And to say that 
the passions of the senses convey to the soul 
the quality of foreign subjects by resemblance, 
how can the soul and understanding be assured 
of this resemblance, having of itself no com- 
merce with foreign subjects'! As they who 
never knew Socrates cannot, when they see his 
picture, say it is like him. Now, whoever 
would, notwithstanding, judge by appearances, 
if it be by all, it is impossible, because they 
hinder one another by their contrarieties and 
discrepancies, as we by experience see : shall 
some select appearances govern the rest 7 you 
must verify this select by another select, the 
second by a third, and thus there will never 
be any end to it. Finally, there is no constant 
existence, neither of the objects' being nor our 
own ; both we, and our judgments, and all mortal 
things, are evermore incessantly running and 
rolling; and consequently nothing certain can 
be established from the one to the other, both 
the judging and the judged being in a continual 
motion and mutation. 

We have no communication with being, by 
reason that all human nature is always in the 
middle, betwixt being born and dying, giving 
but an obscure appearance and shadow, a weak 
and uncertain opinion of itself: and if, per- 
haps, you fix your thought to apprehend your 
being, it would be but like grasping water; 
for the more you clutch your hand to squeeze 
and hold what is in its own nature flowing, so 
much more you lose of what you 1 would grasp 
and hold. So, seeing that all things are sub- 
ject to pass from one change to another, reason, 
that there looks for a real substance, finds itself 
deceived, not being able to apprehend any 
thing that is subsistent and permanent, because 
that every thing is either entering into being, 
and is not yet arrived at it, or begins to die 
before it is born. Plato said, 2 that bodies had 
never any existence, but only birth ; conceiving 
that Homer had made the ocean and Thetis 
father and mother of the gods, to show us that 
all things are in a perpetual fluctuation, motion, 
and variation; the opinion of all the philo- 
sophers, as he says, before his time, Parmenides 
only excepted, who would not allow things to 
have motion, on the power whereof he sets a 
mighty value. Pythagoras was of opinion 
that all matter was flowing and unstable ; the 
Stoics, that there is no time present, and that 
what we call so is nothing but the juncture and 
meeting of the future and the past ; Heraclitus, 3 
that never any man entered twice into the same 
river; Epicharmus, that he who borrowed 
money but an hour ago does not owe it now ; 
and that he who was invited over-night to 
come the next day to dinner comes nevertheless 
uninvited, considering that they are no more 
the same men, but are become others;' 1 "and 



i Lucret. iv. 514. 
3 in the Thaetetes. 

I Seneca, Kp. 5ti ; and Plutarch, on the Signification of the 
word l.i. 



«The following passage within inverted commas 18 B 
quotation from the last mentioned tract of Plutarch, except 
the verses of Lucretius (v. B86), 



308 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



that there could not a mortal substance be 
found twice in the same condition : for, by the 
suddenness and quickness of the change, it one 
while disperses, and another re-unites; it comes 
and goes after such a manner that what begins 
to be born never arrives to the perfection of 
being ; forasmuch as that birth is never finished 
and never stays, as being at an end, but from 
the seed is evermore changing and shifting one to 
another ; as human seed is first in the mother's 
womb made a formless embryo, after delivered 
thence a sucking infant, afterwards it becomes 
a boy, then a youth, then a man, and at last a 
decrepid old man ; so that age and subsequent 
generation is always destroying and spoiling 
that which went before : 

Mutat enim mundi naturam totius ffitas, 
Ex alioque alius status excipcre omnia debet; 
Nee manet ulla sui siniilis res ; omnia migrant, 
Omnia commutat natura, et vertere cogit. 

'■For time the nature of the world translates, 
And from preceding gives all things new states: 
Nought like itself remains, but all do range, 
And nature forces everything to change." 

"And yet we foolishly fear one kind of death, 
whereas we have already passed, and do daily 
pass, so many others: for not only, as Hera- 
clitus said, the death of fire is generation of air, 
and the death of air generation of water; but, 
moreover, we may more manifestly discern it 
in ourselves; manhood dies, and passes away 
when age comes on ; and youth is terminated 
in the flower of age of a full-grown man, in- 
fancy in youth, and the first age dies in infancy : 
yesterday died in to-day, and to-day will die 
in to-morrow; and there is nothing that re- 
mains in the same state, or that is always the 
same thing. And that it is so 'let this be 
the proof: if we are always one and the same, 
how comes it to pass that we are now pleased 
with one thing, and by and by with another? 
How comes it to pass that we love or hate 
contrary things, that we praise or condemn 
them] How comes it to pass that we have 
different affections, and no more retain the 
same sentiment in the same thought 1 ! For it 
is not likely that without mutation we should 
assume other passions ; and that which suffers 
mutation does not remain the same, and if 
it be not the same it is not at all : but the same 
that the being is does, like it, unknowingly 
change and alter, becoming evermore another 
from another thing: and consequently the na- 
tural senses abuse and deceive themselves, 
taking that which seems for that which is, for 
want of well knowing what that which is, is. 
But what is it then that truly is ] That which is 
eternal : that is to say, that never had begin- 
ning, nor never shall have ending, and to which 
time can bring no mutation. For 

SahI, a wTthout g time is a moblle thin £> and that 
permanency. appears as in a shadow, with a 
matter evermore flowing and run- 
ning, without ever remaining stable and per- 

i See Plato, Timmus. 



manent : and to which belong those words, 
before and after, has been, or shall be : which, 
at the first sight, evidently show that it is not 
a thing that is ; for it were a great folly, and 
a manifest falsity, to say that that is which is 
not yet being, or that has already ceased to be. 
And as to these words, present, instant, and 
now, by which it seems that we principally 
support and found the intelligence of time, 
reason, discovering, does presently destroy it; 
for it immediately divides and splits it into the 
future and past, being of necessity to consider 
it divided in two. The same happens to na- 
ture, that is measured, as to time that measures 
it; for she has nothing more subsisting and 
permanent than the other, but all things are 
either born, bearing, or dying. So that it 
were sinful to say of God, who is he only who 
is, that he was, or that he shall be ; 1 for those 
are terms of declension, transmutation, and 
vicissitude, of what cannot continue or remain 
in being : wherefore we are to conclude that 
God alone is, not according to any«measure of 
time, but according to an immutable and an 
immovable eternity, not measured by time, nor 
subject to any declension ; before whom nothing 
was, and after whom nothing shall be, either 
more new or more recent, but a real being, 
that with one sole now fills the for ever, and 
that there is nothing that truly is but he 
alone; without our being able to say, he has 
been, or shall be ; without beginning, and with- 
out end." To this so religious conclusion of a 
pagan I shall only add this testimony of one of 
the same condition, for the close of this long and 
tedious discourse, which would furnish me with 
endless matter: "What a vile and abject 
thing," says he, 2 " is man, if he do not raise 
himself above humanity!" 'Tis a good word 
and a profitable desire, but withal absurd ; for 
to make the handle bigger than the hand, the 
cubit longer than the arm, and to hope to 
stride further than our legs can reach, is both 
impossible and monstrous ; or that man should 
rise above himself and humanity: for he cannot 
see but with his eyes, nor seize but with his 
hold. He shall be exalted, if God will lend 
him an extraordinary hand; he shall exalt 
himself, by abandoning and renouncing his 
own proper means, and by suffering himself to 
be raised and elevated by means purely celestial. 
It belongs to our Christian faith, and not to 
the stoical virtue, to pretend to that divine and 
miraculous metamorphosis. 



CHAPTER XIII 

OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER. 

When we judge of another's constancy and 
courage in dying, which, without doubt, is the 
most remarkable action of human life, we are 



2 Seneca, Nat. Quces. i. Prof. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



to take notice of one thing : which is that men 
very hardly believe themselves to be arrived to 
that period. Few men die in an opinion that 
it is their last hour ; there is nothing wherein 
the flattery of hope does more delude us: it 
never ceases to whisper in our ears, "Others 
have been much sicker without dying; my 
condition is not so desperate as 'tis thought; 
and, at the worst, God has done other miracles." 
Which happens by reason that we set too much 
value upon ourselves. It seems as if the uni- 
versality of things were in some measure to 
suffer by our dissolution, and that it did com- 
miserate our condition: forasmuch as our de- 
praved sight represents things to itself after a 
fallacious manner, and that we are of opinion 
they stand in as much need of us as we do of 
them : like people at sea, to whose notion 
mountains, fields, cities, heaven and earth, are 
tossed at the same rate they are : 

Provebimur portu, terrsque uibesque recedunt. 1 

" Out of the port with a brisk gale we speed, 
And making way, cities and lands recede." 

Whoever saw old age that did not applaud the 
past, and condemn the present time, laying the 
fault of his misery and discontent upon the 
world, and the manners of men 1 

Jamque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator . . . 
Et cum tcinpnru icmporihus pra-senlia confert 
Prateritis, laudat fortunas same parentis, 
Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum. 3 

" Now Die old ploughman sighs and shakes his head, 
And present times comparing with those tied, 
His predecessors' happiness doth praise. 
And the great piety of that old race." 

We make all things go along with us, whence 
it follows that we consider our 
SUSSES" death as a very mighty event, and 
men are apt to that does not so easily pass, nor 
death* t0 " leir witnout tne solemn consultation 
of the stars: Tot circa unum 
caput Uimullu antes deus : 3 "So many gods in 
an excited condition about one man ;" and so 
much the more think it as we more value our- 
selves : " What ! shall so much knowledge be 
lost, with so much damage to the world, with- 
out a particular concern of the destinies I Does 
so rare and exemplary a soul cost no more the 
killing than one that is mean and of no use to 
the public? This life that protects so many 
others, upon which so many other lives depend, 
that employs so vast a number of men in his 
service, and that rills so many places, shall it 
drop off like one that hangs but by its own 
single thread V None of us lays it enough to 
heart that we are but one: thence proceeded 
these words of Ctesar to his pilot, more timid 
than the sea that threatened him : 



Italian) si. cobIo autbore, recusas, 
Me, pete: Sola tilii causa ha:c est jusla limoris, 
Vectorem nou nosse tuuin ; perrumpe proccllas, 
Tutela secure inei : * 

" If thou to sail to Italy decline 
Under the gods' protection, trust to mine; 
The only reason that thou hast to fear 
Is that thou dost not know thy passenger ; 
But I, being now aboard, though Neptune raves, 
Fear not to cut through the tempestuous waves;" 

and these, — 

Credit jam digna pericula Ca;sar 
Fatis esse suis: taut usque evertere, dixit, 
We superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentera 



Tarn magno peticre 



'These dangers, worthy of his destiny, 
Ca-sar did now believe, and then did cry 
What ! is it for the gods a task so great 
To overthrow ine, that, to do the feat, 
In a poor little bark the 
Here to surprise 



be fain 

me on the swelling main 



1 JEncid, iii. 72. 
» Lucret. ii. 1 105 
s iW. Senccn, Sua 
* Lucan, v. 579. 
» Id. ib. 053. 



and that idle fancy of the public, that the sun 
carried in his face mourning for his death a 
whole year 

IUe etiam extincto miseratus Ca?sare Romam, 
Cuin caput obscura nitidum i'errugine texit: ° 



and a thousand of the like, wherewith the 
world suffers itself to be so easily imposed upon, 
believing that our interests affect heaven, and 
that its infinity occupies itself with our most 
ordinary actions. Non lanta ccelo socielas iw- 
biscum est, ut nostro fato mortalis sit ille 
quoque siderum fulgor. 1 " There is no such 
alliance betwixt us and heaven that the 
brightness of the stars should be made mortal 
by our death." 

Now to judge of the constancy and resolution 
of a man that does not yet believe 
himself to be certainly in danger, ^at weight 
though he really is, is not rea- fortitude of 
son ; and 'tis not enough that he many who have 
-,..,,. ,° , put themselves 

dies in this posture, unless he pur- ( death, 
posely put himself into it for this 
effect. It falls out in most men that they set a 
good face upon the matter, and speak with 
great indifference, to acquire reputation, which 
they hope afterwards to live to enjoy. Of all 
that I have seen die, fortune has disposed their 
countenances, and no design of theirs; and 
even of those who in ancient times have made 
away with themselves, there is much to be con- 
sidered whether it was a sudden or a lingering 
death. That cruel Roman emperor 3 said of his 
prisoners that he would make them feel death; 
and if any one killed himself in prison, " That 
fellow has escaped me." 9 He wanted to spin 
out death, and make it felt by torments. 



• Virg. Qecrgic. i. 460. 
' Pliny, JVaf. Hist. ii. 8. 

« Caligula; see his Life, by Suetonius, c. 30. 

• "f was Tiberius who said this of one Carvilius. 
tonius, Life of Tiberius, c. 01. 



310 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Vidimus ct toto quamvis in corpore caeso 
Nil animre lethale datum, moreniqiie nefandte 
Durum saevitire, pereuntis parcere morti. 1 

And in tormented bodies we have seen 

Amongst those wounds none that have mortal been, 

Inhuman method of dire cruelty, 

That means to kill, yet will not let men die." 

In truth, it is no such great matter for a man 
in health and sound mind to resolve to kill him- 
self; it is very easy to bravado before one comes 
to the push; insomuch that Heliogabalus, the 
most effeminate man in the world, amongst his 
most sensual pleasures, could forecast to make 
himself die delicately when he should be forced 
thereto ; and, that his death might not give the 
lie to the rest of his life, had purposely built a 
sumptuous tower, the base whereof was covered 
and laid with planks enriched with gold and 
precious stones, thence to precipitate himself; 
and also caused cords, twisted with gold and 
crimson silk, to be made, wherewith to strangle 
himself; and a sword, with the blade of gold, 
to be hammered out to fall upon; and kept 
poison in vessels of emerald and topaz, where- 
with to poison himself, according as he should 
like to choose one of these ways of dying: 

Impiger et fortis virtute coacta.a 

" By a forced valour resolute and brave." 

Yet, as to this fellow, the effeminacy of his 
preparations makes it more likely that his heart 
would have failed him had he been put to the 
test. But in those who, of greater resolution, 
have determined to dispatch themselves, we 
must examine whether it was at a blow, which 
took away the leisure of feeling the effect ; for 
it is to be questioned whether, perceiving life 
by little and little to steal away, the sentiment 
of the body mixing itself with that of the soul, 
and the means of repenting being offered, whe- 
ther, I say, constancy and obstinacy in so dan- 
gerous a resolve is to be found. 

In the civil wars of Ctesar, Lucius Domitius 

being taken in the Abruzzi, 3 and 
The cowardice thereupon poisoning himself, af- 
Sndothers?wiio terwards repented. It has hap- 
seemed resoi- pened, in our time, that a certain 
themselves to P erson > being resolved to die, and 
death. " not having gone deep enough at 

the first thrust, the sensibility of 
the flesh opposing his arm, gave himself three 
or four wounds more, but could never prevail 
upon himself to thrust home. Whilst Plautius 
Silvanus was upon his trial, Urgulania, his 
grandmother, sent him a poniard, with which, 
not being able to kill himself, he made his ser- 
vants cut his veins. 4 Albucilla, in Tiberius's time, 



i Lucan, iv. 178. 

2 Lamp. Life of Heling. c. 33. 

3 At Corfinium, in the Abruzzi. Most of the former edi- 
tions, French as well as English, read " In Prussia," amis- 
conception arising from Montaigne's using La Brusse, as 
a translation of the Latin name lor the Ahruz/.i, Mrutium. 
The anecdote is taken from Plutarch, Life of Cmsar, c. 16. 

4 Tacitus, Annuls, iv. 22. 
» Id. ib. vi. 48. 



having to kill himself, striking with too much 
tenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to 
imprison and put him to death their own way : 5 
and that great leader, Demosthenes, after his 
rout in Sicily, did the same; 6 and C. Fimbria, 
having struck himself too weakly, entreated his 
servant to dispatch him outright. 7 On the con- 
trary, Ostorius, who could not make use of his 
own arm, disdained to employ that of his ser- 
vant to any other use but only to hold the 
poniard straight and firm; and, running his 
breast full drive against it, thrust himself 
through. 8 'Tis, in truth, a morsel that is to 
be swallowed without chewing, unless a man 
be thoroughly resolved; and yet Adrian, the 
emperor, made his physician mark and encircle 
in his pap the mortal place wherein he was to 
stab, to whom he had given order to kill him. 9 
For this reason it was that Cssar, being asked 
what death he thought to be the most desired, 
made answer, "The least premeditated, and 
the shortest." 10 If Caesar dared to say it, it is 
no cowardice in me to believe it. "A short 
death," says Pliny, 11 "is the sovereign good 
hap of human life." They do not much care 
to discover it. No one can say that he is re- 
solved for death who fears to trifle with it, and 
that cannot undergo it with his eyes open. 
They that we see in exemplary punishments 
run to their death, hasten and press their exe- 
cution, do it not out of resolution, but wish to 
give themselves no leisure to consider it; it 
does not trouble them to be dead, but to die ; 

Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihili sstimo : " 

" I would not die, but care not to be dead." 

'Tis a degree of constancy, which I have expe- 
rimented that I could arrive at, like those who 
plunge themselves into dangers, as into the sea 
with their eyes shut. 

There is nothing, in my opinion, more illus- 
trious in the life of Socrates, than 
that he had thirty whole days The constant 
wherein to ruminate upon the death'of Sr> 
sentence of his death ; to have crates, 
digested it all that time with a 
most assured hope, without care, and without 
alteration, and with words and actions rather 
careless and indifferent, than any way stirred or 
discomposed by the weight of such a thought. 13 

That Pomponius Atticus, to whom Cicero 
writes so oft, being sick, caused 
Agrippa, his son-in-law, ant 
or three more of his friends, 
called to him, and told them, that having found 
all means practised upon him for his recovery 
to be in vain, and that all he did to prolong his 



« Plutarch, Life of Nicias. 

i Appiaii, De Bell. Milk-rid. 21. 

« Tacitus, Jlnual, xvi. 15. 

9 Xiphilin, in vita. 
i° Suetonius, in vita. 
» JVat. Hist. vii. 53. 
" Epicharmus, apud Cicero, Tusc. 
is Nepos, in vita 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



311 



life did also prolong and augment his pain, lie 
was resolved to put an end both to the one and 
the other, desiring them to approve of his deli- 
beration, or at least not to lose their labour in 
endeavouring to dissuade him. Now, having 
chosen to destroy himself by abstinence, his 
disease was thereby accidentally cured, and the 
remedy he made use of wherewith to kill him- 
self restored him to his perfect health. His 
physicians and friends, rejoicing at so happy 
an event, and coming to congratulate him, 
found themselves very much deceived, it being 
impossible for them to make him alter his pur- 
pose ; he telling them that he must one day die, 
and that being now so far on his way, he would 
save himself the labour of beginning again an- 
other time. This man having discovered death 
at leisure, was not only not discouraged at the 
approach of it, but provoked it ; for being satis- 
fied that he had engaged in the combat, he 
considered it as a piece of bravery, and that he 
was obliged in honour to see the end. 'Tis far 
beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it. 

The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very 
like this : he had his gums swollen and rotten ; 
his physicians advised him to great abstinence ; 
having fasted two days, he was so much better 
that they pronounced him cured, and permitted 
him to his ordinary course of diet ; he, on the 
contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this 
faintness of his, would not be persuaded to go 
back, but resolved to proceed, and to finish 
what he had so far advanced in. 1 

Tullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, 
having a mind to anticipate the hour of his 
destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more 
trouble to him than he was willing to endure, 
though his physician assurpd him of a certain, 
though not sudden, cure, called a council of his 
friends to consult about it ; " of whom some," 
says Seneca, "gave him the counsel which, out 
of unmanliness, they would have taken them- 
selves; others, out of flattery, such as they 
thought he would best like,: but a Stoic said 
thus to him : ' Do not concern thyself, Marcel- 
linus, as if thou didst deliberate of a thing of 
importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy 
servants and beasts live ; but it is a great thing 
to die handsomely, wisely, and firmly. Do but 
think how long tiiou hast done the same thing, 
eat, drink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat; we 
incessantly wheel in the same circle. Not only 
ill and insupportable accidents, but even the 
satiety of living inclines a man to desire to 
die.'" Marcellinus did not stand in need of 
a man to advise, but of a man to assist him; 
his servants were afraid to meddle in the busi- 
ness; but this philosopher gave them to under- 
stand that domestics are suspected only when 
it is in doubt whether the death of the master 
was voluntary or no; besides that it would 



be of as ill example to hinder him as to kill 
him ; forasmuch as 

Invitum qui servat, iduin facit occidenti:' 



Afterwards he told Marcellinus that it would 
not be indecent, as the remains of feasts, when 
we have done, is given to the servants, so life, 
being ended, to distribute something to those 
who have been our assistants. Now Marcel- 
linus was of a free and liberal spirit, he there- 
fore divided a certain sum of money amongst 
his attendants and comforted them. As to the 
rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood. He 
was resolved to go out of this life, and not to 
run out of it ; not to escape from death, but to 
essay it. And to give himself leisure to trifle 
with it, having forsaken all kind of nourish- 
ment, the third day following, after having 
caused himself to be sprinkled with warm 
water, he went off faintingly and by degrees, 
and not without some kind of pleasure, as he 
himself declared. 3 In earnest, such as have 
been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding 
from weakness, say that they are therein sen- 
sible of no manner of paiD, but rather feel a 
kind of delight, as in a passage to sleep and 
rest. These are studied and digested deaths. 

But to the end that Cato only may furnish 
out the whole example of virtue, it seems as if 
his good destiny had weakened the hand with 
which he gave himself the blow, seeing he had 
the leisure to confront and grapple with death, 
reinforcing his courage in the greatest danger, 
instead of letting it go less. And if I had been 
to represent him in his supreme station, I should 
have done it in the posture of tearing out his 
bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in 
his hand, as did the statuaries of his time ; for 
this second murder was much more furious than 
the first. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THAT THE MIND HINDERS ITSELF. 

'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind 
exactly balanced betwixt two equal desires; for 
doubtless it can never pitch upon either, foras- 
much as the choice and application would 
manifest an inequality of esteem ; and were we 
set between the bottle and the ham with an 
equal appetite to drink and eat, there would 
doubtless be no remedy, but we must die for 
thirst and hunger. 1 To provide against this 
inconvenience, the Stoics, 5 when they were asked 
whence the election in our soul between two 
indifferent things proceeds, and what makes us, 



i Lnertius, in vilu. 
3 Horat. dc Art. Pod 

a Seneca, Epist. 97. 



* Sec Bayle's Dictionary, article Buridan. 

> Plutarch, Contradictions of the Stoic Philosophers. 



312 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



out of a great number of crowns, rather take 
one than another, there being no reason to in- 
cline us to such a preference, make answer that 
this movement of the soul is extraordinary and 
irregular ; that it enters into us by a strange, 
accidental, and fortuitous impulse. It might 
rather, methinks, be said that nothing presents 
itself to us wherein there is not some difference, 
bow little soever ; and that, either by the sight 
or touch, there is always some choice, that, 
though it be imperceptibly, tempts and attracts 
us in like manner. Whoever shall suppose a 
packthread equally strong throughout, it is 
utterly impossible it should break ; for where 
will you have the breaking to begin 1 And that 
it should break altogether is not in nature. 
Whoever also should hereunto join the geome- 
trical propositions, that by the certainty of their 
demonstrations conclude the contained to be 
greater than the containing, the centre as great 
as its circumference, and that find out two lines 
incessantly approaching each other, and that 
yet can never meet, and the philosopher's stone, 
and the quadrature of the circle, where the 
reason and effect are so opposite, might per- 
adventure find some argument to second this 
bold saying of Pliny, 1 Solum certum nihil esse 
certi, et homine nihil miserius aut superbius : 
" This is only certain, there is nothing certain, 
and that nothing is more miserable or more 
proud than man." 



CHAPTER XV. 



THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY 
DIFFICULTIES. 



is no reason that has not its contra- 
ry, say the wisest philosophers. I was rumi- 
nating on the excellent saying one of the 
ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No 
good can bring pleasure, but that for the loss of 
which we are before-hand prepared ;" 2 In szquo 
est dolor amissas rei, et timor amittendx; 3 
" The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of 
losing it, are equal ;" meaning by that that the 
fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us if 
we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, 
be said, on the contrary, that we hug and em- 
brace this good so much the more tenderly, and 
with so much greater affection, by how much 
we see it the less assured, and fear to have it 
taken from us; for as it is evident that fire 
burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix 



a Id. Epist. 98. 

<Ovid, Amor. ii. 19,27. 

6 Beneca, de Benef. vii. 9. 
« Martial, iv. 37. 

7 Plutarch, Life of Lyr.nrgus, ii. 

8 Horace, Epocl. xi. 'J. 

Plutarch, Life, of Pompey, i. 
10 Lucret. iv. 107b'. 



with it, so our wills are more obstinate by being 



i nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris, 
Non esset Danae de Jove facta parens.' 



and that there is nothing naturally so contrary 
to our taste as satiety which proceeds from faci- 
lity ; nor any thing that so much whets it as 
rarity and difficulty : Omnium rerum voluptas 
ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit. 5 "The 
pleasure of all things increases by the same 
danger that should deter it." 

Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent.6 



To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a 
decree that the married people of Lacedaemonia 
should never enjoy one another but by stealth ; 
and that it should be as great a shame for them 
to be taken in bed together as if committing 
with others. 7 The difficulty of assignations, the 
danger of surprise, the shame of the morning, 

Et languor, et silentium 

et latere petitus imo spiritus.8 

" The languor, silence, and the deep-fetch'd sighs," 

these are what give the haut-gout to the sauce. 
How many sports, very wantonly pleasant, 
arise from the cleanly and modest way of 
speaking of the works of love 1 Even pleasure 
itself would be heightened with pain ; it is 
much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin 
rippled. The courtezan Flora said she never 
lay with Pompey, but she made him wear the 
marks of her teeth. 9 

Quod petiere, premunt arete, faciuntque dolorem 
Corporis, et dentes inlidunt ssepe labellis . . , 
Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant tedere id ipsum 
Quodcunque est, rabies unde ilte germina surguntjo 

"What they desired they hurt, and, 'midst the bliss, 
Raise pain ; and often, with a furious kiss, 
They wound the balmy lips. 
But still some sting remains, some fierce desire, 
To hurt whatever 'twas that rais'd the lire." 

And so it is in every thing: difficulty gives all 
things their estimation. The people of the 
Marches of Ancona 11 more cheerfully make their 
vows to St. James,' 2 and those of Galicia to our 
Lady of Loretto. They make wonderful fuss 
at Liege I3 about the baths of Lucca ; and in 
Tuscany about those of Aspa; there are few 
Romans seen in the fencing-schools of Rome, 
which are full of French. The great Cato also, 
as well as we, nauseated his wife u while she was 



« In Italy, where is the celebrated shrine of our Lady of 
Loretto. 

« St. James of Compostella, in Galicia. 

13 Near which are the baths of Spa, which Montaigne 
calls Aspa. 

" Marcia. daughter of Mnrcius Philippus, whomthe great 
Cato lent to his friend Hortensins. See Plutarch. Life of 
Cato of Utic.a, who, however, does not say that Cato longed 
for his wife when his friend lived, but merely that he took 
her back when Hortensius died. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



313 



his, and longed for her when in the possession 
of another. I was fain to turn out an old stallion 
into the paddock, being he was vicious and not 
to be governed when he smelt a mare ; the faci- 
lity presently sated him, as towards his own; 
but towards strange mares, and the first that 
passed by the pale of his pasture, he would 
again fall to his importunate neighings and his 
furious heats, as before. Our appetite contemns 
and passes by what it has in possession, to run 
after that it has not : 

Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat. 1 



To forbid us any thing, is to make us have a 
mind to it : 

Nisi tn aervare puellam 
Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea : a 
' If thou no better guard'st that girl of thine, 
She'll soon begin to be no longer mine :" 

to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us 
contempt. Want and abundance fall into the 
same inconvenience: 

Tibi quod supercst, mihi quod desit, dolet.a 



Desire and fruition equally afflict us. The 
rigours of mistresses are troublesome, but fa- 
cility, to say truth, is still more so; forasmuch 
as discontent and anger, springing from' the 
esteem we have of the thing desired, heat and 
actuate love; but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a 
blunt, dull, stupid, tired, and slothful passion. 

Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem.4 



I!y which means M>e that yesterday said Nay 
Will come and oll'or up herself to-day." 

Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to 
hide the beauties of her face, but to enhance 
them to her lovers? 6 Why have they veiled, 
even below the heels, those beauties that every 
one of them desires to show, and that every one 
of us desires to see? Why do they cover, with 
so many hindrances one over another, the parts 
where our desires and their own have their 
principal seat! And to what serve those great 
bastions of farthingales, with which our ladies 
fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite 
and to draw us on to them, by removing them 
farther from us] 

Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri.' 



i Horace, Sat. i. 2. 108. 
"Ovid, Amor. ii. 19,47. 
■' Terence, Phormio, i. 3, 
« Ovid, Amor. ii. 19, 33. 

27 



Interdum tunica duiit operta moram.8 
" And often with her robe delay'd ray joys." 

To what use serves the artifice of this virgin 
modesty, this grave coldness, this severe coun- 
tenance, this profession to be ignorant of things 
that they know better than we who instruct 
them in them, but to increase in us the desire to 
overcome, and with more gluttony subject to 
our appetites all this ceremony and all these 
obstacles 1 For there is not only pleasure, but 
moreover glory, to intoxicate and debauch that 
soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to 
reduce a cold and matron-like gravity to the 
mercy and quality of our ardent desires: 'tis a 
glory, say they, to triumph over modesty, 
chastity, and temperance ; and whoever dis- 
suades ladies from those qualities betrays both 
them and himself. We should believe that their 
hearts tremble with affright, that the very 
sound of our words offends the purity of their 
ears, that they hate us for talking so, and only 
yield to our importunity by a compulsive force. 
Beauty, all-powerful as it is, has not where- 
withal to make itself relished without the medi- 
ation of these little arts. Look at Italy, where 
there is the most and the finest beauty to be 
sold, how it is nevertheless necessitated to have 
recourse to other means and other artifices to 
render itself charming ; and in truth, whatever 
it may do, being venal and public, it remains 
feeble and languishing in itself; even as in 
virtue itself, of two like effects, we notwith- 
standing look upon that as the best and most 
worthy wherein the most trouble and hazard is 
proposed. 

'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to 
suffer his holy church to be af- 
flicted, as we see it, with so many J^^Xir'ch 
storms and troubles, by this op- to be harassed, 
position to rouse pious souls, and 
toawaken them from that drowsy lethargy where- 
into, by so long tranquillity, they had been im- 
merged. If we should lay the loss we have 
sustained in the number of those who have gone 
astray, in the balance against the benefit we 
have had by being again put in breath, and by 
having our zeal and force resuscitated by reason 
of this opposition, I know not whether the 
utility would not surmount the damage. 

We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of 
our marriages more fast and firm, 
for having taken away all means Whether the 
of dissolving it; but the knot of' 1!!,',!;' 
the will and affection is so much firmer by ta- 
the more slackened and made "°£ n Vtf di* 8 
loose by how much that of con- solving it. 
straint is drawn closer together; 
and on the contrary, that which kept the mar- 
riages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, 
was the liberty every one that would had to 



> Propcrt. ii. 14, 10. 

' Tacitus, Annul, xii. 45. 

' Virg. Eclog. iii. 65. 
6 Propert. ii. Ii. 0. 



914 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



break them. They kept their wives the better, 
because they might part with them if they 
would ; and in the full liberty of divorces they 
lived five hundred years and more before any 
one made use on't. 1 

Quod licet, ingratum est ; quod non licet, acrius urit. 8 

"What's free to us to do we slight, 
What is forbidden whets the appetite." 

We might here introduce the opinion of an 
ancient on this occasion, that executions rather 
whet than dull the edge of vices; that they do 
not beget the care of doing well, that being the 
work of reason and discipline; but only a care 
not to be taken in doing ill : 

Latius excisoe pestis contagia serpunt: 3 
"The plague-sore, being lanc'd, th' infection spreads:" 

I do not know that this is true; but this I ex- 
perimentally know, that never civil government 
was by that means reformed : the order and re- 
gulation of manners depend upon some other 
expedient. 

The Greek histories 4 make mention of the 

Argippians, neighbours to Scylhia, who live 

without either rod or stick of 

havffived°con- offerlCe 5 that not onl 7 n0 one 

tentediy and attempts to attack them, but 
securely with- whoever can fly thither is safe, 

out oflensive , c I, ■ • . , 

arms . by reason or their virtue and 

sanctity of life, and no one is 
so bold as there to lay hands upon them; 
and they have applications made to them to 
determine the controversies that arise betwixt 
men of other countries. There is a certain 
nation, where the enclosures of gardens and 
fields they would preserve is made only of a 
6tring of cotton-yarn, and, so fenced, is more 
firm and secure than our hedges and ditches : 

Furem signata sollicitant Aperla affrac- 

tarius pr&terit:* "Things sealed up invite a 
thief. House-breakers pass by open doors." 

Peradventure the facility of entering my 
house, amongst other things, has been a means 
to preserve it from the violence of our civil 
wars; defence allures an enemy, and mistrust 
provokes him. I enervated the soldiers' design 
by depriving the exploit of danger, and all 
matter of military glory, which is wont to 
serve them for pretence and excuse. What- 
ever is bravely is ever honourably done, at a 
time when justice is dead. I render them the 
conquest of my house cowardly 

house d tai C ng OSS one that knocks. My _ 
the civil wars, no other guard than a porter, and 
that of ancient custom and cere- 
mony, who does not so much serve to defend 
it, as to offer it with more decency and the 
better grace. I have no other guard or sentinel 
than the stars. A gentleman would play the 



, 4. who says five hundred and twenty 



fool to make a show of defence, if he be not 
really in a condition to defend himself. He 
that lies open on one side is every where so. 
Our ancestors did not think of building frontier 
garrisons. The means of assaulting, I mean 
without battery or army, and of surprising 
our houses, increase every day, above all the 
means to guard them; men's wits are generally 
bent that way ; invasion everyone is concerned 
in; none but the rich in defence. Mine was 
strong for the time when it was built; I have 
addded nothing to it of that kind, and should 
fear that its strength should turn against my- 
self: to which we are to consider that a peace- 
able time would require it should be dismantled. 
There is the danger never to be able to regain 
it, and it would be very hard to keep it, for in 
intestine dissensions your valet may be of the 
party you fear; and where religion is the pre- 
text, even a man's nearest relation may be 
distrusted with a colour of justice. The public 
exchequer will' not maintain our domestic gar- 
risons; it would be exhausted: we ourselves 
have not means to do it without ruin, or, which 
is more inconvenient and injurious, without 
ruining the people. As to the rest, you there 
lose all, and even your friends will be more 
ready to accuse your want of vigilance and 
your improvidence than to pity you, and the 
ignorance and heedlessness of your profession. 
That so many garrisoned houses have been lost, 
whereas this of mine remains, makes me apt 
to suspect that they were only lost by being 
guarded ; this gives an enemy both an invita- 
tion and colour of reason: all defence shows 
a face of war. Let who will come to me, in 
God's name ; but I shall not invite them. 'Tis 
retirement I have chosen, for my repose from 
war. I endeavour to withdraw this corner from 
the public tempest, as I also do another corner 
in my soul. Our war may put on what forms 
it will, multiply and diversify itself into new 
parties; for my own part, I shall not budge. 
Amongst so many garrisoned houses, I am the 
only person of my condition, that I know of, 
who have purely entrusted mine to the protec- 
tion of Heaven, without removing either plate, 
deeds, or hangings. I will neither fear nor 
save myself by halves. If a full acknowledg- 
ment can acquire the divine favour, it will serve 
me to the end: if not, I have still continued 
long enough to render my continuance re- 
markable and recordable. — I have lived thirty 
years ! 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OF GLORY. 

There is the name and the thing : the name 
is a voice which denotes and signifies the thing ; 



Until. Itincr. i. 307. in reference to the Jews and their 
igion. 
Herod, iv. 23. « Seneca, Epist. 68. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



315 



the name is no part of the tiling, or of the sub- 
stance ; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, 
and without it. 

God, who is all fulness in himself, and the 
height of all perfection, cannot 

IXTJ^Z fvs™ nt -T- ad , d a , ny thing t0 

increased. himself within ; but his name may 

be augmented and increased by 
the blessing and praise we attribute to his ex- 
terior works, which praise, seeing we cannot 
incorporate it in him, forasmuch as he can have 
no accession of good, we attribute it to his 
name, which is the part out of him that is 
nearest to us ; thus is it that to God alone glory 
and honour appertain; and there is nothing so 
remote from reason as that we should go in 
quest of it for ourselves; for being indigent and 
necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, 
and having continual need of melioration, 'tis 
to this that we ought to employ all our endea- 
vours ; we are all hollow and empty ; 'tis not 
with wind and voice that we are to fill our- 
selves ; we want a more solid substance to repair 
us ; a man starved with hunger would be very 
simple to seek rather to provide himself with 
a gay garment than a good meal; we are to 
look after that whereof we have most need. 
As we have it in our ordinary prayers, Gloria 
in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus : ' 
"Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace and good will to men." We are in want 
of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like 
essential qualities; exterior ornaments should 
be looked after, when we have made provision 
for necessary things. Divinity treats amply 
and more pertinently of this subject, but I am 
not much versed in it. 

Chrysippus and Diogenes 2 were the first and 
the 'most constant authors of the contempt of 
glory, and maintained that, amongst all plea- 
sures, there was none more dangerous, nor more 
to be avoided, than that which we derive from 
the approbation of others. And, in truth, ex- 
perience makes us sensible of many very hurtful 
treasons in it; there is nothing that so poisons 
princes as flattery, nor any thing whereby 
wicked men more easily obtain credit and 
favour with them; nor panderism so ably and 
usually made use of to corrupt the chastity of 
women, than to wheedle and entertain them 
with their own praises; the first charm the 
Syrens made use of to allure Ulysses was of 
this nature: 



These philosophers said that all the glory of 
the world was not worth an understanding 
man's holding out his finger to obtain it: 4 

Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?' 



i St. Luke, it. 14. 

> Cicero, dc Finib. iii. 17. 

> Homer, Odyssey, xii. 184. 
** Cicero, nl supra. 

8 Juvenal, vii. til. 



I say for it alone, for it often brings several 
commodities along with it, for which it may be 
justly desired ; it acquires us good-will, and 
renders us less subject and exposed to the inju- 
ries and insults of others, and the like. It wag 
also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus ; 
for this precept of his sect, Conceal thy life, 
that forbids men to encumber themselves with 
offices and public negotiations, does also neces- 
sarily pre-suppose a contempt of glory, which 
is the world's approbation of those actions we 
produce in evidence. He that bids us conceal 
ourselves, and have no other concern but for 
ourselves, and that will not have us known to 
others, would much less have us honoured and 
glorified; and 'tis thus he advises Idomeneus 
not in any sort to regulate his actions by the 
common reputation or opinion, except to avoid 
the other accidental inconveniences that the 
contempt of men might bring upon him. 

Those discourses are, in my opinion, very true 
and rational ; but we are, I know not how, 
double in ourselves, which is the cause that 
what we believe we do not believe, and cannot 
disengage ourselves from what we condemn. 
Let us see the last and dying words of Epicu- 
rus ; they are great, and worthy of such a 
philosopher, and yet they carry some marks of 
the recommendation of his name, and of that 
humour he had decried by his precepts. Here 
is a letter 6 that he dictated a little before his 
last gasp : 

"Epicurus to Hermachus, health. 
" Whilst I was passing over the happiest and 
last day of my life, I wrote this, but at the same 
time afflicted with such a pain in my bladder 
and bowels that nothing can be greater; but it 
was recompensed with the pleasure the remem- 
brance of my discoveries and doctrines suggested 
to my soul. Now, as the affection thou hast 
ever from thy infancy borne towards me and 
philosophy requires, take upon thee the protec- 
tion of Metrodorus's children." 

This is the letter: and that which makes me 
interpret that the pleasure he says he had in his 
soul, concerning his discoveries, has some refe- 
rence to the reputation he hoped tor after his 
death, is the manner of his will, in which he 
gives order, "That Amynomaclius and Timo- 
crates, his heirs, should every January defray, 
for the celebration of his birth-day, the expense 
that Hermachus should appoint; and also the 
expense that should be made the twentieth of 
every moon, in entertaining the philosophers, 
his friends, who should assemble in honour of 
the memory of him and Metrodorus." 7 



•Cicero, de Finib. ii. 30. In Laertins, Life of Epicurus, 
this I. ■Her is moiuioni'd as lirins; addressed to Idomrneus — 
Villoiaon (jincc Orate, torn ii. p. l.V.i.) mid Viscontj [Icmo- 
prap. Grac. torn i. p. a us) have shown that the earns should 

he written Ilermarchus. 
'Cicero, de Finib. ii. 31. 



316 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



was head of the contrary opinion ; 
. . „ and maintained that glory was to 

Glory desirable , j ■ j c •< if 

for itself. De desired for itself; even as we 

embrace our posthumes for them- 
selves, having no knowledge or enjoyment of 
them. This opinion has not failed to be more 
universally followed, as those commonly are 
that are most suitable to our inclinations. Aris- 
totle gives it the first place amongst external 
goods; "avoid as two extreme vices, immo- 
deration, either in seeking or evading it." 2 I 
believe, if we had the books Cicero wrote upon 
this subject, we should have fine harangues 
about it; for he was so madly possessed with 
this passion, that if he had dared, 
ambUio V us r of l think he could willingly have 
glory. fallen into the excess that others 

did, that virtue itself was not to 
be coveted but upon the account of the honour 
that always attends it : 



"For hidden virtue's much the same as none:" - 

which is an opinion so false that I am vexed it 
could ever enter into the understanding of a 
man that was honoured with the name of a 
philosopher. 

If this were true, men need not be virtuous 
but in public; and should be no further con- 
cerned to keep the operations of the soul, which 
is the true seat of virtue, regular and in order, 
than as they were to arrive at the knowledge of 
others. Is there no more in it than but only 
slily and with circumspection to do ill! "If 
thou knowest," says Carneades, 4 " of a serpent 
lurking in a place, where, without suspicion, a 
person is going to sit down, by whose death 
thou expectest an advantage, thou dost ill if 
thou dost not give him caution of his danger; 
and so much the more because the action is to 
be known by none but thyself." If we do not 
take up ourselves a rule of well-doing, if impu- 
nity passes with us for justice, to how many 
sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon 
ourselves? I do not find what Sextus Peduceus 
did, in faithfully restoring the treasure that 
C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy 
and trust, 3 a thing that I have often done my- 
self, so commendable, as I should think it an 
execrable baseness to have done otherwise : and 
I hold it of good use in our days to introduce 
the example of P. Sextilius Rufus, whom Cicero 6 
accuses to have entered upon an inheritance 
contrary to his conscience, not only not against 
law, but even by the determination of the laws 
themselves; and M. Crassus and Q. Horten- 
sius, 7 who, by reason of their authority and 
power, having been called in by a stranger to 



i Cicero, de Finib. iii 

2 Morals, ii. 7. 

3 Hor. Oil. iv. 9. 29. 

* Cicero, dc Fiiiib. ii. 



share in the succession of a forged will, that so 
he might secure his own part, satisfied them- 
selves with having no hand in the forgery, and 
refused not to make their advantage and to 
come in for a share; secure enough if they 
could shroud themselves from accusations, wit- 
nesses, and the laws: Meminerint Deum se 
habere lestem, id est (ut ego arbilror) rnentem 
suam? "Let them consider they have God to 
witness, that is (as I interpret it) their own 
consciences." 

Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if 
it derives its recommendation from glory : 'tis 
to no purpose that we endeavour 
to give it a station by itself and Virtue would 

a J be a frivolous 

separate it from fortune ; for what thing if it de- 
is more accidental than reputa- rivi -' d < ls ra- 
tion? Prof ecto for tuna in omni fronTgiory.'' 011 
re dominatur : ea res cunclas ex 
libidine magis quam ex vero celebrat, obscu- 
ratque? "Fortune rules in all things, and 
advances and depresses things more out of her 
own will than right and justice." So to order 
it that actions may be known and seen is purely 
the work of fortune ; 'tis chance that helps us 
to glory, according to its own temerity. I have 
often seen her go along before merit, and very 
much exceed it. He that first likened glory to 
a shadow did better than he was aware of: 
they are both of them things excellently vain: 
glory, also, like a shadow, goes sometimes be- 
fore the body, and sometimes in length infinitely 
exceeds it. They that instruct gentlemen only 
to employ their valour for the obtaining of 
honour, quasi non sit honestum quod nobili- 
talum non sit ; 10 " as though it were not a 
virtue unless ennobled ;" what do they intend 
by that but to instruct them never to hazard 
themselves if they are not seen, and to observe 
well if there be witnesses present who may 
carry news of their valour: whereas a thou- 
sand occasions of well-doing present themselves 
when we cannot be taken notice of. How 
many brave actions are buried in the crowd of 
a battle'! Whoever shall take upon him to 
notice another's behavieur in such a confusion 
is not very busy himself, and the testimony he 
shall give of his companion's deportment will be 
evidence against himself. Vera et sapiens anirni 
magnitudo, honestum Mud, quod maxime na- 
turam sequitur, in factis positurn, nonin gloria 
judical. 11 " True and wise magnanimity judges 
that the bravery which most follows nature 
more consists in action than glory." 

All the glory that I pretend to derive from 
my life is that I have lived in quiet: in quiet, 
not according/ to Metrodorus, or Arcesilaus, or 
Aristippus, but according to myself. For seeing 
philosophy has not been able to find out any 



' Cicero, de Offie. iii. 18. 

e Id. ib. 10. 

9 Sallust, Bell. Catil. c. 8 
io Cicero, ut supra, i. 4. 
" Id. ib. 19. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



317 



way to tranquillity that is good in common, let 
every one seek it for himself. ' 

To what do Cassar and Alexander owe the 
infinite grandeur of their renown but to for- 
tune'! How many men has she extinguished 
in the beginning of their progress, of whom we 
have no knowledge, who brought as much 
courage to the work as they, if their adverse 
hap had not stopped them short in the first sally 
of their arms? Amongst so many and so great 
dangers, I do not remember I have any where 
read that Caesar was ever wounded : a thou- 
sand have fallen in less dangers than the least 
of those he went through. A great many brave 
actions must be expected to be performed with- 
out witness, and so lost, before one turns to 
account : a man is not always on the top of a 
breach, or at the head of an army, in the sight of 
his general, as upon a scaffold ; a man is often 
surprised betwixt the hedge and the ditch ; he 
must run the hazard of his life against a hen- 
roost, he must dislodge four rascally musketeers 
from a barn ; he must prick out single from his 
party and alone make some attempt, according 
as necessity will have it. And whoever will ob- 
serve will, I believe, find it experimentally true 
that occasions of the least lustre are ever the mos 
dangerous ; and that in the wars of our own 
times there have more brave men been lost in 
affairs of little moment, and in the dispute 
about some little paltry fort, than in places of 
greater importance, and where their valour 
might have been more honourably employed 

Who thinks death unworthy of him if it be 
not on some signal occasion, instead of illustra- 
ting his death doth wilfully obscure his life, 
Buffering in the mean time many very just occa- 
sions of hazarding himself to slip out of his 
hands; and every just one is illustrious enough, 
every man's conscience being a sufficient trum- 
pet to him : Gloria nostra est testimonium 
conscienlve nostra:. 1 " For our rejoicing is 
this, the testimony of our conscience." Who is 
only a good man that others may know it, and 
that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis 
known ; who will not do well but upon con- 
dition that his virtue may be known to men, 
is one from whom much service is not to be 
expected. 

Credo che '1 resto di que] verno, cose 
FaceEse (feme di teneme conto ; 
Ma fur sin da quel tempo si nascose, 
Che non e colpa mia e' or non le conto: 
Pcrche Orlando a Car 1' opre virtuose. 



I belie 



prill 



\VI 



thy 



fan 



arknesa pent 
That if I name tbain not I'm not to blame : 
Orlando's noble mind being still more bent 
To do groat acts than boast him of the sam 
fio that no deeds of his were ever known 
But those that luckily had lookers-on." 



A man should go to the wars upon the account 
of duty, and expect the recompense that never 
fails brave and worthy actions, how private 
and concealed soever, nor even to virtuous 
thoughts; 'tis a satisfaction that a well-disposed 
conscience receives in itself at doing well. A 
man must be valiant for himself, and upon the 
account of the advantage it is to him, to have his 
courage seated in a sure and secure place against 
the assaults of fortune: 

Virtus, repulste nescia sordicta, 

lntaminalis fulget bonoribus; 

Necsumit, ant point secures 
Arhitrio popularis aura;. 3 

"Virtue that ne'er repulse admits, 
In taintless honour (Morions sits; 
Nor takes, or loaveth dignities 
At the mere noise of vulgar cries." 

It is not for show that the soul is to play its 
part, but for ourselves within, where no eyes 
can see but our own : there she defends U3 
from the fear of death, of pain, and shame 
itself; she there arms us against the loss of our 
children, friends, and fortune ; and when op- 
portunity presents itself, she leads us on to the 
hazards of war, non emolumento aliquo, sed 
ipsius honestatis decore ,- 4 "not for any profit 
or advantage, but for the honour of virtue ;" a 
much greater advantage, and more worthy to 
be coveted and hoped for than honour and 
glory, which are nothing but a favourable 
judgment given of us. 

A dozen men must be culled out of a whole 
nation to judge of an acre of 
land; and the judgment of our temptfbleia 
inclinations and actions, the hard- the judgment 
est and most important thing that ^ d l e he multi " 
is, we refer to the voice and de- 
termination of the rabble, the mother of igno- 
rance, injustice, and inconstancy. Is it reason- 
able that the life of a wise man should depend 
upon the judgment of fools] An quidquam 
stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas, eos 
aliquid putare esse universos? 5 " Can anything 
be more foolish than to think that those you 
despise singly can be any other than despicable 
when joined together 1" He that makes it his 
business to please them will never have done; 
'tis a mark that never is to be reached or hit : 
Nil tarn inestimabile est, quam animi multitu- 
dinis. 6 " Nothing is so uncertain as the minds 
of the multitude." Demetrius 7 pleasantly said, 
of the voice of the people, that he made no 
more account of that which came from above 
than of that which came from below. Cicero 
says more : Ego hoc judico, si quundo turpe 
non sit. tamen non esse non turpe, quum id a 
midtitudine laudetur. 3 " I am of opinion that, 
though a thing be not foul in itself, yet it 
cannot but become so when commended by the 
multitude." No art, no activity of wit, could 
conduct our steps so as to follow so wandering 



' 2 Conn. i. 12. 
- Arlosto, Orlando, canto i 
■ Horace, Od. iii. % ]T. 
1 Cicero, it Rnaft. i. 10. 
B U, Tuse. Quat. v. :jb\ 
27* 



Livy, .txxi. 34. 



318 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and irregular a guide : in this windy confusion 
of noise, vulgar reports, and opinions, that 
drive us on, no way worth anything can be 
chosen. Let us not purpose to ourselves so 
floating and wavering an end: let us follow 
constantly after reason; let the public appro- 
bation follow us there, if it will; and as it 
wholly depends upon fortune, we have no reason 
sooner to expect it by any other way than that. 
Though I would not follow the straight way 
because it is straight, I would, however, follow 
it for having experimentally found that, at the 
end of the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most 
happy, and of the greatest utility: Dedit hoc 
providentia hominibus nianus, ut honesta magis 
juvarent. 1 "This gift providence has given 
to man, that honest things should be the 
most delightful." The mariner of old said to 
Neptune, in a great tempest: "O god, thou 
mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt, 
thou mayest destroy me; but, whether or no, 
I will steer my rudder true." 2 I have seen, in 
my time, a thousand men of supple and am- 
biguous natures, and that no one doubted but 
they were more worldly wise than I, ruined 
where I have saved myself: 

Risi successu posse carere dolos.3 

" I laugh'd to see their unsuccessful wiles." 

Paulus iEmilius, going on his glorious ex- 
pedition to Macedonia, above all things charged 
the people of Rome not to speak of his actions 
during his absence. 4 The license of judgments 
is a great obstacle to great affairs ! Forasmuch 
as every one has not the firmness of Fabius 
against adverse and injurious voices, who rather 
suffered his authority to be dissected by the 
vain fancies of men than to fulfil less well his 
charge, with a more favourable reputation and 
popular applause. 

There is I know not what na- 
iral sweetness in hearing one'i 
too high a self commended ; but we are a 

P rice - great deal too fond of it : 

Laudari haud metuam, neque enim mihi cornea flbra est; 
Sed recti finemque, extremumque esse recuso, 
"Euge" tuum, et belle." 5 



"Think not 
That all your praises I should treat with scorn ; 
No, no ! my nerves are n't made as dull as horn : 
But that your ' Bravos !' and that senseless cry, 
Prove that all's right and perfect I deny." 

I care not so much what I am in the opinion 
of others, as what I am in my own: I would 
be rich of myself, and not by borrowing. 
Strangers see nothing but events and outward 
appearances ; everybody can set a good face on 



i Quintil. Instit. Orat. i. 12. 

2 Seneca, Epist. 85. 

3 Ovid, Hcriod. i. 18. The text, however, has fiebam, 
successu—" I wept to see," &c. 

< Livy, xliv. 22. 

6 Pers. i. 47. Haud does not occur in the text. 
<• Tlie ring of Oijgcs. Plato, Republic ii. 3. 
' Horace, Epist. i. 16, 39. 



the matter when they are full of trembling and 
terror within :^ they do not see my heart, they 
see but my countenance. 'Tis with good reason 
that men decry the hypocrisy that is in war ; 
for what is more easy to an old soldier than 
to shift in time of danger, and to counterfeit 
bravely, when he has no more heart than a 
chicken? There are so many ways to avoid 
hazarding a man's own person, that we have 
deceived the world a thousand times before we 
come to be engaged in a real danger ; and even 
then, finding ourselves in an inevitable neces- 
sity of doing something, we can make a shift 
for that time to conceal our apprehensions by 
setting a good face on the business, though the 
heart beats within ; and had we the use of the 
Platonic ring, 6 which renders those invisible 
that wear it, if turned inwards towards the palm 
of the hand, a great many would- very often hide 
themselves when they ought most to appear, 
and would repent being placed in so honourable 
a post, where necessity made them brave. 

Palsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret 
Quern, nisi mendosum et mendacem?' 



Thus we see how all the judgments that are 
founded upon external appearances are marvel- 
lously uncertain and doubtful, and that there is 
no so certain testimony as every one is to himself 
In these matters how many drummer-boys are 
companions of our glory ] He that stands firm 
in an open trench, what does he in that do more 
than fifty poor pioneers, who open him the way, 
and cover it with their own bodies, for five- 
pence a day pay, have done before him 1 

Non, quidquid turbida Roma 
Elevet, accedas; examemque improhum in ilia 
Castiges trutina : nee te quasiveris' extra. 9 

" Follow not turbid Rome's so senseless ways 
Of loading ev'ry thing that's done with praise; 
Of that false balance trust not to the test, 
And out of thee make of thyself no quest." 

The dispersing and scattering our names into 
many mouths we call making them more great: 
we will have them there well received, and that 
this increase turn to their advantage, which is 
all that can be excusable in this design. But 
the excess of this disease proceeds so far that 
many covet to have a name, be it what it will. 
Tragus Pompeius 9 says of Herostratus, and 
Titus Livius 10 of Manlius Capitolinus, that they 
were more ambitious of a great reputation than 
of a good one. This vice is very common : we 
are more solicitous that men speak of us, than 
how they speak; and 'tis enough for us that 
our names are often mentioned, be it after what 



e Persius, i. 5. 

9 The instance mentioned by Trogus (apud John of Salis- 
bury, viii. 5), is Pausanias, who killed Philip of Macedon ; 
the example of Herostratus is cited bv John of Salislmry, 
not from Trogus as abridged by Justin, but from Val. Max. 
viii. 14. ext. 5. 

] o Livy, vi. 11. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



319 



manner it will ; it seems that to be known is 
in some sort to have a man's life and its dura- 
tion in another man's keeping. I for my part 
hold that I am only in myself; and that other 



Of so many thousands and thousands of 
valiant men that have died within these fifteen 



life of mine, which lies in the knowledge of hundred yea rs in France, with their swords .„ 

my friends, considering- it naked and simply m . their handSj 1]ot a nundred have come to our 

itself; I know very well that I am sensible ot 

no fruit or enjoyment of it, but by the vanity 

of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be 

dead I shall be much less sensible of it, and 

shall withal absolutely lose the use of those real 

advantages that sometimes accidentally follow 

it. I shall have no more handle whereby to 

take hold of reputation, or whereby it may 

take hold of me ; for to expect that my name 

should receive 



knowledge : the memory, not of commanders 
only, but of battles and victories, is buried and 
gone: the fortunes of above half the world, 
for want of a record, stir not from their place, 
and vanish without duration. If I had un- 
known events in my possession, I think I could 
with great ease out-do those that are recorded, 
in all sorts of examples. Is it not strange that 
even of the Greeks and Romans, amongst so 



receive it in the first place, I have no many writers and witnesses, and so many rare 
that is enough my own: of two that I and noble exploits, so few are arrived at our 



have, one is common to all my race, and even 
to others also: there is one family at Paris and 
another at Montpelier whose surname is Mon- 
taigne ; another in Brittany and Xaintonge 
called De la Montaigne. The transposition of 
one syllable only is enough to ravel our affairs, 
so that I shall peradventure share in their glory, 
and they shall partake of my shame; and more- 
over my ancestors were formerly surnamed 
Eyquem, a name wherein a family well known 
in England at this day is concerned : as to my | to the end that their actions 



other name, every one can take it that will; 
and so, perhaps, 1 may honour a porter in my 
own stead. And besides, though I had a par- 
ticular distinction by myself, what can it dis- 
tinguish when I am no morel Can it point 
out and favour inanity ? 

Hunc levior cippus nnn imprimit ossa. 
Laudat poster-Has, nunc non e manibus illis, 
Nunc non e tutnulo, furtunaque favilla, 
Nascuntur viola; ? i 

"Will, after this, thy monumental stones 
Press with less weight upon thy rotted bones? 
Posterity commends tliee : happy thou ! 
But will thy manes such a gift bestow 
As to make violets from thy ashes grow ?" 

but of this I have spoken elsewhere. For the 
rest, in a whole battle, where ten thousand 
men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen 
that are taken notice of: it must needs be 
some very eminent greatness, or some conse- 



knowledge '! 

Ad nos vix tenuis famre perlabitur aura.' 
" Which fame to these our times has scarce brought down." 

It will be much if a hundred years hence it be 
remembered, in general, that in our times there 
were civil wars in France. The ^ mugcg sa . 
Lacedaemonians, entering into crificed unto by 

battle, sacrificed to the muses, 4 tne Lacedaemo- 
nians, and why. 

might be well and worthily written; looking 
upon it as a divine, and no ordinary, favour, 
that brave acts should find witnesses that could 
give them life and memory. Do we expect 
that at every musket-shot we receive, and at 
every hazard we run, there must be a registrar 
ready to record it - ! Not to say that a hun- 
dred registrars may enrol them, whose com- 
mentaries will not last above three days, and 
shall never come to the sight of any one. We 
have not the thousandth part of the ancient 
writings ; 'tis fortune that gives them a shorter 
or longer life, according to her favour; and 
'tis lawful to doubt whether those we have be 
not the worst, not having seen the rest. Men 
do not write histories of things of so little 
moment: a man must have been general in the 
conquest of an empire, he must have won two 
and fifty set battles, and always been the 



««.«. -j-.uk s . c « u ,„ , ui ou...« coibtj- k j nnumb c ffisardid . ten thousand 

quence ot great importance that fortune has , p fcllnwa _ J ROTCTal „ rpnt mni • w 



added to it, that must signalize a private action, 
not of a harquebusier only, but of a captain ; 
for to kill a man, or two, or ten, to expose a 
man's self bravely to the peril of death, is, 
indeed, something in every one of us, because 
we there hazard all ; but for the world's con- 
cern, they are things so ordinary, and so many 
of them are every day seen, and there must of 
necessity be so many of the same kind to pro- 
duce any notable effect, that we cannot thence 
expect any particular renown ; 



' IVrs. i. 37. Montaigne has changed the sense of the 
Latin, and substituted pustcritus for conoioa. 
* Juvenal, xhi. 9. 



brave fellows, and several great captains, lost 
their lives bravely in his service, whose names 
lasted no longer than their wives and children 
lived : 

duos fama obscura recondit. 5 
" Whom time has not deliver'd o'er to fame." 

Even those we see behave themselves the best, 
three months or three years after they have 
been knocked on the head are no more spoken 
of than if they had never been. Whoever will 
consider, with just measure and proportion, of 
what kind of men, and of what sort of ac- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



tions, the glory maintains itself 
What wrt of in the m emory of books, will find 
the remem- ' that there are very few actions 
brance of which a nd very few persons of our 
boo'ijs. SerVe "' times, who can there pretend any 

right. How many worthy men 
have we seen survive their own reputation, 
who have seen and suffered the honour and. 
glory, most justly acquired in their youth, ex- 
tinguished in their own presence? And for 
three years of this fantastic and imaginary life 
we must go and throw away our true and 
essential lite, and engage ourselves in the risk 
of perpetual death. The sages propose to them- 
selves a nobler and more just end in so import- 
ant an enterprise : Recte facti fecisse merces 
est : officii fructus ipsum qfficium esU " The 
reward of a thing well done is to have done it : 
the fruit of a good office is the office itself." 
It were, perhaps, excusable in a painter or 
other artisan, or in a rhetorician or grammarian, 
to endeavour to raise themselves a name by 
their works; but the actions of virtue are too 
noble in themselves to seek any other reward 
than from their own worth, and especially to 
seek it in the vanity of human judgments. 
If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of that 

use to the public as to keep men 
Why the pub- j n their duty; if the people are 
OT g ht P wbe l,0n thereby stirred up to virtue; if 
courted. princes are touched to see the 

world bless the memory of Trajan 
and abominate that of Nero ; if it moves them 
to see the name of that great scoundrel, once 
so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and 
reviled by every schoolboy that lights upon it ; 
let it, in the name of God, increase, and be 
as much as possible nursed up, cherished, and 
countenanced amongst us. And Plato, 2 bend- 
ing his whole endeavour to make his citizens 
virtuous, advises them not to despise the good 
esteem of the people; and says, that it falls 
out by a certain divine inspiration that even 
the wicked themselves oft-times, as well by 
word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the 
virtuous from the wicked. This person and 
his tutor are both marvellous bold artificers, 
everywhere to add divine operations and reve- 
lations where human force is wanting: Ut 
tragici poetas cmifugiunt ad deum, quum ex- 
plicate argumenti exitum non possunt : 3 " As 
the tragic poets have recourse to a god, when 
they cannot compass the catastrophe of their 
piece :" and, perhaps, for this reason it was, 
that Timon, railing at him, called him the 
great forger of miracles. 4 Seeing that men, by 
their insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well 
enough with current money, let the counterfeit 
be superadded. 'Tis a way that has been prac- 
tised by all the legislators ; and there is no go- 
vernment that has not had some mixture either 



i Seneca, Epist. 81 

2 Laws, xii. 

a Cicero, de Nut. Deor. 



of ceremonial vanity or false opinion, that 
serves for a curb to keep the people in their 
duty. 'Tis for this that most of them have their 
fabulous originals and beginnings, so enriched 
with supernatural mysteries : 'tis this that has 
given credit to bastard religions, and caused 
them to be countenanced by men of under- 
standing; and for this that Numa and Serto- 
rius, to possess their men with a better opinion 
of them, fed them with this foppery; one that 
the nymph Egeria, the other that his white 
hind, brought them all their councils from the 
gods: and the authority that Numa gave to 
his laws, under the title of the patronage of 
this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bac- 
trians and Persians, gave to his under the 
name of the god Oromazis; Trismegistus, legis- 
lator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; 
Xamolxis, legislator of the Scythians, under 
that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the 
Chalcedonians, under that of Saturn ; Minos, 
legislator of the Cretans, under that of Jupiter; 
Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, 
under that of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, 
legislators of the Athenians, under that of 
Minerva : and every government has a god at 
the head of it ; others falsely, that truly which 
Moses set over the Jews at their departure out 
of Egypt. The religion of the Bedouins, as 
the Sire de Joinville reports, 5 amongst other 
things, enjoined a belief that the soul of him 
amongst them who died for his prince went 
into another more happy body, more beautiful 
than the former ; by which means they much 
more willingly ventured their lives ; 



This is a very salutary, though an erroneous, 
belief. Every nation has many such examples 
of its own: but this subject would require a 
treatise by itself. 

To add one word more to my former dis- 
course, I would advise the ladies 
no more to call that honour which betwixt Thai* 
is but their duty: Ut enim con- which the ladies 
suetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur ^" t £°^' ty . 
honestum quod est populari fama 
gloriosum ;i "According to the vulgar notion, 
which only approves that for laudable that is 
glorious by the public voice;" their duty is 
the mark, their honour but the outward rind: 
neither would I advise them to give that excuse 
in payment for their denials ; tor I pre-suppose 
that their intentions, their desire and will, 
which are things wherein their honour is not 
at all concerned, forasmuch as nothing appears 
without, are much better regulated than the 
effects : 



' l.aertius, Life of Plato. 
' III his Memoirs, C. 58. 
1 Lucan, i. 461. 
' Cicero, de Finib. ii. 15. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



321 



Quae, quia non liceat, non facit, ilia facit : 



the offence both towards God and in the 
conscience is as great to desire as to do : and 
besides, they are actions so private and secret 
of themselves as would be easily enough kept 
from the knowledge of others, wherein the 
honour consists, if they had not another respect 
to their duty, and the affection they bear to 
chastity for itself. Every woman of honour 
will much rather choose to lose her honour 
than to hurt her conscience. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OF PRESUMPTION. 

There is another sort of glory, which is the 
having too good an opinion of our own worth. 
'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we 
flatter ourselves, and that represents us to our- 
selves different from what we truly are: like 
the passion of love, that lends beauties and 
graces to the person beloved, and that makes 
those who are caught with it, with a depraved 
and corrupt judgment, consider the thing they 
love more perfect than it is. 

I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing 
The fear of on tne otner s ^e, that a man 
being guilty of should not know himself aright, 
presumption r think himself less than he is; 
gWe u S n too t0 the judgment ought in all things 
mean an opi- to keep itself upright and just: 
se'i°v n e 3 'nor'to 'tis all the reason in the world he 
hinder us from should discern in himself, as well 
making our- as j n others, what truth sets be- 
•elvei known. fore ^ . j f he be ^^ kt 

him boldly think himself the greatest captain 
in the world. We are nothing but ceremony : 
ceremony carries us away, and we leave the 
substance of things : we hold by the branches, 
and quit the trunk and the body: we have 
taught the ladies to blush when they hear that 
but named which they are not at all afraid 
to do: we dare not call our members by their 
right names, yet are not afraid to employ them 
in all sorts of debauches : ceremony forbids us 
to express by words things that are lawful and 
natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to 
do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys 
it. I find myself here fettered by the laws of 
ceremony ; for it neither permits a man to 
speak well of himself nor ill. We will leave 
her there for this time. 

They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has 
made to pass their lives in some eminent degree, 
may, by their public actions, manifest what 
they are: but they whom she has only em- 
ployed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will 
say a word, unless they speak themselves, are 



to be excused if they take the boldness to speak 
of themselves to such whose interest it is to 
know them ; by the example of Lucilius, 



Ille velut fiUis arcana sodalibus olim 
C'redebal libris, nequc si male cesserat, 
Decurrens alio, Deque si bene: quo fit, 
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella 
Vita senis;'i 



" His way was in his books to speak his mind, 
As freely as his secrets he would tell 
To a tried friend, and, take it ill or well, 
He held his custom. Hence it came to pass 
The old mail's life is there, as in a glass;" 

he always committed to paper his actions and 
thoughts, and there pourtrayed himself such 
as he found himself to be: nee id Rutilio et 
Scauro cilra fidem, aut obtrectationi full. 3 
" Nor were Rutilius or Scarus misbelieved or 
condemned for so doing." 

I remember, then, that from my infancy 
there was observed in me I know not what kind 
of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish 
of pride and arrogance. I will say this by the 
way, that it is not inconvenient to have con- 
ditions and propensities so proper and so incor- 
porated into us that we have not the means to 
feel and be aware of them : and of such natural 
inclinations the body will readily retain some 
bent, without our knowledge or consent. It 
was a certain affectation becoming to his beauty 
that made Alexander carry his head on one 
side, and Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Csesar* 
scratched his head with one finger, which is the 
fashion of a man full of troublesome thoughts ; 
And Cicero, as I take it, was wont to wrinkle 
up his nose, a sign of a man given to scoffing : 
such motions as these may imperceptibly hap- 
pen in us. There are other artificial ones which 
I meddle not with, as salutations and congees, 
by which men for the most part unjustly 
acquire the reputation of being humble and 
courteous; one may be humble, out of pride. 
I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in 
summer, and never am so saluted but I pay it 
again, from persons of what quality soever, 
unless they be in my own pay. I should make 
it my request, to some princes that I know, 
that they should be more sparing of that cere- 
mony, and bestow that courtesy where it is 
more due ; for being so indiscreetly and indif- 
ferently conferred on all, they are thrown away 
to no purpose: if they be without respect of 
persons, they lose their effect. Amongst irre- 
gular countenances, let us not forget that severe 
one of the Emperor Constantius, who always 
in public held his head quite upright, without 
bending or turning on either side, not so much 
as to look upon those who saluted him on one 
side, planting his body in a stiff, immovable 
posture, without suffering it to yield to the 
motion of his coach: not daring so much as 
to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face, before 
people. 5 I know not whether the gestures that 

* Plutarch, Life of Casar, c. 1. The same thing is said 
of I'ompey. Senec. Control), iii. 19. 

* Ammianus Marccllinus, xxi. 14. 

V 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



were observed in me were of this first quality, 
and whether I had really any secret propensity 
to this vice, as it might well be ; and I cannot 
be responsible for the motions of the body: 
but as to the motions of the soul, I will here 
confess what I think of the matter. 

This sort of glory consists of two parts ; the 
one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, 
and the other in setting too little a value upon 

others. As to the one, methinks 
Montaigne apt these considerations ought, in the 
nis7" a U nd first place,, to be of some force: 
possessions. I feel myself importuned by an 

error of the soul that displeases 
me, both as it is unjust and as it is troublesome ; 
1 attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it 
out; which is that I lessen the just value of 
things that I possess, and over-value others, 
because they are foreign, absent, and none of 
mine: this humour spreads very far. As the 
prerogative of authority makes husbands look 
upon their own wives with an unjustifiable dis- 
dain, and many fathers their children, so 'tis 
with me; betwixt two works of equal merit 
I should always throw a weight into the 
scale against my own ; not so much that the 
jealousy of my preferment and bettering 
troubles my judgment, and hinders me from 
satisfying myself, as that dominion of itself 
begets a contempt of what is our own, and 
over which we have an absolute command. 
Foreign governments, manners, and languages, 
insinuate themselves into my esteem ; and I 
am sensible that Latin allures me by favour of 
its dignity, to value it above its due, as it does 
children and the common sort of people. The 
economy, house, horse, of my neighbour, though 
no better than my own, I prize above my own, 
because they are not mine: moreover, being 
very ignorant in my own affairs, I am astonished 
at the assurance every one has of himself; 
whereas there is hardly any thing that I am 
sure I know, or that I dare be responsible to 
myself that I can do. I have not any means of 
doing anything stated and ready, and am only 
instructed therein after the effect; as doubtful 
of my own force as I am of another. Whence 
it comes to pass that if I happen to do anything 
commendable, I attribute it more to my fortune 
than my industry ; forasmuch as I plan every- 
thing by chance and in fear. I have this also 
in general, that of all the opinions antiquity 
has held of men in the gross, I most willingly 
embrace, and most adhere to, those that most 
contemn and undervalue us. Methinks phi- 
losophy has never so fair a game to play as 
when it falls upon our vanity and presumption ; 
when it most lays open our irresolution, weak- 
ness, and ignorance. 1 look upon the too 
good opinion that man has of himself to be the 
nursing mother of all the most false opinions, 
both public and private. Those people who 
ride astride, upon the epicycle of Mercury, who 



1 Horace, de Arte Poetica, v. 372. 



see so far into the heavens, are worse to mo 
than a man that comes to draw my teeth : for 
in the study I pursue, the subject of which is 
man, finding so great a variety of judgments, 
so great a labyrinth of difficulties one within 
another, so great diversity and uncertainty, 
even in the school of wisdom itself: you may 
judge, seeing those people could not resolve 
upon the knowledge of themselves and their 
own condition, which is continually before 
their eyes and within them, seeing they do not 
know how that moves which they themselves 
move, nor how to give us a description of the 
springs they themselves govern and make use 
of, how can I believe them about the ebbing 
and flowing of the Nile 1 " The curiosity of 
knowing things has been given to man for a 
scourge," says the Holy Scripture. 

But to return to what concerns myself, it 
were very difficult, methinks, that any other 
should have a meaner opinion of himself, nay, 
that any other should have a meaner opinion of 
me, than I have of myself. I look upon myself 
as one of the common sort, saving in this, that 
I have no better opinion of myself; guilty of 
the meanest and most popular defects, but not 
disowned or excused, and do not value myself 
upon any other account than be- 
cause I know my own value. If *£%£$£* 
there be any glory in the case, 'tis with his own 
superficially infused into me by ^"j 1 ?^, '"J™ 1 
the treachery of my complexion, poSai essays 
and has no body that my judg- 
ment can discern ; I am sprinkled, but not dyed : 
for in truth, as to the effects of the mind, there 
is nothing ever went from me, be it what it 
will, with which I am satisfied ; and the appro- 
bation of others makes me not think the better 
of myself. My judgment is tender and difficult, 
especially in things that concern myself; I dis- 
own myself continually, and feel myself float 
and waver by reason of my weakness; I have 
nothing of my own that satisfies my judgme.it. 
My sight is clear and regular enough, but in 
working it is apt to dazzle; as I most mani- 
festly find in poetry; I love it infinitely, and 
am able to give a tolerable judgment of other 
men's works; but, in truth, when I apply 
myself to it, I play the child, and am not able 
to endure myself. A man may play the fool in 
every thing else, but not in poetry ; 



I would to God this sentence were writ over the 
doors of all our printers, to forbid the entrance 
of so many rhymers ! 

Verum 
Nil securius est malo poeta.3 



2 Martial, xji. C3. 13. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Why have we not such people? Dionysins, 
the father, valued himself upon nothing more 
than his poetry : at the Olympic Games, with 
chariots surpassing all others in magnificence, he 
sent also poets and musicians to present his 
verses, with tents and pavilions royally gilt and 
hung with tapestry. When his verses came to 
be recited, the excellency of the pronunciation 
at first attracted the attention of the people ; 
but when they afterwards came to weigh the 
meanness of the composition, they first entered 
into disdain, and continuing to nettle their 
judgments, presently proceeded to fury, and 
ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his 
pavilions ; and in that his chariots neither per- 
formed anything to purpose in the course, and 
that the ship which brought back his people 
failed of making Sicily, and was by the tempest 
driven and wrecked upon the coast of Taren- 
tum, these same people certainly believed it 
was through the anger of the gods, incensed, 
as they themselves were, against that paltry 
poem ; ' and even the mariners themselves, who 
escaped from the wreck, seconded this opinion 
of the people, to which also the oracle, that 
foretold his death, seemed to subscribe : which 
was, " That Dionysius should be near his end 
when he should have overcome those who were 
better than himself;" which he interpreted of 
the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in power ; 
and having war with them, often declined the 
victory, not to incur the sense of this predic- 
tion : but he understood it ill ; for the god 
pointed at the time to the advantage that by 
favour and injustice he obtained at Athens over 
the tragic poets, better than himself, having 
caused his own play, called the Leneians, to be 
acted in emulation, presently after which vic- 
tory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he 
conceived at his success. 2 

What I find tolerable of mine, is not so really 
and in itself, but in comparison of other worse 
things, that I see are well enough received. 
I envy the happiness of those that can please 
and hug themselves in what they do ; for 'tis a 
very easy way of being pleased, because a man 
extracts that pleasure from himself; especially 
if he be constant in his self-conceit. I know a 
poet, against whom both the intelligent in 
poetry and the ignorant, abroad and at home, 
both heaven and earth, cry out that he under- 
stands very little in it; and yet, for all that, he 
has never a whit the worse opinion of himself, 
but is always beginning some new piece, 
always contriving some new invention, and 
still persists, by so much the more obstinate 
as it is only himself that stands up in his 
defence. 



1 Diod. Siculus, xiv. 104. 

2 Id. xv. 74. Cut Montaigne lias here committed a sin- 
gular blunder, mistaking the Leneians. feasts celebrated in 
honour of Baccbus by dramatic exhibitions, for the name 
of toe tragedy, which was reallv called "The Ransom of 
Hector." "See Ttez, Chiliad, v, 178. 



My works are so far from What notion 

pleasing me, that as often as I Montaigne had 

. . .i ., t <>t his own 

retaste them they disgust me : works. 

Cum relego, scripsisso pudet ; quia plurima cerno, 
Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini.3 

" When I peruse, I blush at what I've writ. 
And think 'tis only for the fire fit." 

I have always an idea in my soul, a certain 
confused image, which presents me, as in a 
dream, a better form than what I have made 
use of; but I cannot catch it, nor fit it to my 
purpose ; and yet even that idea is but of the 
meaner sort. By which I conclude that the 
productions of those rich and great souls of 
former times are very much beyond the utmost 
stretch of my imagination or wish ; their writ- 
ings do not only satisfy and fill me, but thev 
astonish me and ravish me with admiration; I 
judge of their beauty, I see it, if not to the 
utmost, yet so far at least as to show me 'tis 
impossible for me to aspire thither. Whatever 
I undertake, I owe a sacrifice to the Graces, as 
Plutarch says of some one, 4 to commend myself 
to their favour : 

Si quid enim placet, 
Si quid rtnlce homintim sensibus influit, 
Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis: 

" If any thing can please that e'er I write, 
If to men's minds it ministers delight, 
All's to the lovely Graces due :" 

They abandon me throughout; all I write is 
rude ; polish and beauty are wanting: I cannot 
set things off to an advantage: my handling 
adds nothing to the matter; for which reason 
I must have it forcible, very full, and that has 
lustre of its own. If I pitch upon subjects that 
are popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own 
inclination, who do not affect a grave and cere- 
monious wisdom, as the world does; and to 
make n^'self more sprightly, not 
my style, which would rather M y °£ a,gne ' s 
have them grave and severe : at 
least if I may call an informal and irregular way 
of speaking, a vulgar jargon, and a method 
without method, definition, division, or con- 
clusion, perplexed like that of Amafanius and 
Raberius, 6 a style. I can neither please nor 
delight, much less ravish any one: the best 
story in the world is spoiled by my handling. 
I cannot speak but in earnest, and am totally 
unprovided of that facility which I observe in 
many of my acquaintance, of entertaining the 
first comers, and keeping a whole company in 
breath, or occupying the ear of a prince with 
all sorts of discourse, without being weary; 
they never wanting matter, by reason of the 
faculty and grace they have in taking hold of 



a Ovid, dc ponto. i. 5. 15. 

4 Of Xenocrates, in the Precepts of Marriage. 

6 Amafanius et Rabirius, nulla arte adhibita, de rebus 
ante oculos positis vulgari sermone disputant; nihil defi- 
niunt. nihil partiuntur, nihil apta interrogatione con- 
cludunt.— Cic. Mend. i. 2. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the first thing started, and accommodating it 
to the humour and capacity of those with whom 
they have to do. Princes do not much like 
solid discourses, nor I to tell stories. The first 
and easiest reasons, which are commonly the 
best taken, I know not how to employ ; I am 
an ill orator for the common sort : I am apt of 
every thing to say the utmost extreme that I 
know. Cicero is of opinion that, in treatises of 
philosophy, the exordium is the hardest part: 
if it be so, I do wise in sticking to the conclu- 
sion. 1 And yet we are to know how to wind 
the string to all notes, and the sharpest is that 
which is most seldom touched. There is at least 
as much perfection in elevating an empty, as in 
supporting a weighty, thing: a man must some- 
times superficially handle things, sometimes go 
deep into them. I know very well that most 
men keep themselves in the lower form, for not 
conceiving things otherwise than by this outer 
bark; but I likewise know that the greatest 
masters, and Xenophon and Plato, are often 
seen to stoop to this low and popular manner of 
speaking and treating of things, maintaining 
them with graces which are never wanting to 
them. 

As to the rest, my language has nothing in 
it facile and polished: 'tis rough and scornful, 
free and irregular in its dispositions, and there- 
fore pleases me, if not by my judgment, by my 
inclination : but I very well perceive that I 
sometimes give myself too much rein : and that, 
by force of endeavour to avoid art and affecta- 
tion, I fall into the other inconvenience : 



" Aiming at shortness, I become obscure." 

Plato says 3 that the long or the short are 
not properties that either take away or give 
lustre to language. Should I attempt to follow 
the other more moderate and united style, I 
should never attain unto it; and though the 
short round periods of Sallust best suit with my 
humour, yet I find Caesar much greater and 
much harder to imitate; and though my in- 
clination would rather prompt me to imitate 
Seneca's way of writing, yet I nevertheless 
more esteem that of Plutarch. Both in doing 
and speaking I simply follow my own natural 
way; whence, perhaps, it falls out that I am 
better at speaking than writing. Motion and 
action animate words, especially in those who 
lay about them briskly, as I do, and grow hot: 
the comportment, the countenance, the voice, 
the robe, and the tribunal, will set off some 
things that of themselves would appear no 
better than prating. Messala complains, in 



i Montaigne (observes Mr. Coste) only quotes this senti- 
ment to ridicule Cicero, whom he treats rather as a fine 
orator than an acute philosopher, in which he was not much 
in the wrong; for whoever nicely examines Cicero's philo- 
sophical works will easily see that they are only the senti- 
ments of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, &c. elegantly 
and politely translated into Latin. 



Tacitus, of the straightness and stiffness of 
some garments in his time, and of the fashion 
of the benches where the orators were to de- 
claim, that weakened their eloquence. 

My French tongue is corrupted both in pro- 
nunciation, and otherwise, by the 
barbarism of my country : I His French 

i spoiled bv the 

never saw a man who was a na- dialect of his 
tive of any of the provinces on native country, 
this side of the kingdom who 
had not a twang of his place of birth most 
offensive to ears purely French. And yet it is 
not that I am so perfect in my Perigordian ; for 
I can no more speak it than German, nor do I 
much care ; 'tis a language (as are all the rest 
about me, on every side, Poitou, Xaintonge, 
Angouleme, Limosin, Auvergne), — scurvy, 
drawling, dirty. There is indeed above us, 
towards the mountains, a sort of Gascon spoken 
that I am mightily taken with, blunt, brief, 
significant, and, in truth, a more manly and 
military language than any other I know; 
as sinewy, powerful, and pertinent, as the 
French is graceful, neat, and luxuriant. 

As to the Latin, which was given me for my 
mother-tongue, I have by discontinuance lost 
the ready use of speaking it, and indeed of 
writing it too ; wherein I formerly had a par- 
ticular reputation ; by which you may see how 
inconsiderable I am on that side. 

Beauty is a thing of great recommendation 
in the correspondence amongst men ; 'tis the 
principal means of acquiring the 
favour and good liking of one JMeZty"?? 
another, and no man is so bar- the body, 
barous and morose that does not 
perceive himself in some sort struck with its 
attraction. The body has a great share in our 
being, has an eminent place there, and therefore 
its structure and symmetry are of very just 
consideration. They who go about to disunite 
and separate our two principal parts from one 
another are to blame: we must, on the con- 
trary, reunite and rejoin them : we must com- 
mand the soul, not to withdraw to entertain 
itself apart, not to despise and abandon the 
body (neither can she do it but by some ridicu- 
lous counterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, 
to embrace, cherish, assist, govern, and advise 
it, and to bring it back and set it into the true 
way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and 
be a husband to it ; forasmuch as their effects 
do not appear to be diverse and contrary, but 
uniform and concurring. Christians have a par- 
ticular instruction concerning this connexion; 
for they know that the divine justice embraces 
this society and junction of body and soul, even 
to the making the body capable of eternal re- 



« Horace, de Arte Poet. v. 25. 



* De Oratoribus, which treatise it is to be observed. 
Montaigne ascribes definitely to Tacitus, and, indeed, it is 
difficult to withhold our concurrence. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



wards or punishments: and that God has an 
eye to every man's ways, and will have him 
receive entire his chastisement or reward, ac- 
cording to his merits. The sect of the Peripa- 
tectics, of all others the most sociable, attributes 
to wisdom this sole care, equally to provide for 
the good of these two associate parts : and 
the other sects, in not sufficiently applying 
themselves to the consideration of this mixture, 
show themselves to be biassed, one for the 
body, and the other for the soul, with equal 
error ; and to have lost their subject, which is 
man, and their guide, which they in general 
confess to be nature. The first distinction that 
ever was amongst men, and the first considera- 
tion that gave some pre-eminence over others, 
'tis likely, was the advantage of beauty : 

Agros divisere atque dedere 
Pro facie cujusque, et viribus, ingenioque ; 
Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant. 1 

" Then steady bounds 
Mark'd out to every man his private grounds; 
Each had his proper share, each one was fit, 
According to his beauty, strength, or wit ; 
For beauty, then, and strength, had most command." 

Now, I am something: lower than the mid- 



Montaigne's 



die stature, 2 a defect that not only 
borders upon deformity, but car- 
ries withal a great deal of incon- 
venience along with it, especially to those who 
are in command ; for the authority which a 
graceful presence and a majestic mien beget is 
wanting. C. Marius did not willingly enlist 
any soldiers that were not six feet high. 3 "The 
Courtier" 4 has, indeed, reason to desire, in the 
gentleman he is forming, a moderate stature 
rather than any other, and to reject all strange- 
ness that should make him be pointed at. But 
in choosing, if he must in this mediocrity have 
him rather below than above the common 
standard, I would not do so for a soldier. 
Little men, says Aristotle, 6 are pretty, but not 
handsome; and greatness of soul is discerned 
in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous 
stature: 6 the Ethiopians and Indians, says he, 7 
in choosing their kings and magistrates, had a 
special regard to the beauty and stature of their 
persons. They had reason; for it creates re- 
spect in those that follow them, and is a terror 
to the enemy to see a leader, of a brave and 
goodly stature, march at the head of a troop. 

Ipse inter priinos pr.-estanti corpore Turnus 
Vertitur, arma tenens, et tolo vertice supra est.' 

" The graceful Turnus, tallest by the head. 
Shaking his amis, himself the warriors led." 

Our holy and heavenly King, of whom every 



i Lucret. v. 1109. 

i Montaigne elsewhere talks of himself as beine a little 
in. In his journey through Itsilv he remarks, with a sort 
ur.-ilifiratiuii, Hint the Grand Duke Francis Maria de' Mo- 
il was his height. 
1 Vegetius. i. 5. 

1 11 Cortegiano, by Balthazar Castiglione. 
> Ethics, iv. 7. 
i This is false (observes Mr. Cotton) ; the greatest souls 



circumstance is with the utmost care, religion, 
and reverence, to be observed, has not himself 
refused bodily recommendation : Speciosus 
forma yrx filiis liominum? " He is fairer 
than the children of men." And Plato,' with 
temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in 
the conservators of his Republic. It would vex 
you that a man should apply himself to you, 
amongst your servants, to ask you, " Where is 
Monsieur?" and that you should only have the 
remainder of the compliment of the hat that is 
made to your barber or your secretary; as it 
happened to poor Philopoemen," who arriving 
the first of all his company at an inn where he 
was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, 
and saw him an unsightly fellow, employed 
him to go help her maids a little to draw water, 
or make a fire, against Philopcemen's coming; 
the gentlemen of his train arriving presently 
after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine 
employment (for he' failed not to obey his 
landlady's command), asked him what he was 
doing there 1 "I am paying:," said he, " the 
penalty of my ugliness." The other beauties 
belong to women : the beauty of stature is the 
only beauty of men. Where there is a con- 
temptible stature, neither the largeness and 
roundness of the forehead, nor the delicacy 
and sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate 
proportion of the nose, nor the littleness of the 
ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness 
of the teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set 
brown beard, shining like the husk of a chest- 
nut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of 
the head, nor a fresli complexion, nor a pleasant 
air of the face, nor a body without any offen- 
sive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can 
make a handsome man. 

I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; 
my face is not puffed, but full ; ffig face> &c 
my complexion betwixt jovial and 
melancholic, moderately sanguine and hot, 

Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis; 12 

"Whence, 'tis my thighs so rough and bristled are, 
And that my breast is so thick set with hair;" 

my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a 
well advanced age, and rarely troubled with 
sickness. Such I was ; for I do not make any 
reckoning of myself now that I am engaged in 
the avenues of old age, being already past forty : 



' Thence by degrees our strength melts all away, 
And treacherous age creeps on, and things decay:" 



have been in men of low stature ; witness Alexander, &c. 
The contrast in Scripture between David and Goliath is 
beautiful 

' Politics, iv. 4. 

8 JEncid, vii. 763. 

8 Psa. xlv. 3. 

10 Republic, vii. 

11 Plutarch, in vita. 
» Martial, ii.38,5. 
« Lucret. ii. 1131. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



what I shall be from this time forward will be 
but half being, and no more me ; I every day 
escape and steal away from myself: 



Singula de nobis ; 



i prada 



" I find I am grown old, and every year 
Steals something from me." 

Agility and address I never had, and yet am the 
son of a very active and sprightly 

Montaigne not r. ,, , \, . - .. , r , 

very lithsome. tather, and that continued to be 
so to an extreme old age. I have 
seldom known any man of his condition his 
equal in all bodily exercises ; as I have seldom 
met with any who have not excelled me, except 
in running, at which I was pretty good. In 
music, in singing, for which I have a very unfit 
voice, or in playing on any sort of instrument, 
they could never teach me any thing. In 
dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never 
arrive to more than an ordinary pitch ; in swim- 
ming, fencing, vaulting, and leaping, to none 
at all. My hands are so clumsy that I cannot 
so much as write, so as to read it myself, so that 
I had rather do what I have scribbled over 
again than to take upon me the trouble to 
make it out ; and do not read much better than 
I write, at least to please my hearers. I can- 
not handsomely fold up a letter, nor could ever 
make a pen, or carve at table, worth a pin, nor 
saddle a horse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, 
nor hunt the dogs, nor lure a hawk, nor speak 
to a horse. In fine, my bodily qualities are 
very well suited to those of my soul ; there is 
nothing sprightly, only a full and firm vigour; 
I am patient enough of labour and pain, but it 
is only when I go voluntarily to the work, and 
only so long as my own desire prompts me 
to it, 

studio fallente laborem : a 



" Whilst the delight makes you ne'er mind the pain :" 

otherwise, if I am not allured with some plea- 
sure, or have other guide than my own pure 
and free inclination, I am there good for no- 
thing: for I am of a humour that, life and 
health excepted, there is nothing for which 
I would bite my nails, or that I would 
purchase at the price of annoyance of mind 
and constraint : 



Extremely idle, extremely given up to my own 
inclination, both by nature and art, I would as 
willingly lend a man my blood as my pains. 
I have a soul free and entirely its own, and 
accustomed to guide itself after its own fashion ; 
having hitherto never had either master or 
governor imposed upon me, I have walked as 



far as I would, and the pace that best pleased 
myself; this is it that has rendered me of no 
use to any one but myself. 

And there was no need of forcing my heavy 
and lazy disposition ; for being born to such a 
fortune as I had reason to be contented with 
(a reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others 
of my acquaintance would have rather made 
use of for a plank upon which to pass over to 
seek a higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), 
I sought for no more, and also got no more : 

Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo, 
Non tamen adversis anatein riucimus Austris ; - 
Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re, 
Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores: 4 



J Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 55. 

2 Id. Sat. ii. 2, 12. 

3 Juvenal iii. 54. 



" I am not wafted by the swelling gales 
Of winds propitious, with expanded sails; 
Nor yet exposed to tempest-bearing strife, 
Adrift to struggle through the ways of life : 
For health, wit, virtue, honour, wealth, I'm cast 
Behind the foremost, but before the last:" 

I had only need of what was sufficient to con- 
tent me ; which, nevertheless, is a government 
of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all 
sorts of conditions, and that by custom we see 
more easily found in want than in abundance ; 
forasmuch, perhaps, as according to the course 
of our other passions, the desire of riches is more 
sharpened by their use than by the entire ab- 
sence of them, and the virtue of moderation 
more rare than that of patience. I never had 
any thing to desire, but happily to enjoy the 
estate that God by his bounty had put into my 
hands. I have never had any thing irksome 
to do ; and have seen to little beyond the ma- 
nagement of my own affairs ; or, if I have, it 
has been upon condition to do it at my own 
leisure, and after my own method, committed 
to my trust by such as had a confidence in me, 
that did not importune me, and that knew my 
humour ; for good horsemen will make a shift 
to get service out of a rusty and broken- winded 
jade. 

Even my infancy was trained up after a 
gentle and free manner, and ex- 
empt from any rigorous subjec- He was naw- 

«.• aii l- u u u i j rally delicate 

tion. All which has helped me andindoient. 
to a complexion delicate and in- 
capable of solicitude ; even to that degree that 
I love to have my losses, and the disorders 
wherein I am concerned, concealed from me ; 
so that, in the account of my expenses, I put 
down what my negligence costs me in keeping 
and maintaining itself; 



"Things superfluous, and to spare; 
Goods which the owner knows not of, but may 
Be unconcern'd when they are stolen away." 

I do not love to know what I have, that I 
may be the less sensible of my loss; I entreat those 
that serve me, where affection and integrity 



Horace, Epist. ii. 0, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



327 



are wanting, if they deceive me, to make it up 
with an air that may look handsome. For want 
of firmness enough to support the shock of the 
adverse accidents to which we are subject, and 
of patience seriously to apply myself to the 
management of my affairs, I nourish as much 
as I can this feeling in myself, wholly leaving 
all to fortune ; to take all things at the worst, 
and to resolve to bear that worst with temper 
and patience : that is the only thing I aim at, 
and to which I apply my whole meditation. 
In a danger, I do not so much consider how 
I shall escape it, as of how little importance it 
is whether I escape it or no ; should I be left 
dead upon the place, what matter? Not being 
to govern events, I govern myself, and apply 
myself to them, if they will not apply them- 
selves to me. I have no great art to evade, 
to escape from, or to force fortune, and by pru- 
dence to guide and incline things to my own 
bias; I have still less patience to undergo 
the troublesome and painful care therein re- 
quired ; and the most uneasy condition for me 
is to be suspended in urgent occasions, and to 
be agitated betwixt hope and fear. 

Deliberation, even in things of lightest mo- 
ment, is very troublesome to me; 

"yY* dolibera' and 1 find m y mind 1T10re P Ut t0 
tion. it to undergo the various tum- 

blings and tossings of doubt and 
consultation than to set up its rest, and to ac- 
quiesce in whatever shall happen, after the die 
is thrown. Few passions break my sleep; but 
of deliberations, the least will do it. As in 
roads, I willingly avoid those that are sloping 
and slippery, and put myself into the beaten 
track, how dirty or deep soever, where I can 
fall no lower, and there seek my safety; so I 
love misfortunes that are purely so, that do not 
torment and teaze me with the uncertainty of 
their growing better, but that, at the first 
push, plunge me directly into the worst that 
can be expected : 

Dubia plus torquent mala.i 
" Doubtful ills do plague us most." 

In events, I carry myself like a man ; in their 
conduct, like a child : the fear of the fall more 
fevers me than the fall itself It will not quit 
cost: the covetous man has a worse account of 
his passion than the poor, and the jealous man 
than the cuckold ; and a man oft-times loses 
more by defending his vineyard than if he gave 
it up. The lowest step is the safest; 'tis the 
seat of constancy: there you have need of no 
one but yourself, 'tis there founded, and wholly 
stands upon its own basis. Has not this example 
of a gentleman very well known, some air of 
philosophy in it? He married, being well ad- 
vanced in years, having spent his youth in 
good-fellowship, a great talker and a great 



1 Seneca, Jltrnmemiim. iii. 1, '. 
» Terence. Mtlph. ii. 3, 11. 
3 Propert. iii. 3, 23. 



jeerer. Calling to mind how much the subject 
of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk 
and scoff at others, to prevent them from pay- 
ing him in his own coin, he married a wile from 
a place where any one may have flesh for his 
money; "Good-morrow, whore;" "Good-mor- 
row, cuckold ;" and there was not any thing 
wherewith he more commonly and openly en- 
tertained those that came to see him than with 
this plan of his, by which he stopped the 
private muttering of mockers, and took oft' the 
edge of this reproach. 

As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather 
daughter to presumption, fortune, Ds „, lst( .,i 
to advance me, must have come ambition, be. 
and taken me by the hand ; for to cause °f its 
trouble myself for an uncertain uncertaint y- 
hope, and to have submitted myself to all the 
difficulties that accompany those who endeavour 
to bring themselves into credit, in the beginning 
of their progress, I could never have done it : 

Spem pretio non emo:i 
" I give not ready cash for hope :" 

I apply myself to what I see, and to what I 
have in my hand; and go not very far from 
the shore ; 

Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas : 3 



and besides, a man very seldom arrives to these 
advancements, but in first hazarding what he 
has of his own ; and I am of opinion that, if a 
man has sufficient to maintain him in the con- 
dition wherein he was born and brought up, 
'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncer- 
tainty of augmenting it. He to whom fortune 
has denied wherein to set his foot, and to settle 
to a quiet and composed way of living, is to be 
excused if he does venture what he has, be- 
cause, happen what will, necessity puts him 
upon shifting for himself. 

Capienda rebus in inalis praceps via est;« 
" A desperate case must have a desperate course:" 

and I rather excuse a younger brother to ex- 
pose what his friends have left him, to the 
courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the 
honour of his family is entrusted, that cannot 
be necessitous but by his own fault. I have 
found a much shorter and more easy way, by 
the advice of the good friends I had in my 
younger days, to free myself from any such 
ambition, and to sit still ; 

Cui sit conditio dulcis, sine pulvere palms; 8 

"Far happier lie in his sweet country-seat, 
To gain the palm without or dust or sweat:" 

judging right enough, of my own force, that 



I Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47. 
» Horace, Epist, i. 1, SI. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



it was not capable of any great matters; 
and calling to mind the saying of the late 
Chancellor Olivier, "That the French were 
like monkeys, that clamber up a tree from 
branch to branch, and never stop till they come 
to the highest; and there show their bald 
breech." ' 

Turpe est, quod nequeas capiti committere pondus 
Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu: 2 

" It is a shame to load the shoulders so 
That they the burden cannot undergo; 
And the knees bending with the weight, to quit 
The pond'rous load, and turn the back to it :" 

I should find the best qualities I have useless 
in this age: the facility of my 
whicn g Mon- manners would have been called 
taignewas weakness and negligence; my 

bom not at ail faith and conscience, if such I 
humour. 6 1 ° " have, scrupulousness and super- 
stition ; my liberty and freedom, 
troublesome, inconsiderate and rash. Ill luck 
is good for something: it is good to be born 
in a very depraved age ; for so, in comparison 
of others, you shall be reputed virtuous without 
costing you much : he that in our days is but 
a parricide and sacrilegious, is an honest man 
and a man of honour: 

Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus, 
Si reddat veterem cum tota arugine follein, 
Prodieiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis, 
Qusque coronata lustrari debeat agna: 3 

" Now, if a friend, miraculously just. 
Restore th' intrusted coin with all its rust, 
'Tis deem'd a prodigy, that should in gold 
Amongst the Tuscan annals he enroll'd; 
And that a crowned lamb should offered be 
A sacrifice to such rare honesty :" 

and never was time or place, wherein, for 
princes, were ready more certain rewards for 
virtue and justice. The first that shall make it 
his business to get himself into favour and 
esteem by those ways, I am much deceived if he 
do not, and by the best title, outstrip his con- 
currents : force and violence can do some things, 
but not always all. We see merchants, country 
justices, and artisans, go cheek by jowl with 
the best gentry in valour and military know- 
ledge; they perform honourable actions both 
in public engagements and private quarrels: 
they fight, they defend towns in our present 
wars. A prince stifles his renown in the crowd : 
let him shine bright in humanity, truth, in- 
tegrity, temperance, and especially in justice ; 
marks rare, unknown, and exiled ; 'tis by no 
other means but by the sole good-will of the 
people that he can do his business, and no other 
qualities can attract their good-will like those, 
as being of greatest utility to them : Nil est 
tarn populare quam bonitas. 4 " Nothing is so 
popular as goodness." 

By this comparison I had been great and 



i the edition of 1595, as 
311. The saying has also been 
tributed to the Chancellor Michael de l'Hospital. 

2 Propert. iii. 9, 5. 

3 Juvenal, xiii. CO. 

* Cicero, pro Ligar. c. 12. 



rare ; as I find myself now a pigmy and ordi- 
nary, in comparison of some past ages, wherein, 
if other better qualities did not concur, it was 
ordinary and common to see a man moderate in 
his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, reli- 
gious in observing his word, neither double nor 
supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will 
of others, or the turns of times: I would rather 
see all affairs go to wrack and ruin than falsify 
my faith to secure them. For as to this virtue 
of dissimulation, which is now in so great 
request, I mortally hate it; and _. . « 
of all vices find none that shows an'odZ.svic'e. 
so much baseness and meanness 
of spirit. 'Tis a cowardly and servile humour 
to hide and disguise a man's self under a vizor, 
and not to dare to show himself what he is: 
by it our people are trained up to treachery ; 
being brought to speak what is not true, they 
make no conscience of breaking their words. 
A generous heart ought not to belie its own 
thoughts, but will make itself seen within ; all 
there is good, or at least manly. Aristotle 5 
reputes it the office of magnanimity openly 
and professedly to love and hate; to judge and 
speak with all freedom ; and not to value the 
approbation or dislike of others, in comparison 
of truth. Appollonius said 6 it was for slaves to 
lie, and for freemen to speak truth. 'Tis the 
chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must 
love it for itself. He that speaks truth because 
he is obliged so to do, and because it serves 
him, and that is not afraid to lie when it 
signifies nothing to any body, is not sufficiently 
true. My soul naturally abominates lying, 
and hates the mere thought of it; I have an 
inward shame and sharp remorse if sometimes 
a lie escape me, as sometimes it does, being 
surprised by occasions that allow me no pre- 
meditation. A man must not always tell all, for 
that were folly; but what a man says should 
be what he thinks, otherwise 'tis knavery. I do 
not know what advantage men pretend to by . 
eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if not 
never to be believed when they speak the truth ; 
this may once or twice pass upon men ; but to 
profess their concealing their thoughts, and to 
brag, as some of our princes have done, that 
they would burn their shirts if they knew their 
true intentions, which was a saying of the 
ancient Metelius of Macedon; 7 and that who 
knows not how to dissemble, knows not how 
to rule; 8 is to give warning to all who have 
any thing to do with them that all they say is 
nothing but lying and deceit: Quo vis versu- 
tior et callidior est, hoc invisior et suspectior, 
detracta opinione probitatis : 9 " By how much 
any one is more subtle and cunning, by so 
much is he hated or suspected, the opinion of 
his integrity being lost and gone:" it would 



> Ethics, iv. 8. 

i Phil. p. 409, ed. of 1709. 

' Aurel. Victor, de Fir. niust. c. 66 

i A favourite maxim of Louis XI. 

1 Cicero, de Qffic. ii. 9. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



be a great simplicity in any one to lay any 
stress either on the countenance or word of a 
man that has put on a resolution to be always 
another thing 1 without than what he is within, 
as Tiberius did. And I cannot conceive what 
interest one can have in the conversation with 
such men, seeing they produce nothing that is 
current and true ; whoever is disloyal to truth, 
is the same to falsehood also. 

Those of our time who have considered, in 
the establishment of the duty of a prince, the 
good of his affairs only, and have 
Of what im- preferred that to the care of his 
to pAncus to* f' a i tn an d conscience, might have 
avoid knavery, something to say to a prince whose 
affairs fortune had put into such 
a posture that he might for ever establish them 
by only once breaking his word ; but it is not 
so; they often buy in the same market; they 
make more than one peace, more than one 
treaty in their lives. Gain tempts them to the 
first breach of faith, — and almost always it pre- 
sents itself, as in all other ill acts; sacrileges, 
murders, rebellions, treasons, are always under- 
taken for some kind of advantage; but this 
first gain has infinite mischievous consequences, 
throwing this prince out of all correspondence 
and negotiation, by this example of infidelity. 
Solyman, of the Ottoman race, a race not very 
solicitous of keeping their words and treaties, 
when, in my infancy, 1 he made his army land 
at Otranto, being informed that Mercurino de 
Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were 
detained prisoners, after having surrendered the 
place, contrary to the articles of the capitula- 
tion, sent orders to have them set at liberty, 
saying " That having other great enterprises in 
hand in those parts, the disloyalty, though it 
carried a show of present utility, would for the 
future bring on him a disrepute and distrust 
of infinite prejudice." 

Now, for my part, I had rather be trouble- 
some and indiscreet than a flatterer and a dis- 
sembler. I confess that there may be some 
mixture of pride and obstinacy in keeping my- 
self so upright and open as I do, without any 
consideration of others ; and me- 

n!n,llv',M, e ,." a " thinks l £ P0W a llttle t0 ° free 
ai'iu'ir, "with where I ought least to be so, and 
great men. that I become hot by the opposi- 

tion of respect; and it may be, 
also, that I suffer myself to follow the pro- 
pensity of my own nature, for want of art. 
Using the same liberty of speech and counte- 
nance towards great persons, that I bring with 
me from my own house, I am sensible how 
much it declines towards incivility and indis- 
cretion ; but, besides that I am so bred, I have 
not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden 
question, and to escape by some turn, nor to 
feign a truth ; nor memory enough to retain it so 
feigned, nor, truly, assurance enough to main- 
tain it, and play the brave out of weakness; 



In 1537, 

28* 



/hen Montaigne was four years old. 



and therefore it is that I abandon myself to 
candour, and always to speak as I think, both 
by complexion and design, leaving the event to 
fortune. Aristippus was wont to say 2 that the 
principal benefit he had extracted from philo- 
sophy was that he spoke freely and openly 
to all. 

Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and 
without which the judgment can 
very hardly perform its office; for J'?.^,, r t y ^ y 
my part I have none at all. What judgment. 
any one will propose to me, he 
must do it by parcels, for to answer a speech 
consisting of several heads I am not able: I 
could not receive a commission by word of 
mouth, without a note-book. And when I have 
a speech of consequence to make, if it be long, 
I am reduced to the miserable necessity of get- 
ting by heart, word for word, what I am to say ; 
I should otherwise have neither manner nor 
assurance, being in fear that my memory would 
play me a slippery trick. But this way is no 
less difficult to me than the other; I must have 
three hours to learn three verses; and besides, 
in a work of a man's own, the liberty and 
authority of altering the order, of changing a 
word, incessantly varying the matter, makes it 
harder to stick in the memory of the author. 
The more I mistrust it the worse it is ; it serves 
me best by chance ; I must negligently solicit 
it; for if I press it 'tis astounded, and, after it 
once begins to stagger, the more I sound it the 
more it is perplexed ; it serves me at its own 
hour, not at mine. 

And the same defect I find in my memory, 
I find also in several other parts: I fly com- 
mand, obligation, and constraint; 
that which I can otherwise do Montaigne's 

_ . li i •, ■/. t • aversion to any 

naturally and easily, if 1 impose S ort of con- 
it upon myself by an express and straim. 
strict injunction, I cannot do it ; 
even the members of my body, over which a 
man has a more particular jurisdiction, some- 
times refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a 
necessary service at a certain hour : this tyran- 
nical and compulsive appointment baffles them; 
they shrink up either through fear or spite, and 
fall into a trance. Being once in a pkee where 
it is looked upon as the greatest discourtesy 
imaginable not to pledge those that drink to 
you, though I had there all liberty allowed me, 
I tried to play the good-fellow out of respect to 
the ladies that were of the party, according to 
the custom of the country ; but there was sport 
enough; for this threatening and preparation 
that I had to force myself, contrary to my cus- 
tom and inclination, did so stop my throat, that 
I could not swallow one drop; and I was de- 
prived of drinking so much as to help my meat; 
I found myself gorged, and my thirst quenched, 
by the quantity of drink my imagination had 
swallowed. This effect is most manifest in such 
as have the most vehement and powerful imagi- 



' Lacrtius, in ritii. 



330 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



nation ; but it is natural, notwithstanding, and 
there is no one that does not, in some measure, 
experience. They offered an excellent archer, 
condemned to die, to save his life, if he would 
show some notable proof of his art; but he 
refused to try, fearing lest the too great con- 
tention of his will should make him shoot wide, 
and that, instead of saving his life, he should 
also lose the reputation he had got of being a 
good marksman. A man that thinks of some- 
thing else will not fail to take over and over 
again the same number and measure of steps, 
even to an inch, in the place where he walks ; 
but if he makes it his business to measure and 
count them, he will find that what he did by 
nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do 
by design. 

My library, which is a good one for a coun- 
try library, is situated in a corner of my house : 
if any thing comes in my head that I have a 
mind to look there for, or to write, lest I should 
forget it in but going across the court, I am fain 
to commit it to the memory of some other per- 
son. If I venture, in speaking, to digress never 
so little from my subject, I am infallibly lost, 
which is the reason that I keep myself strictly 
and drily close in discourse. I am forced to call 
, the men that serve me either by 
badmemory. the names of their offices or their 
country ; for names are very hard 
for me to remember; I can tell, indeed, that 
there are three syllables, that it has a harsh 
sound, and that it begins or ends with such a 
letter, but that's all : and if I should live long, 
I do not know but I should forget my own 
name, as some others have done. Messala 
Corvinus was two years without any trace of 
memory ; > which is also said of George Trape- 
zuntius; 2 and for my own interest, I often 
meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and if, 
without this faculty, I should have enough 
others left to support me with any manner of 
ease ; and, prying narrowly into it, I fear that 
this privation, if absolute, destroys all the other 
functions of the soul : 

Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo.s 

" I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way." 

It has befallen me more than once to forget the 
watch-word I had three hours before given or 
received ; and to forget where I had hid my 
purse, whatever Cicero is pleased to say of the 
matter:' 1 I help myself to lose what I have a 
particular care to lock safe up. Memoria certe 
lion modo philosophiam, sed omnis vitee usum, 



omnesque artes, una maxime continet. 5 "The 
memory in itself contains not only all philo- 
sophy, but all the use and all the arts, of life." 
The memory is the receptacle and sheath of all 
science ; and therefore mine being so treache- 
rous, if I know little, I cannot much complain. 
I know in general the names of the arts, and of 
what they treat, but nothing more. I turn over 
books, I do not study them; what I retain I 
do not know to be another's; 'tis only there 
that my judgment has made its advantage in 
the discourses and imaginations with which it 
has been filled ; the author, place, words, and 
other circumstances, I immediately forget : and 
am so excellent at forgetting that I no less for- 
get my own writings and compositions than the 
rest: I am very often quoted to myself, and 
am not aware of it. Whoever should inquire 
of me where I had the verses and examples that 
I have here huddled together, would puzzle me 
to tell him ; and yet I have not borrowed them 
but from famous and known places, not satisfy- 
ing myself that they were rich, if I moreover 
had them not from rich and honourable hands, 
where there was a concurrence of authority as 
well as reason. It is no great wonder if my 
book runs the same fortune that other books do, 
and if my memory loses what I have writ, as 
well as what I have read, and what I give, as 
well as what 1 receive. 

Besides the defect of memory, I have others 
which very much contribute to 
my ignorance : I have a slow and S joVduiif le " 
heavy wit, the least cloud stops 
its progress, so that, for example, I never pro- 
posed to it any never so easy a riddle that it 
could find out ; there is not the least idle sub- 
tlety that will not gravel me ; in games, where 
the mind is required, as chess, cards, draughts, 
and the like, I understand nothing beyond the 
commonest points. I have a slow and per- 
plexed apprehension, but what it once appre- 
hends it apprehends well, closely and profoundly, 
for the time it retains it. My sight is perfect, 
entire, and discovers at a very 
great distance, but is soon weary ; Hi3 si g nt - 

which makes me that I cannot 
read long, but am forced to have one to read to 
me. The younger Pliny can inform such as 
have not experienced it themselves, what, and 
how important an impediment this is to those 
who addict themselves to study. 6 

There is no so wretched and so illiterate a 
soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen 
to shine ; no soul so buried in sloth and igno- 
rance but it will make a sally at one end or 



i Pliny, Mat. Hist. vii. 24., who says absolutely that Mes- 
sala forgot his own name. 

2 George of Trebizond, a Greek whocnme to Rome in the 
papacy of EugeniusIV.,and there published various works. 
He died about tire year 1-1*4, in extreme old age, having 
forgotten all he formerly Knew. 

3 Ter. Eun. I. ii. 25. 

* De Sanect. c. vii. JVec vero qnc.mqv.am sennm audivi 
oblitum quo loco thesaurum ohruissct ; "1 never heard of 
an old man's forgetting the place where he had hid his 
treasure." 



6 Cicero, Mead. ii. 7. 

Pliny, Epist. v. 3; who, in giving an account how Pliny 
the Elder, his uncle, employed his tune in study, remarks 
among other things: "One day a friend of his, who was 
present when Plinv's secretary was reading lo him. stopped 
the latter for the purpose of making him repeat some words 
he had mispronounced. Pliny asked him whether he had 
not understood their meaning?— ' Certainly,' replied the 
friend.— 'Why, then, did you prevent his going on? Here 
are more than ten lines lost !' So great an economist was 
he of time." 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



331 



another; and how it comes to pass that a mind, 
blind and asleep to every thing else, shall be 
found sprightly, clear, and excellent, in some 
one particular effect, we are to inquire of our 
masters. But the beautiful souls are they that 
are universal, open, and ready for all things; 
if not instructed, at least capable of being so; 
which I say to accuse my own ; for whether it 
be through infirmity or negligence (and to neg- 
lect that which lies at our feet, which we have 
in our hands, and what nearest concerns the 
use of life, is far from my doctrine), there is not 
„. . a soul in the world so awkward 

His ignorance ■ , • . c 

in tii? most as mine and so ignorant or many 
common ordinary things, and such as a 

things. man cannot without shame be 

ignorant of. I must give some examples. 

I was born and bred up in the country, and 
amongst husbandmen ; I have had business and 
housekeeping in my own hands ever since my 
predecessors, who were lords of the estate I now 
enjoy, left me to succeed them : and yet I can- 
not cast up accounts, nor reckon my counters ; 
most of our current money I do not know ; nor 
the difference between one grain and another, 
either growing or in the barn, if it be not too 
obvious ; and scarcely can distinguish between 
the cabbage and lettuce in my garden: I do 
not so much as understand the names of the 
chief instruments of husbandry, nor the most 
ordinary elements of agriculture, which the 
very children know; much less the mechanic 
arts, traffic, merchandize, the variety and nature 
of fruits, wines and meats; nor how to make a 
hawk fly, nor to physic a horse or a dog ; and, 
since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis not 
above a month ago that I was trapped in my 
ignorance of the use of leaven to make bread, 
or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat. 
They conjectured of old, at Athens, an aptitude 
to the mathematics in him they saw ingeniously 
bavin up a burthen of brushwood :' truly, they 
would draw a quite contrary conclusion from 
me; for, give me the whole provision and 
necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve. By 
these features of my confession, men may ima- 
gine others to my prejudice. But whatever I 
deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I 
really am, I have my end ; neither will I make 
any excuse for committing to paper such mean 
and frivolous things as these : the meanness of 
the subject compels me to it. They may, if they 
please, accuse my project, but not my progress : 
so it is that, without any body's needing to tell 
me, I sufficiently see of how little weight and 
value all this is, and the folly of my design; 
'tis enough that my judgment does not contra- 
dict itself, of which these are the essays: 



blimesl sciences, and look rare tl 
ence it is very likelv that thi: 
t Abdera, which was the coutiln 



Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus, 

Uuantum noluerit ferre ro«atus Atlas, 
Et possis ipsum tu deriderc Latinuni, 



Rodere? Came opus 
fe perdas operant ; qui 
Virus habe; noshax 



sin dcnte juvabit 
*atur esse veils, 
mtiir, in illoa 
s esse nihil. 3 



"Nose out my blunders till thy nose appear 
So great that Atlas it refuse to bear; 
Though even 'gainst Lalinus thou invei»h, 
Auainst my trifles thou no more can'st say 
Than 1 have said myself: then to what end 
Should we to render tooth for tooth contend? 
Thou must have flesh if thou'dst be full, my friend, 
Lose not thy labour; but on those that do 
Admire themselves, thy utmost venom throw, 
That these things nothing are, full well we know." 

I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, pro- 
vided I am not deceived in them, and know 
them to be such; and to trip knowingly is so 
ordinary with me that I seldom do it other- 
wise, and rarely trip by chance. 'Tis no great 
matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity 
of my humour, since I cannot ordinarily help 
supplying it with those that are vicious. 

I was present one day at Barleduc, 3 when 
King Francis the Second, for a memorial of 
Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a 
picture he had drawn of himself. Why is it 
not in like manner lawful for every one to draw 
himself with a pen as he did with a crayon ? 
I will not therefore omit this further blemish, 
though unfit to be published, which is irresolu- 
tion; a defect very incommodious in the nego- 
tiation of the affairs of the world. In doubtful 
enterprizes I know not which to choose : 

Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero:* 

" I cannot, from my heart, say yes or no : " 

I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose 
one. By reason that, in human things, to what 
side soever a man inclines, so many appearances 
present themselves that confirm us in it (and 
the philosopher Clirysippus said, 5 that he would 
of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their 
doctrines only ; for as to the proofs and reasons, 
he should find enough of his own), which way 
soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes 
and likelihood enough to fix me there; which 
makes me detain within me doubt and the 
liberty of choosing till occasion presses ; and 
then, to confess the truth, I, for the most part, 
throw the feather into the wind, as the saying 
is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; 
a very light inclination and circumstance car- 
ries me along with it ; 

paulo momento hue atque 



of Protagoras and Democritus ; and Aulus ticllius expressly 
says so, v. 3. 

^ Martial, ii. 13. 

s In the month of September, 1559. 

* Petrarch, p. -JIK edit, di Giolito, 1557. 

6 Laertius, in vita. 

6 Terence, Jlnd. i. G. 32. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally 
balanced, in most occurrences, that I could 
willingly refer it to be decided by the chance 
of a die ; and observe, with great consideration 
of our human infirmity, the examples that the 
divine history itself has left us of this custom 
of referring to fortune and chance the determi- 
nation of elections in doubtful things: Sors 
cecidit super Matthiarn: 1 "The lot fell upon 
Matthew." Human reason is a two-edged and 
a dangerous sword: observe, in the hand of 
Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, 
how many several points it has. Thus I am 
good for nothing but to follow, and suffer myself 
to be easily carried away with the crowd; I 
have not confidence enough in my own strength 
to take upon me to command and lead ; I am 
very glad to find the way beaten before me by 
others. If I must run the hazard of an uncer- 
tain choice, I am rather willing to do so under 
such a one as is more confident in his opinions 
than I am in mine, whose ground and founda- 
tion I find to be very slippery and unsure. 
And yet I do not easily change, by reason 

that I discern the same weakness 
Eiven^'o" 6 n0t ' n contral 7 opinions: ipsa con- 
change, suetudo assentiendi periculosa 

esse videtur, et lubrica; 2 "the 
very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous 
and slippery ;" especially in political affairs, 
there is a large field open for contestation : 

Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra 
Prona, nee hac plus parte sedet, nee surgit ab illa.3 



Machiavel's writings, for example, were solid 
enough for the subject, yet were they easy 
enough controverted ; and they who have taken 
up the cudgels against him have left as great 
a facility of controverting them. There was 
never wanting, in that kind of argument, re- 
plies upon replies, and as infinite a contexture 
of debates as our wrangling lawyers have ex- 
tended in favour of suits: 

Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem ;« 



the reasons having little other foundation than 
experience, and the variety of human events 
presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts 
of forms. An understanding person of our 
time says that whoever would, in contradiction 
of our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, 
and wet where they say dry, and always put 
the contrary of what they foretel, if he were to 
lay a wager, he would not care which side he 
took, excepting where no uncertainty could fall 
out, as to promise excessive heats at Christmas, 
or extremity of cold at Midsummer, which can- 



not possibly be: I have the same opinion of 
these political controversies ; be on what side you 
will, you have as fair a game to play as your 
adversary, provided you do not proceed so far 
as to jostle principles that are too manifest to 
be disputed: and yet 'tis my notion, in public 
affairs there is no government so ill, provided it 
be ancient and has been constant, that is not 
better than change and alteration. Our man- 
ners are infinitely corrupted, and wonderfully 
incline to grow worse : of our laws and customs, 
there are many that are barbarous and mon- 
strous: nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty 
of reformation and the danger of stirring things, 
if I could put something under to stay tho 
wheel, and keep it where it is, I would do it 
with all my heart: 

Numquam adeo fcedis, adeoque pudendis 
Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint. 6 



The worst thing that I find in our state is the 
instability of it; and that our laws, no more 
than our clothes, can settle in any certain 
form. It is very easy to accuse a government 
of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of 
it : it is very easy to beget in a people a con- 
tempt of its ancient observances; never any 
man undertook it but he succeeded; but to 
establish a better regimen in the stead of that a 
man has overthrown, many who have attempted 
this have foundered in the attempt. I very 
little consult my prudence in my conduct ; I am 
willing to let it be guided by the public rule. 
Happy people, who do what they are com- 
manded 1 better than they who command, with- 
out tormenting themselves with the causes, who 
suffer themselves gently to roll on, after the 
celestial revolution. Obedience is never pure 
nor calm in him who argues and disputes. 

In fine, to return to myself, the only thing 
by which I esteem myself to be 
something is that wherein never JaignMsSw 
any man thought himself to be himself, 
defective ; my recommendation is 
vulgar and common ; for whoever thought he 
wanted sense] It would be a proposition that 
would imply a contradiction in itself; 'tis a 
disease that never is where it is discerned ; 'tis 
tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of 
the patient's sight does nevertheless pierce 
through and disperse, as the beams of the sun 
do a thick mist: to accuse one's self would be 
to excuse one's self, in this case ; and to con- 
demn, to absolve. There never was porter 
or silly girl that did not think they had sense 
enough for their need. We easily enough ad- 
mit an advantage over us of courage, bodily 
strength, experience, disposition, or beauty in 
others; but an advantage in judgment we 



Horace, Epist. ii. '-' 
'< Juvenal, viii. 183. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



333 



yield to none; and the reasons that simply pro- 
ceed from the natural arguing of others, we 
think, if we had but turned our thoughts that 
way, we should ourselves have found it, as well 
as they. Knowledge, style, and such parts as 
we see in other works, we are readily aware if 
they excel our own ; but for the simple products 
of the understanding, every one thinks he could 
have found out the like, and is hardly sensible 
of the weight and difficulty, unless, and then 
with much ado, in an extreme and incomparable 
distance; and whoever should be able clearly 
to discern the height of another's judgment, 
would be also able to raise his own to the same 
pitch. So that it is a sort of exercise, from 
which a man is to expect very little prajse; a 
kind of composition of small repute. And 
Whether a per- ^ sid f s ' for whom do you write I 
son is to value 1 lie learned, to whom the autho- 
himseif for his r jty appertains of judging books, 

writings. know nQ o(;her va j ue but t)iat of 

learning, and allow of no other process of wit 
but that of erudition and art; if you have 
mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what 
is all the rest you have to say worth 1 who- 
ever is ignorant of Aristotle, according to their 
rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself: heavy 
and vulgar souls cannot discern the grace of a 
high and unfettered style. Now these two sorts 
of men make up the world. The third sort, 
into whose hands you fall, of souls that are 
regular and strong of themselves, is so rare 
that it justly has neither name nor place 
amongst us ; and 'tis pretty well time lost to 
aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it. 

'Tis commonly said that the justest dividend 
nature has given us of her favours is that of 

sense ; for there is no one that is 
What .g™' n<ls not contented with his share : Is 
I ,r "hiking 'his it not reason 1 For whoever should 
opinions right, discern beyond that would see 

beyond his sight. 1 think my 
opinions are good and sound; but who does 
not think the same of his? One of the best 
proofs I have that mine are so is the small 
esteem I have of myself; for had they not been 
very well assured, they would easily have suf- 
fered themselves to have been deceived by the 
peculiar affection I have to myself, being one 
that places it almost wholly in myself, and do 
not let much run out. All that others distribute 
amongst an infinite number of friends and ac- 
quaintance, to their glory and grandeur, I 
dedicate to the repose of my own mind, and to 
myself; that which escapes thence is not pro- 
perly by my direction : 

Milii nempe valere et vivere doctus. 

"To love myself I very well can tell. 
So as to live content, and to be well." 

Now I find my opinions very bold and constant, 
in condemning my own imperfection ; and to 



say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I exer- 
cise my judgment, as much as upon any other. 
The world looks always opposite; I turn my 
sight inwards, and there fix and employ it. 
Every one looks before him, I look into my- 
self; I have no other business but with myself; 
I am eternally meditating upon myself, control 
and taste myself. Other men's thoughts are 
ever wandering abroad, if they set themselves 
to thinking ; they are still going forward ; 

Nemo in sese tentat descendere ; 3 



No man attempts to ( 



imself;" 



for my part, I circulate in myself; and this 
free humour, of not over easily subjecting my 
belief, I owe principally to myself; for the 
strongest and most general imaginations I have 
are those that, as a man may say, were born 
with me: they are natural, and entirely my 
own. 1 produced them crude and simple, with 
a strong and bold production, but a little 
troubled and imperfect; I have since established 
and fortified them with the authority of others, 
and the sound examples of the ancients, whom 
I have found of the same judgment; they have 
given me faster hold, and a more manifest frui- 
tion and possession of that I had before. The 
reputation that every one pretends to, of vivacity 
and promptness of wit, I seek in regularity; 
the glory they pretend to from a brave and 
honourable action, or some particular excellency, 
I claim from order, conformity, and tranquillity 
of opinions and manners: Ornnino si quidquam 
est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam 
cequabilitas universal vilce, turn singularum 
nctionum ; quam conservare non possis, si, 
alinrum nnturam imitans, omiltas tnam. 3 " If 
anything be entirely decent, nothing certainly 
can be more so than a uniformity of the whole 
life, and in every particular action of it; which 
thou canst not positively observe and keep, 
if, imitating other men's natures, thou layest 
aside thy own." 

Here, then, you see to what degree I find 
myself guilty of this first part, that I said was 
in the vice of presumption. As to the second, 
which consists in not having a sufficient esteem 
for others, I know not whether 
or no I can so well excuse my- m ",T%7 V oT 
self; but whatever comes on't, sossed in favour 
I am resolved to speak the truth. °(^ own 
And whether, perhaps, it be, that 
the continual frequentation I have with the 
humours of the ancients, and the idea of those 
great souls of past ages, puts me out of taste 
both with others and myself; or that, in truth, 
the age we live in does produce but very indif- 
ferent things ; yet so it is, that I see nothing 
worthy of any great admiration. Neither, 
indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many 
men as is requisite to make a right judgment 
of them ; and those with whom my condition 



Cicero, de 03c. i. 31. 



334 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



makes me the most frequent are, for the most 
part, men that have little care of the culture 
of the soul, but that look upon honour as the 
sum of all blessings, and valour as the height 
of all perfection. 

What I see that is handsome in others I very 

readily commend and esteem ; 
£ e mm7ndme. nay, l often say more in their 
rit, whether in commendation than I think they 
enemies' 18 °' really deserve, and give myself 

so far leave to lie ; for I cannot 
invent a false subject. My testimony is never 
wanting to my friends in what I conceive de- 
serves praise; and where a foot is due, I am 
willing to give them a foot and a half: but to 
attribute to them qualities that they have not, 
I cannot do it, nor openly defend their imper- 
fections. Nay, to my enemies, I frankly and in- 
genuously give their due testimony of honour; 
my affection alters, my judgment not; and I 
never confound my quarrels with other circum- 
stances that are foreign to them ; and I am so 
jealous of the liberty of my judgment that I 
can very hardly part with it for any passion 
whatever. I do myself a greater injury in 

lying, than I do him of whom 
Enemies ho- I tell a lie. This comrriendable 
Per^nsfo"^ 18 and generous custom is observed 
their virtue. of the Persian nation : that they 

spoke of their mortal enemies, 
and with whom they were at deadly war, as 
honourably and justly as their virtues deserved. 
I know men enough that have several fine 
parts: one wit, another courage, another ad- 
dress, another conscience, another language; 
one one science, another another; but a man 
generally great, and that has all these brave 
parts together, or any one of them to such a 
degree of excellence that we should admire 
him, or compare him with those we honour of 
times past, my fortune never brought me ac- 
quainted with; aud the great- 
Ste'hende la est * ever knew, * mean f° r the 
Boetie. natural parts of the soul, was 

Stephen de la Boetie: his was 
a full soul indeed, and that had every way a 
beautiful aspect; a soul of the old stamp, and 
that had produced great effects, had fortune 
been so pleased, having added much to those 
great natural parts by learning and study. 
How it comes to pass I know not, and yet it 

is certainly so, there is as much 
Men of letters vanity and weakness of judgment 
ofVeakunder- m tllose vvno profess the greatest 
standings. abilities, who take upon them 

learned callings and bookish em- 
ployments, as in any other sort of men what- 
ever; either because more is required and 
expected from them, and that common defects 
are inexcusable in them, or rather because the 
opinion they have of their own learning makes 
them more bold to expose and lay themselves 
too open, by which they lose and betray them- 
selves. As an artificer more betrays his want 



J Laertius, in vita. 



of skill in a rich matter he has in hand, if he 
disgrace the work by ill handling, and con- 
trary to the rules required, than in a matter of 
less value ; and as men are more displeased at 
a disproportion in a statue of gold than in one 
of plaster, so do these, when they exhibit things 
that in themselves, and in their place, would 
be good; for they make use of them without 
discretion, honouring their memories at the 
expense of their understanding, and making 
themselves ridiculous, to honour Cicero, Galen, 
Ulpian, and St. Jerome. 

I willingly fall again into the discourse of 
the vanity of our education^the end of which 
is not to render us good and wise, but learned ; 
and she has obtained it: she has not taught us 
to follow and embrace virtue and prudence, but 
she has imprinted in us their derivation and 
etymology; we know how to decline virtue, 
if we know not how to love it; if we do not 
know what prudence is really, and in effect, 
and by experience, we have the etymology and 
meaning of the word by heart, We are not 
content to know the extraction, kindred, and 
alliances of our neighbours, we would moreover 
have them our friends, and will establish a 
correspondency and intelligence with them; 
but this education of ours has taught us the 
definitions, divisions, and partitions of virtue, 
as so many surnames and branches of a genea- 
logy, without any further care of establishing 
any familiarity or intimacy between her and us ; 
she has culled out for our initiary instruction not 
such books as contain the soundest and truest 
opinions, but those that speak the best Greek 
and Latin ; and by these fine words has instilled 
in our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity. 

A good education alters the judgment and 
manners ; as it happened to Polemon, 1 a young 
debauched Greek, who going by chance to 
hear one of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only 
observe the eloquence and learning of the pro- 
fessor, and not only brought away the know- 
ledge of some fine matter, but a more manifest 
and a more solid profit, which was the sudden 
change and reformation of his former life. 
Who ever found such an effect of our discipline'! 

Paciasne, quod olim 
Mutatus Polemon ? ponas insignia morbi, 
Fasciolas, cubital, focalia ; potus ut ille 
Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas, 
Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri? 3 

"Canst thou, like Polemon reclaim'd, remove 
Thy foppish dress, those symptoms of thy love ; 
Ashe when drunk, with parlaiuls round his head, 
Chanc'd once to hear the sober Stoic read ; 
Asham'd, he took his garlands nff, began 
Another course, and grew a sober man ? 

That seems to me to be the least 

contemptible condition of men The manners 

which, by its plainness and sim- ° or \ 'oV^eopte 

plicity is seated in the lowest more regular 

rank, and invites us to a more f n e n ph n' s s ' . of 

regular conversation: I find the phers. 
manners and language of country 



a Horace, Sat ii. 3. 235. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



385 



people commonly better suited to the rule and 
prescription of true philosophy than those of 
our philosophers themselves. Plus sapit vul- 
gus, quia lantum, quantum opus est, sapit.' 
"The vulgar are so much the wiser, because 
they only know what is needful for them to 
know." 

The most remarkable men whom I have 
judged by outward appearances (for, to judge 
of them according to my own method, I must 
penetrate a great deal deeper), for war and 
military conduct, were the Duke of Guise, who 
died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi. 
For men of great ability, and no common 
virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, chancellors 
of France. Poetry too, in my opinion, has 
flourished in this age of ours ; we have abund- 
ance of very good artificers in the trade; — 
Aural, 2 Beza, Buchanan, l'Hospital, Mont- 
dore, 3 and Turnebus: as to the French, I 
believe they have raised poetry to the highest 
pitch to which it can ever arrive ; and in those 
parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay 
excel, I find them little inferior to the ancient 
perfection. Adrian Turnebus knew more, and 
knew what he did know better, than any man 
of his time, or long before him. The lives of 
the late Duke of Alva, and of our Constable 
De Montmorency, were both of them great and 
noble, and that had many rare turns of fortune; 
but the beauty and glory of the death of the 
last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in 
their service, against his nearest relations, at 
the head of an army, victorious through his 
conduct, and by a bold stroke, in so extreme 
an old age, merits, methinks, to be recorded 
amongst the most remarkable events of our 
times; as also the constant virtue, sweetness 
of manners, and conscientious facility, of Mon- 
sieur de la Noue, 4 in so great an injustice of 
armed parties (the true school of treason, in- 
humanity, and robbery), wherein he always 
kept up the reputation of a great and expe- 
rienced captain. 

I have taken a delight to publish in several 
places the hopes I have of Mary de Gournay 
le Jars, 5 my adopted daughter, beloved by me 
with more than a paternal love, and treasured 
up in my solitude and retirement as one of the 
best parts of my own being : I have no regard 
to any thing in this world but her. If a man 
may presage from her youth, her soul will 



i Lactam. Dirin. Jnstit. iii. 5. 

2 Or rather liurai, of which Jlurai(us) is merely the La- 
limz .-(I tin in. This learns! poet, Joseph Hccliger in forms us, 
urnte mure than 50.000 verses-French. Greek, and Latin. 

3 I'ierre Montdorc, the least known of those here nameil, 
was master of requests, ami librarian to tile king, lie is 

oiou of by 1, Hospital in his Latin poems (page 

■■■I o,- 1 :.; , mi, | |,y Saint-Martin- in his Elopes. 

■i : i.n ii Montaigne for having citerithe 

CalvinistThi < . ■ le Beza, might equally have been scan- 

■n- 1. 1 1 ■ ' 1 1 1 1 1 l' Monti lore ; for (bis learned man, 

■i \n-toile a ml a skilful mat hem inn. was per- 

I.)t'i7, and driven from Orleans, his native place, 
for his attachment to the new opinions. lie retired to 
Sancerrc. in la rn, where be died in 1571. 

» A celebrated Calvin jst hero, whose political and military 
discourses were printed in 15?7. 



one day be capable of very great things ; and, 
amongst others, of the perfection of that sacred 
friendship, to which we do not read that any 
of her sex could ever yet arrive ; the sincerity 
and solidity of her manners are already suffi- 
cient for it; her affection towards me more 
than superabundant, and such as that there is 
nothing more to be wished, if not that the ap- 
prehension she has of my end, from the five 
and fifty years I had reached when she knew 
me, might not so much afflict her. The judg- 
ment site made of my first Essays, being a 
woman so young, and in this age, and alone in 
her own place; and the notable vehemence 
wherewith she loved and desired me, upon 
the sole esteem she had of me, before she 
ever saw my face, are things very worthy of 
consideration. 

Other virtues have little or no credit in this 
age: but valour is become popular by our civil 
wars ; and in this we have souls great even to 
perfection, and in so great number that the 
choice is impossible to be made. 

This is all of the extraordinarily uncommon 
pre-eminence that has hitherto arrived at my 
knowledge. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

OF GIVING THE LIE. 

Well but, some one will say to me, this de- 
sign of making a man's self the 
subject of his writings were ex- Why Mon- 
cusable in rare and famous men, g O '^ ei s 1 p ? k3 
who by their reputation had given i,i mse if"in this 
others a curiosity to be fully in- work, 
formed of them. It is true, I 
confess it, and know very well, that tradesmen 
will scarce lift their eyes from their work to 
look at an ordinary man, when they will for- 
sake their business and their shops to stare at 
an eminent person when he comgs to town. 
It misbecomes any other to give his own cha- 
racter, but such a one who has qualities worthy 
of imitation, and whose life and opinions may 
serve for examples. Ceesar and Xenophon 
had whereon to found their narrations, in the 
greatness of their own performances, a just and 
solid foundation: and it were also to be wished 
that we had the journal papers of Alexander 



1 See the article Gournay in Bayle's Dictionary, where 
you will find that this young lady's opinion of the first 
Essays of Montaigne gave the occasion for this adoption, 
long before she ever saw Montaigne. A passage which 
Bayle quotes from M. Pasquier. in the nolo A, contains 
some remarkable particulars of this adoption : — " Mon- 
taigne," says l'asquier, "having in 15s- made a long stay 
at Paris, Mademoiselle le Jars came thither, on purpose to 
see hiin ; and she and her mother carried bin to their house 
at Gournay, where he spent two months in two or three 
visits, and met with as hearty a welcome as he could de- 
sire; and, finally, this virtuous lady, being informed of 
Montaigne's death, crossed almost through the whole 
kingdom of France with passports, as well front h.-r own 
desire as by invitation from Montaigne's widow and 
daughter, to mil her tears with theirs, whose sorrows 
were bouiidlees.v 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the Great, the commentaries that Augustus, 
Cato, Sylla, Brutus, and others, left of their 
actions : men love and study the representations 
of such men, even in copper and marble. 

This remonstrance is very true ; but it very 
little concerns me : 



Non rocito cuiquam, nisi amicis, iilque rogstus; 
Non ubivis coramve quibuslibet : in medio qui 
Scripta foro recitent, sunt multi, quique lavantes.i 

" I seldom do rehearse, and when I do 
'Tis to my friends, and vvitli reluctance too, 
Not before ev'ry one, and ev'ry where : 
We have too many that rehearsers are, 
In baths, the forum, and the public square." 

I do not here form a statue to erect in the most 
eminent square of a city, in the church, or any 
public place ; 

Non equidem hoc studeo, bullatis ut mini nugis 
Pagina turgescat, 
Secreti loquimur; 2 

"I study not to make my pages swell 
With mighty trifles— private things I tell;" 

'tis for the corner of some library, and to en- 
tertain a neighbour, a kinsman, or a friend, 
- that has a mind to renew his acquaintance and 
familiarity with me in this image I have made 
of myself. Others have been encouraged to 
speak of themselves, because they found the 
subject worthy and rich ; I, on the contrary, 
am the bolder, by reason the subject is so poor 
and sterile that I cannot be suspected of osten- 
tation. I judge freely of the actions of others; 
I give little of my own to judge of, because 
they are nothing ; I do not find so much good in 
myself as that I can't tell of it without blushing. 
What contentment would it be to me to hear 
any thus relate to me the manners, faces, coun- 
tenances, the ordinary words and fortunes of my 
ancestors ! How attentively should I listen to 
it ! Truly it would be a bad nature to despise 
so much as the pictures of our friends and pre- 
decessors, the fashion of their clothes and arms. 
I preserve a bit of writing, a seal, a prayer- 
book, a particular sword, that has been used by 
them ; and have not thrown the long staves my 
father generally carried in his hand out of my 
closet : Paterna vestis, el annulus, tanto carior 
est pnsteris, quanta erga parentes major af- 
fectus. " A father's garment and ring are by 
so much dearer to his posterity, as they had the 
greater affection towards him." If my pos- 
terity, nevertheless, should be of another mind, 
I shall be revenged on them ; for they cannot 
care less for me than I shall then do for them. 
All the traffic that I have in this with the 
public is, that T borrow those utensils of their 
writing which are more easy and most at hand; 
and in recompense shall, perhaps, keep a pound 
of butter in the market from melting in the sun : 



Ne toga cordyllis, ne penula desit Olivia ;* 
Et laxas scombris sttpe dabo tunicas.' 



And though nobody should read me, have I 
lost my time in entertaining my- 
self so many idle hours in pleasing Montaigne 
and useful thoughts] In mould- ofhimsVf'uiat 
ing this figure upon myself, I he might the 
have been so oft constrained to Ef^,/""^ 
temper and comport myself in a give his own 

right posture, that the Copy is true character. 

truly taken, and has in some 
sort formed itself: painting myself for others, 
I have put myself on a better colouring than I 
had before. I have no more made rny book 
than my book has made me: 'tis a book con- 
substantial with the author, of a peculiar 
design, a member of my life, and whose busi- 
ness is not designed for others, as that of all 
other books is. In giving myself so continual 
and so exact an account of myself, have I lost 
any time? For they who sometimes survey 
themselves only cursorily, do not so strictly 
examine themselves, nor penetrate so deep, as 
he who makes it his business, his study, and 
his whole employment, who intends a lasting 
record, with all his fidelity and with all his 
force : the most delicious pleasures do so digest 
themselves within that they avoid leaving any 
trace of themselves, and avoid the sight not 
only of the people, but of any particular man. 
How often has this meditation diverted me 
from troublesome thoughts 1 And all that are 
frivolous should be reputed so. Nature has 
presented us with a large faculty of entertain- 
ing ourselves alone, and often calls us to it, to 
teach us that we owe ourselves in part to 
society, but chiefly and mostly to ourselves. 
That I may habituate my fancy even to medi- 
tate in some method and to some end, and to 
keep it from losing itself and roving at random; 
'tis but to give it a body, and to book all the 
thoughts that present themselves to it: I give 
ear to my whimsies, because I have to record 
them. It sometimes falls out that, being dis- 
pleased at some action that civility and reason 
will not permit me openly to reprove, I here 
disgorge myself, not without design of public 
instruction : these poetical lashes, 



" A jerk over the eye, one the snout. 
Let Sagoin be jerk'd throughout," 

imprint themselves better upon paper than upon 
the most sensible flesh. What if I listen to 
books a little more attentively than ordinary, 
since I watch if I can purloin any thing that 
may adorn or support my own 1 I have not at 



1 Hor. i. 4, 73. Instead of coactun, as Horace has it in 
the first verae, Montaigne has substituted rogatus, which 
more exactly expresses his thought. 



3 Martial, xiii. 1, 1. 

4 Catull. xciv. 8. 

6 Marot, in his epistle entitled Fripclippes, valet de Marat 
a Sogon. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



337 



all studied to make a book; but I have in some 
sort studied because I had made it; if it be 
studying to pinch now one author and then 
another, either by the head or foot, not with 
any design to steal opinions from them, but to 
assist, second, and fortify those I already have 
embraced. 

But who shall we believe in the report he 
makes of himself, in so corrupt an age] con- 
, sidering there are so few, if any 
horror 'I "lying. at a "'' wnom we can believe when 
speaking of others, where there is 
less interest to lie. The first feature in the cor- 
ruption of manners is the banishment of truth ; 
for, as Pindar says, 1 to be true is the beginning 
of a great virtue, and the first article that Plato 
requires in the governor of his republic. The 
truth of these days is not that which really is, 
but what every man persuades others; as we 
give the name of money, not only to good 
pieces, but even to the false also, if they are 
current and will pass. Our nation has long 
been reproached with this vice ; for Salvianus 
Massiliensis, who lived in the time of the em- 
peror Valentinian, says 2 "That lying and for- 
swearing themselves is not a vice with the 
French, but a way of speaking." He that 
would enhance upon this testimony might say 
that it is now a virtue with them : men form 
and fashion themselves to it as to an exercise of 
honour; for dissimulation is one of the most 
notable qualities of this age. 

I have often considered whence this custom, 
that we so religiously observe, should spring, 
of being more highly offended with the reproach 
of this vice so familiar to us, than any other; and 
that it should be the highest injury can in words 
be done us, to reproach ua with a lie. Upon 
reflection, 1 find it is natural for us to defend that 
part that is most open, and to repudiate the vice 
that most stains us ; it seems as if, by resenting 
and being moved at the accusation, we in some 
sort acquit ourselves of the fault; though we 
have it in effect, we condemn it in outward 
appearance. May it also not be, that this re- 
proach seems to imply cowardice and meanness 
of spirit] Of which can there be a more mani- 
fest sign than to eat a man's own words? — 
What, to lie against a man's own knowledge] 
Lying is a base unworthy vice ; a vice that one 
of the ancients 3 pourtrays in the most odious 
Lying an ar gu . colours, when he says "That it 
ment of the is to manifest a contempt of God, 
gmtempt of am j withal a fear of men." It is 
not possible more excellently to 
represent the horror, baseness, and irregularity 
of it ; for what can a man imagine more hateful 
and contemptible than to be a coward towards 
men and valiant against God] Our intelli- 
gence being by no other way to be conveyed 
to one another but by speaking, who falsifies 



that betrays public society; 'tis the only way 
by which we communicate our thoughts and 
wills; 'tis the interpreter of the soul; and if 
it deceives us, we no longer know, nor have any 
other tie upon one another. If that deceive 
us, it breaks all our correspondence, and dis- 
solves all the ties of government. Certain 
nations of the new discovered Indies (no mat- 
ter for naming them, being they are no more ; 
for, by a wonderful and unheard of example, 
the desolation of that conquest has extended 
to the utter abolition of names and the ancient 
knowledge of places), offered their gods human 
blood, but only such as was drawn from the 
tongue and ears, to expiate for the sin of lying, 
as well heard as pronounced. The good fellow 
of Greece 4 was wont to say that children were 
amused with toys and men with words. 

As to the divers usage of our giving the lie, 
and the laws of honour in that case, and the 
alterations they have received, I shall refer 
saying what I know of them to another time; 
and shall learn, if I can,, in the mean time, at 
what time the custom took beginning, of so 
exactly weighing and measuring words, and of 
making our honours so interested in them; for 
it is easy to judge that it was not anciently ' 
amongst the Greeks and Romans; and I have 
often thought it strange to see 
them rail at and give one an- The Greeks and 
other the lie without any farther Romans not so 

, mi • , J * i . delicate in the 

quarrel. I heir laws of duty art i C | e f lying 
steered some other course than as we are. 
ours. Caesar is sometimes called 
thief, and sometimes drunkard, 5 to his teeth. 
We see the liberty of invectives they uttered 
against one another, among the greatest war 
chiefs of both nations, where words are only 
revenged with words, and never lead to any 
thing else. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

'Tis usual to see good intentions, if carried on 
without moderation, push men on „ . . 

. • • a> .. t .i ■ Religious zeal 

to very vicious effects. In this ofte „ extrava- 
dispute, which at this time agi- gam, and con- 
tales France in civil war, the s ^ t uently un " 
best and soundest cause, no doubt, 
is that which maintains the ancient religion 
and government of the kingdom : never- 
theless, amongst the good men of that party 
(for I do not speak of those that only make 
it a pretext, either to execute their own par- 
ticular revenges, or to gratify their avarice, 
or to pursue the favour of princes ; but of 
those who engage in the quarrel out of true 



See Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 
lie Qubernat. Dei, i. 14. 
29 



10. Stobceus, a Plutarch, L\fe of Lysander. 
* Id. il>. 
" Id. Life of Pompey, c. 16. Life of Cato of Utica, c 7. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



zeal to religion, and a holy affection to main- 
tain the peace and government of their coun- 
try), of these, I say, we see many whom passion 
transports beyond the bounds of reason, and 
sometimes inspires with counsels that are unjust 
and violent, and moreover inconsiderate and 
rash. 

It is certain that in those first times, when 
our religion began to gain authority with the 
laws, zeal armed many against all sorts of 
Pagan books, 1 by which the learned suffer an 
exceeding great loss ; a disorder that I conceive 
did more prejudice to letters than all the flames 
of the barbarians: of this Cornelius Tacitus is 
a very good testimony : for though the emperor 
Tacitus, his kinsman, had by express order fur- 
nished all the libraries in the world with his 
work, nevertheless one entire copy could not 
escape the curious search of those who desired 
to abolish it, for only five or six idle clauses 
that were contrary to our belief. 

They also had the trick, easily to lend undue 
praises to all the emperors who did any thing 
for us, and universally to condemn all the ac- 
tions of those who were our adversaries, as is 
evidently manifest in the emperor 
of'the'^mieror J u '' an ' surnamed the apostate. 2 
Julian. ' This was, in truth, a very great 
and rare man ; a man in whose 
soul philosophy was imprinted in the best cha- 
racters, by which he professed to govern all his 
actions ; and, in truth, there is no sort of virtue 
of which he has not left behind him very 
notable examples: in chastity (of which the 
whole course of his life has given manifest 
proof), we read the same of him that was said 
of Alexander and Scipio, that being in the 
flower of his age, for he was slain by the Par- 
tisans at one and thirty, of a great many very 
beautiful captives, he would not so much as look 
upon one. As to his justice, he took himself 
the pains to hear the parties, and although he 
would, out of curiosity, inquire what religion 
they were of, nevertheless the hatred he had to 
ours never gave any counterpoise to the balance. 
He himself made several good laws, and cut off 
a great part of the subsidies and taxes imposed 
and levied by his predecessors. 3 

We have two good historians who were eye- 
witnesses of his actions; one of whom, Marcel- 
linus, in several places of his history, sharply 
reproves an edict of his, whereby he interdicted 
all Christian rhetoricians and grammarians to 
keep school or to teach; and says he could 
wish that act of his had been buried in silence. 
It is likely that had he done any more severe 
things against us, he, so affectionate as he was 
to our party, would not have omitted it. He 
was, indeed, sharp against us, but yet no cruel 



1 Vopiscus, in Tacit. Imp. c. 10. 

a What follows about the Emperor Julian was blamed, 
during our author's stay at Rome, in 15U1, by the " Mailre 
du Sucre Paints (says Montaigne, in bis Journey); but the 
censor left it to my conscience to modify what I should 
think iu bad taste." Our essayist accordingly made no 



enemy ; for our own people tell this story of him, 
that one day, walking about the city of Chal- 
cedon, Maris, bishop of that place, was so bold 
as to tell him that he was impious, and an 
enemy to Christ; at which, say they, therein 
affecting a philosophical patience, he was no 
farther moved than to reply : " Go, poor 
wretch, and lament the loss of thy eyes;" to 
which the Bishop replied again, " I thank Jesus 
Christ for taking away rny sight, that I may 
not see thy impudent face." Assuredly, this 
action of his savours nothing of the cruelty he 
is said to have exercised towards us. He was, 
says Eutropius, 4 my other witness, " an enemy 
to Christianity, but without shedding blood." 

And, to return to his justice, there is nothing 
in that whereof he can be accused, the severity 
excepted he practised in the beginning of his 
reign against those who had followed the party 
of Constantius, his predecessor. 5 As to his 
sobriety, he lived always a soldier's kind of 
life; and kept a table in the most profound 
peace, like one that prepared and inured him- 
self to the austerities of war. His vigilance was 
such that he divided the night into three or four 
parts, of which the least was dedicated to sleep; 
the rest was spent either in visiting the condi- 
tion of his army and guards in person, or in 
study ; for, amongst his other rare qualities, he 
was very excellent in all sorts of learning. 'Tis 
said of Alexander the Great that when a-bed, 
for fear lest sleep should divert him from his 
thoughts and studies, he had always a bason 
set by his bed-side, and held one of his hands 
out with a ball of copper in it, to the end that, 
beginning to fall asleep, and his fingers leaving 
their hold, the ball by falling into the 



might awake him; but the other had his mind 



so bent upon what he had a mind to do, and 
little disturbed with fumes, by reason of his 
singular abstinence, that he had" no need of any 
such invention. As to his military experience, 
he was excellent in all the qualities of a great 
captain; as it was likely he should, being 
almost all his life in a continual exercise of 
war ; and most of that time with us, in France, 
against the Germans and Pranks: we hardly 
read of any man that ever saw more dangers, or 
that gave more frequent proofs of his personal 
valour. 

His death has something in it parallel with 
that of Epaminondas, for he was wounded with 
an arrow, and tried to pull it out, and had done 
it, but that being edged it cut and disabled 
his hand. He incessantly called out that they 
should carry him again in this condition into 
the heat of the battle, to encourage his soldiers, 
who very bravely disputed the battle without 
him till night parted the armies. He stood 



alteration; and this chapter has furnished Voltaire with 
most of the materials for bis eulogium on Julian. 

3 Amniiuuus Murcelliuus, xxiv. 8. 

4 Id. x. 8. 

s Aimnianus Marcell. xxii. 0; from whom, also, the fol- 
lowing illustrations of Julians character are taken. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



obliged to his philosophy for the singular con- 
tempt he had for his life and all human things, 
lie had a firm belief of the immortality of the 
soul. 

In matter of religion he was wrong through- 
out; he was surnamed the Apostate, for having 
relinquished ours; though, methinks, 'tis more 
likely that he had never thoroughly embraced 
it, but had dissembled, out of obedience to the 
laws, till he came to the empire. He was in i 
his own so superstitious that he was laughed at j 
for it by those of the same opinion, of his own 
time, who jeeringly said that had he got the 
victory over the Parthians, he had destroyed 
the breed of oxen in the world, to supply his '■ 
sacrifices. 

He was, moreover, besotted with the art of j 
divination, and gave authority to all sorts of 
prognostics. He said, amongst other things at 
his death, that he was obliged to the gods, and 
thanked them in that they had not cut him oft" 
by surprise, having long before advertised him 1 
of the place and hour of his death; nor by a 
mean and unmanly death, more becoming lazy 
and delicate people ; nor by a death that was 
languishing, long, and painful; and that they, 
had thought him worthy to die after that noble '. 
manner, in the progress of his victories, and in 
the height of his glory. He had had a. vision 
like that of Marcus Brutus, that first threatened 

, ., him in Gaul, and afterwards ap- 
His remarkable ■ . .. ■ ,, . . r t 

death, peared to him in Persia, just 

before his death. These words, 
that some 1 make him say when he felt himself 
wounded, "Thou hast conquered, Nazarene;" 
or, as others, "Content thyself, Nazarene," 
would hardly have been omitted, had they been 
believed by my witnesses, who, being present 
in the army, have set down to the least motions 
and words of his end ; and the same with cer- 
tain other miracles that are recorded of him. 

And, to return to my subject, he long nou- 
rished, says Marcellinus, paganism in his heart; 
but, all his army being Christians, he durst not 
own it. But in the end seeing himself strong 
enough to dare to discover himself, he caused 
the temples of the gods to be thrown open, and 
did his utmost to set on foot and to encourage 
idolatry. Which the better to effect, having at 
Constantinople found the people disunited, and 
also the prelates of the church divided amongst 
themselves, having convened them all before 
him, he gravely and earnestly admonished them 
to calm those civil dissensions, and that every 
one should freely, and without fear, follow his 
own religion: which he did the more sedulously 
solicit in hope that this licence would augment 
the schisms and faction of their division, and 
hinder the people from re-uniting, and conse- 
quently fortifying themselves against him by 
their unanimous intelligence and concord; 
having experienced by the cruelty of some 
Christians, "that there is no beast in the world 



so much to be feared by man, as man." These 
are very nearly his own words. 

Wherein this is very worthy of consideration, 
that the Emperor Julian made use of the same 
recipe of liberty of conscience to enflatne the 
civil dissensions, that our kings do to extinguish 
them. A man may say, on one side, that to 
give the people the reins to enter- 
tain every man his own opinion, ^ejjbcny ° f 
is to scatter and sow division, and, granted, in 
as it were, to lend a hand to aug- Montaigne's 
ment it, there being no sense nor protectants. 
correction of law to stop and hin- 
der their career; but, on the other side, a man 
may also say that, to give the people the reins 
to entertain every man his own opinion, is to 
mollify and appease them by facility and tole- 
ration, and dull the point which is whetted and 
made sharper by rarity, novelty, and difficulty. 
And I think it is better for the honour and the 
devotion of our kings, that not having been 
able to do what they would, they have made a 
show of being willing to do what they could. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE. 

The imbecility of our condition is such that 
things cannot, in their natural simplicity and 
purity, fall to our use; the elements that we 
enjoy are changed, even metals themselves; and 
gold must in some sort be debased with the 
alloy of some other matter to fit it for our ser- 
vice: neither has virtue, so simple as that 
which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoics have 
made, "the principal end of life," nor the 
Cyrenaick and Aristippean pleasure, been with- 
out mixture useful to it. Of the pleasure and 
goods that we enjoy, there is not one exempt 
from some mixture of ill and inconvenience: 



> Theodorct. ffist. Eccles. iii. 20. 



Sureit : 



Our extremest pleasure has some air of groan- 
ing and complaining in it; would you not say 
that it is dying of pain 1 Nay, when we forge 
the image of it, in its excellence, we stuff" it 
with sickly and painful epithets, languor, soft- 
ners, feebleness, faintness, mnrbidezza ; a great 
testimony of their consanguinity and consub- 
stantiality. The most profound joy has more 
of gravity than gaiety in it; the most extreme 
and most full contentment, more of the tempe- 
rate than of the wanton : Ipsa ftlicilas, se nisi 
temperat, premit:* "Even felicity, unless it 
moderates itself, oppresses." Ease chews and 
grinds us, according to the old Greek verse, 
which says, "The gods sell us all the goods 



' Lucret. iv. 1130. 



3 Seneca, Episl. li. 



340 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



they give us ;" 1 that is to say, that they give us 
nothing pure and perfect, and that we do but 
purchase them at the price of some evil. 

Labour and pleasure, very unlike in nature, 

associate, nevertheless, by I know 

sure joined P at n0 ^ what natural conjunction. 

one end, as Socrates says 2 that some god tried 

melancholy "™ to mix m one mass and t0 Con " 

found pain and pleasure ; but not 
being able to do it, he bethought him at least 
to couple them by the tail. Metrodorus said, 3 
that in sorrow there is some mixture of plea- 
sure. I know not whether or no he intended 
any thing else by that saying; but, for my 
part, I am of opinion that there is design, con- 
sent, and complacency in giving a man's self up 
to melancholy; I say, besides ambition, which 
may also have to do in the business, there is 
some shadow of delight and delicacy which 
smiles upon and flatters us, even in the very lap 
of melancholy. Are there not some complexions 
that feed upon it J 

Est qua:dam flere voluptas:« 
"A certain kind of pleasure 'tis to weep:" 

and one Attalus in Seneca says, 5 that the me- 
mory of our lost friends is as grateful to us as 
bitterness in wine too old, is to the palate, 



and as apples that have a sweet tartness. Na- 
ture discovers this confusion to us: painters 
hold that the same motions and pleats of the 
face that serve for weeping serve for laughter 
too: and indeed, before the one or the other be 
finished, do but observe the painter's manner 
of handling, and you will be in doubt to which 
of the two the design tends: and the extremity 
of laughter at last brings tears: Nullum sine 
auctoramento malum est. 7 " No evil is without 
its compensation." 

When I imagine man abounding with all the 

pleasures and conveniences that 
Constant and are to be desired (let us put the 
sure notto'be' case that all his members were 
borne by man. always seized with a pleasure 

like that of generation in its most 
excessive height), I feel him melting under the 
weight of his delight, and see him utterly 
unable to support so pure, so continual, and so 
universal a pleasure. Indeed he is running 
away whilst he is there, and naturally makes 
haste to escape, as from a place where he 
cannot stand firm, and where he is afraid of 
sinking. 



1 Ttov tt6vu)v 
JIwXoEffiv 7/uiv navra rayad' o! Bcoi, 

Epichannus apud Xenophon, Mem. of Socrat. ii. 1, 20. 

2 In Plato's dialogue, entitled Phadon, 

3 Seneca, Epist. 99. 

« Ovid, Trist. iv. 3. 27. 
» Seneca, Epist. 63. 



When I the most strictly and religiously 
myself, I find that the best virtue 1 
have has in it some tincture of vice ; and I am 
afraid that Plato, in his purest virtue (I who 
am as sincere and perfect a lover of him and 
of virtue of that stamp as any other whatever), 
if he had listened and laid his ear close to him- 
self, as no doubt he did, he would have heard 
some jarring sound of human mixture; but 
faint and remote and only to be perceived by 
himself. Man is wholly and throughout but 
patched and motley. Even the laws of justice 
themselves cannot subsist without 
mixture of injustice : insomuch The justest laws 

.i .. ni < a ..i j .. i have some mix- 

that Plato says, 8 they undertake tureofinjustice. 
to cut off the hydra's head who 
pretend to clear the law of all inconvenience. 
Omne magnum exernplum habet aliquid ex 
iniquo, quod contra singulos utilitate publica 
rependitur, says Tacitus: 9 "Every great ex- 
ample has in it some mixture of injustice, which 
recompenses the wrong done to particular men 
by the public utility." 

It is likewise true that, for the usage of life 
and the service of public commerce, there may 
be some excess in the purity and 
perspicacity of our minds; that S^S 
penetrating light has in it too properfbraffairs 
much of subtlety and curiosity : l ^^ e more 
we must a little stupify and blunt 
and abate them to render them more obedient 
to example and practice, and a little veil and 
obscure them, the better to proportion them to 
this dark and earthly life : and therefore com- 
mon and less speculative souls are found to be 
more proper and more successful in the manage- 
ment of affairs; and the elevated and exquisite 
opinions of philosophy more unfit for business. 
This sharp vivacity of soul, and the supple 
and restless volubility attending it, disturb our 
negotiations. We are to manage human enter- 
prizes more superficially and roughly, and leave 
a great part to fortune : it is not necessary to 
examine affairs with so much subtlety and 
depth; a man loses himself in the consideration 
of so many contrary lustres, and so many vari- 
ous forms : Volutaniibus res inter se pugnantes, 
obtorpuerant animi.' "Whilst they con- 
sidered of things so different in themselves, they 
were astonished, and knew not what to do." 

'Tis what the ancients say of Simonides ; that 
by reason his imagination suggested to him, 
upon the question King Hiero had put to him " 
(to answer whicli he had many days to medi- 
tate in), several sharp and subtle considerations, 
whilst he doubted which was the most likely, 
he totally despaired of the truth. 

Who dives into, and in his inquisition com- 
prehends all circumstances and consequences, 



« Catull. xxvii. 1. 

' Seneca, Epist. 69. 

» Republic, iv. 5. Montaigne has slightly altered the idea 
if Plato. 

9 Annals, xiv. 44. 
io Livy, xxxii. 20. 
" What God was ? 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



341 



hinders his election: a middling engine is 
equally sufficient for executions of less or 
greater weight and moment. The best mana- 
gers are those who can worst give account why 
they are so; and the greatest talkers for the 
most part do nothing to the purpose. I know 
one of this sort of men, and a most excellent 
director in all sorts of good management, who 
has miserably let an hundred thousand livres 
yearly revenue slip through his hands. I know 
another, who speaks and gives better advice 
than any of his council ; and there is not in the 
world a fairer show of a soul and of greater 
understanding than he has; nevertheless, when 
he comes to the test, his servants find him quite 
another thing; and this without putting mis- 
i down to the account. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

AGAINST IDLENESS. 

The Emperor Vespasian, being sick with the 
disease whereof he died, did not for all that 
neglect to inquire after the state of the empire ; 
and even in bed continually dispatched very 
many affairs of great consequence; for which, 

being reproved by his physician, 
'"p^fnc/ousht as a thin S Prejudicial to his 
to die. ' health, "An emperor," said he, 

"should die standing." 1 A fine 
saying, in my opinion, and worthy of a great 
prince. The Emperor Adrian since made use 
of words to the same purpose; 2 and kings 
should be often put in mind of it, to make them 
know that the great office conferred upon them, 
of the command of so many men, is not an 
employment of ease; and that there is nothing 
can so justly disgust a subject, and make him 
unwilling to expose himself to labour and dan- 
ger for the service of his prince, as to see 
him in the mean time devoted to his ease and 
unmanly delights; or to be solicitous of his 
preservation, who so much neglects that of his 
people. 

Whoever will take upon him to maintain 
He ought to that ' tis better for a pr'h.ce to 
command carry on his wars by others than 

liis armies in j,, \ lls own person, fortune will 

furnish him with examples enough 
of those whose lieutenants have brought great 
enterprizes to a happy issue, and of those also 
whose presence had done more hurt than good. 
But no virtuous and valiant prince can with 
patience endure such dishonourable advice. 
Under colour of saving his head, like the statue 
of a saint, for the happiness of his kingdom, 
they degrade him from, and declare him inca- 
pable ot, his office, which is military through- 
out. 1 know one 3 who would much rather be 
beaten, than to sleep whilst another fights for 



i'lulialilv Henry IV. 

29* 



him ; and who never without jealousy heard of 
any brave thing done, even by T|)p „ 
his own officers in his absence. and sobriety 
And Selim I. said, with very good requisite in 
reason, in my opinion, "That P n,lce3 - 
victories obtained without the master were 
never complete;" much more would he have 
said that that master ought to blush for shame 
to pretend to any share in the honour, having 
contributed nothing to the work but his voice 
and thought ; nor even so much as those, con- 
sidering that, in such works as that, the direc- 
tion and command that deserve honour are only 
such as are given upon the place, and in the 
heat of the business. No pilot performs his 
office by standing still. The princes of the 
Ottoman family, the first in the world in 
military fortune, have warmly embraced this 
opinion ; and Bajazet the Second, with his son, 
that swerved from it, spending their time in sci- 
ences and other in-door employments, gave great 
blows to their empire: and Amurath the Third, 
now reigning, following their example, begins 
to find the same. Was it not Edward the 
Third, king of England, who said this of our 
Charles the Fifth 1 " There never was king 
who so seldom put on his armour, and yet never 
king who cut me out so much work." He had 
reason to think it strange, as an effect of chance 
more than of reason. And let those seek out 
some other to join with them than me, who will 
reckon the kings of Castile and Portugal 
amongst warlike and magnanimous conquerors, 
because, at the distance of twelve hundred 
leagues from their lazy abode, by the conduct 
of their captains, they made themselves masters 
of both Indies ; of which it remains to be seen 
if they have but the courage to go and in 
person to enjoy them. 

The Emperor Julian said yet further, 4 "That 
a philosopher and a brave man ought not so 
much as to breathe ;" that is to say, not to allow 
any more to bodily necessities than what we 
cannot refuse, keeping the soul and body still 
intent and busy about honourable, great, and 
virtuous things. He was ashamed if any one 
in public saw him spit or sweat (which is said 
also of the Lacedaemonian young men, and by 
Xenophon 5 of the Persians), forasmuch as he 
conceived that exercise, continual labour, and 
sobriety, ought to have dried up all those super- 
fluities. What Seneca says will not be inapt for 
this place, that the ancient Romans kept their 6 
youth always standing. They taught them 
nothing, says he, that they were to learn 
sitting. 

'Tis a generous desire to wish to die usefully 
and like a man, but the effect lies 
not so much in our resolution as makingausefni 
in good fortune. A thousand have exit is laudable, 
proposed to themselves in battle, 'I'""- 1 '. ""' , . 

r . , r .. . ' llnng be not in 

either to overcome or die, who our power. 



Zonaras, Life of Julian, towards the i 
> Cyropmdia, i. -2, lb. 
' Seneca, Kpist. fcti. 



342 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



have failed both in the one and the other; 
wounds and imprisonment crossing their de- 
sign, and compelling them to live against their 
will. There are diseases that overthrow even 
our desires and our knowledge. Fortune was 
not bound to second the vanity of the Roman 
legions, who bound themselves by oath either to 
overcome or die: Victor, Marce Fabi, r ever tar 
exacie: si fallo, Jovem patrem, Gradivumque 
Martem, aliosque iratos invoco Deos. 1 " I 
will return, Marcus Fabius, a conqueror from 
the army. If I fail, I invoke the indignation 
of Father Jove, Mars, and the other offended 
gods, upon me." The Portuguese say that, 
in a certain place of their conquest of 
the Indies, they met with soldiers who had 
condemned themselves with horrible execrations 
to enter into no composition, but either to cause 
themselves to be slain, or to remain victorious ; 
and had their heads and beards shaved in token 
of this vow. 'Tis to much purpose to hazard 
ourselves and to be obstinate; it seems as if 
blows avoided those that present themselves too 
briskly to danger, and do not willingly fall 
upon those who too willingly seek them, but 
defeat them of their design. Such there 
have been who, after having tried all ways, 
not having been able, with all their endeavour, 
to obtain the favour of dying by the hand of the 
enemy, have been constrained, to make good 
their resolution of bringing home the honour of 
victory, or of losing their lives, to kill them- 
selves even in the heat of battle. Of which 
there are other examples; but this is one: — 
Philistus, general of the naval army of Diony- 
sius the Younger against those of Syracuse, 
gave them battle, which was sharply disputed, 
their forces being equal : in which engagement 
he had the better at first, through his own va- 
lour; but, the Syracusans drawing about his 
galley to environ him, after having done great 
things in his own person to disengage himself, 
hoping for no relief, with his own hand he took 
away that life he had so liberally and in vain 
exposed to the fury of the enemy. 2 

Muley Moluch, king of Fez, who had just 
won, against Sebastian, king of Portugal, that 
battle so famous for the death of three kings, 
and by the transmission of that great kingdom 
to the crown of Castile, was extremely sick 
when the Portuguese entered in an hostile 
manner into his dominions; and from that day 
forward grew worse and worse, still drawing 
nearer to and foreseeing his end. Yet never 
did man employ himself more vigorously and 
bravely than he did upon this occasion. He 
found himself too weak to undergo the pomp 
and ceremony of entering into his camp, which 
after their manner is very magnificent, and full 
of action ; and therefore resigned that honour 
to his brother ; but that was also all of the office 
of a general that he resigned ; all the rest use- 
ful and necessary he most exactly and labo- 



riously performed in his own person ; his body 
lying upon a couch, but his judgment and 
courage upright and firm to his last gasp, and 
in some sort beyond it. He might have worn 
out his enemy, indiscreetly advanced into his 
dominions, without striking a blow ; and it was 
a very unhappy occurrence that, for want of a 
little life, or somebody to substitute in the con- 
duct of this war, and in the affairs of a troubled 
state, he was compelled to seek a doubtful and 
bloody victory, having another, by a better and 
surer way, already in his hands ; notwithstand-. 
ing, he wonderfully managed the continuance 
of his sickness in consuming the enemy, and in 
drawing them a long way from the naval army 
and the maritime places they had on the coast 
of Africa, even till the last day of his life, 
which he designedly reserved for this great 
contest. He ordered his battle in a circular 
form, environing the Portuguese army on 
every side, which circle coming to close in 
the wings, and to draw up close together, did 
not only hinder them in the conflict (which was 
very sharp, through the valour of the young 
invading king), considering they were every 
way to make a front; but prevented their flight 
after the defeat, so that finding all passages 
possessed and shut up by the enemy, they were 
constrained to close up together again: coa- 
cervanturque non solum csede, sed etiam fuga, 
and there they were slain in heaps upon one 
another, leaving to the conqueror a very bloody 
and entire victory. Dying, he caused himself 
to be carried and hurried from place to place 
where most need was ; and passing through the 
files encouraged the captains and soldiers one 
after another; but, a corner of his battle being 
broken, he was not to be held from mounting 
on horseback sword in hand; he did his utmost 
to break from those about him, and to rush into 
the thickest of the battle, they all the while 
withholding him, some by the bridle, some by 
his robe, and others by his stirrups. This last 
effort totally overwhelmed the little life he had 
left; they again lay him upon his bed. Coming 
to himself again, and starting out of his swoon, 
all other faculties failing, to give his people 
notice that they were tp conceal his death 
(the most necessary command he had then 
to give, that his soldiers might not be dis- 
couraged with the news), he expired with 
his iinger upon his mouth, the ordinary sign 
of keeping silence. 3 Whoever lived so long 
and so tar in death '.' Whoever died more like 
a man] 

The extreme degree of courageously treating 
death, and the most natural, is to look upon it 
not only without astonishment, but without 
care, continuing the wonted course of life even 
into it, as Cato did, who entertained himself in 
study, and went to sleep, having a violent 
and bloody one in his head and heart, and the 
weapon in his hand. 



Bourbon "avc Hie same signal, when lie was expiring at (lie 
2 Plutarch, Life of Dion. c. 8. foot of the walls of Rome, which his troops look by storm 

" ; Thou, book ixv., observes that it was said Charles de just alter his death. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



343 



CHAPTER XXII. 



OF RIDING POST. 



I have been none of the least able in this 
exercise, which is proper for men of my pitch, 
short and well knit; but I give it over; it 
shakes us too much to continue it long. I was 
just now reading 1 that King Cyrus, the better I 
to have news brought him from i 
l'ost-iiorscs a j) parts f tne emp r re which was 

fir^t sol up by „ r r i ■,. * 1 

cy rus . or a vast extent, caused it to be 

tried how far a horse could go in 
a day without baiting; and at that distance 
appointed stages and men, whose business it 
was to have horses always in readiness to 
mount those who were despatched to them. And 
some say that this swift way of posting is equal 
to that of the flight of cranes. 

Ca;sar says that Lucius Vibullius Rufus, being 
in great haste to carry intelligence to Pompey, 
rid day and night, still taking fresh horses lor 
the greater diligence and speed ; 2 (and he him- 
self, as Suetonius reports, 3 travelled a hundred 
miles a day in a hired coach ;) but he was a 
furious courier; for where the rivers stopped 
his way he always passed them by swimming, 
without turning out of his road to look for 
either bridge or ford. Tiberius Nero, going to 
see his brother Drusus, who was sick in Ger- 
many, travelled two hundred miles in lour and 
twenty hours, having three coaches.' 1 In the 
wars the Romans had against King Antiochus, 
T. Sempronius Gracchus, says Livy, Per dis- 
posilos ecjuos prope incredibili celeritate ah 
Amphissa lertio die Pellam pervcnil: 5 "upon 
horses purposely laid on, ho, by an almost in- 
credible speed, rid in throe days from Amphissa 
to Pella:" and it appears, from this place, 
that they were established posts, and not pur- 
posely laid on upon this occasion. 

Cecina's invention to send back news to his 
family was much more quick ; for he took 
swallows along with him from home, and turned 
them out towards their nesta when he would 
send back any news, setting a mark of some 
colour upon them, to signify his meaning, 
according to what he and his people had before 
agreed upon. 6 

At the theatre at Rome masters of families 

carried pigeons in their bosoms, 

Pigeons taught to which they tied letters, when 

to carry letters. t | ie y i ia j a in j nr ] t senf j atl y 

orders to their people at home; 
and the pigeons were trained up to bring back 
answer. D. Brutus made use of the same bird 
when besieged in Mutma, 7 and others elsewhere 
have done the same. 

In Peru they rid post upon men's shoulders, 



who took them upon their shoulders in a cer- 
tain kind of litter made for that purpose, and 
ran with such agility that at their full speed 
the first couriers throw their load to the second, 
without making any stop, and so on. 

I understand that the Wallachians, the 
Grand Seignior's couriers, perform wonderful 
despatch, by reason they have liberty to dis- 
mount the first they meet on the road, giving 
him their own tired horse; and to preserve 
themselves from being weary they gird them- 
selves tight about the middle with a broad 
girdle, as many others do; but I could never 
find any benefit by it. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

OF ILL MEANS EMPLOYED TO A GOOD END. 

There is a wonderful relation and correspond- 
ence in this universal government of the works 
of najure, which very well makes it appear 
that it is neither accidental nor carried on by 
divers masters. The diseases and 
conditions of our bodies are in Political states 
like manner manifest in states same C acdiicn't' e 
and governments : kingdoms and as X he human 
republics are founded, flourish, body, 
and decay with age, as we do. 
We are subject to a repletion of humours, use- 
less or dangerous; either of those that are 
good (for even those physicians are afraid of; 
and as we have nothing in us that is per- 
manent, they say that a too brisk and vigorous 
perfection of health must be abated by art, 
lest, as our nature cannot rest in any certain 
condition, and not having whither to rise to 
mend itself; it makes too sudden and too dis- 
orderly a retreat; and therefore they prescribe 
wrestlers to purge and bleed, to reduce that 
superabundant health); or else of those that 
are evil, which is the ordinary cause of 
sickness. States are very often sick of the like 
repletion, and different sorts of purgations have 
been wont to be used. Sometimes a great 
number of families are turned out to clear the 
country, who seek out new abodes elsewhere, 
and encroach upon others; after this manner 
our ancient Franks came from the remotest 
part of Germany to seize upon Gaul, and to 
drive thence the first inhabitants; so was that 
infinite deluge of men made up that came into 
Italy under the conduct of Brennus and others; 
so the Goths and Vandals, as also the people 
who now possess Greece, left their native 
country to go settle in other places where they 
might have more room ; and there is scarce 
two or three little corners of the world that 
have not felt the etlects of such removals. The 



In the Cijrop,pilia of Xenophon, viii. (i, !). 

ill, iii. U. 
1 Life cf Casar, e. 57. 
> Pliny, JVot. Hist. vii. 20. 



' Livy, xxxvii. 7. 

o Pliny, JV<!(. Hist. 
> Id. ib. 77. 



■\ I 



344 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Romans by this means erected their colonies ; 
for perceiving their city to grow immeasurably 
populous, they eased it of the most unnecessary 
people, and sent them to inhabit and cultivate 
the lands they had conquered ; sometimes also 
they purposely maintained wars with some of 
their enemies, not only to keep their men in 
action, for fear lest idleness, the mother of cor- 
ruption, should bring upon them some worse 
inconvenience, 



" We suffer ills from a long peace by far 
Greater and more pernicious e'en than war;" 

but also to serve for a blood-letting to their 
republic, a little to evaporate the too vehement 
heat of their youth, and to prune and cleanse 
the branches from the stock too luxuriant in 
•wood ; and to this end it was that they formerly 
maintained so long a war with Carthage. 

In the treaty of Bretigny, Edward the Third, 
King of England, would not, in the general 
peace he then made with our king, comprehend 
the controversy about the duchy of Brittany, 
that he might have a place wherein to discharge 
himself of his soldiers, and that the vast number 
of English he had brought over to serve him 
in that expedition might not return back and 
inundate England. 2 And this also was one 
reason why our King Philip consented to send 
his son John on that foreign expedition, that he 
might take along with him a great number of 
hot young men that were then in his pay. 

There are many in our times who talk at 
this rate, wishing that this hot emotion, that 
is now amongst us, might dis- 
fore'ignwar charge itself on some neighbour- 
ing war, for fear lest the peccant 
humours that now reign in this politic body of 
ours, unless diffused further, should keep the 
fever still in force, and at last cause our total 
ruin ; and, in truth, a foreign is much more 
supportable than a civil war. But I do not 
believe that God would favour so unjust a 
design as to offend and quarrel with others for 
our convenience: 



And yet the weakness of our condition often 
pushes us upon the necessity of making use of 
ill means to a good end. Lycurgus, the most 
virtuous and perfect legislator that ever was, 
invented this unjust practice of 
Men taught to making the Helots, who were 
for" opining"! their slaves, drunk by force, by 
good end. so doing to teach his people tem- 

perance; to the end that the 



J Juvenal, vi. 291. 

2 Froissart, tome i. 

3 Catullus, lxviii. 77. 
* Plutarch, in vita. 



Spartans, seeing them so overwhelmed and 
buried in wine, might abhor the excess of this 
vice. 4 And yet they were more to blame who 
of old gave leave that criminals, to what sort of 
death soever condemned, should be cut up alive 
by the physicians, that they might make a true 
discovery of our inward parts, and build their 
art upon greater certainty : 5 for if we must run 
into excesses, 'tis more excusable to do it for 
the health of the soul than for that of the body; 
as the Romans trained up the people to valour, 
and the contempt of dangers and death, by 
those furious spectacles of gladiators and fencers, 
who being to fight it out till the last, cut, 
mangled, and killed one another in their 
presence : 



And this custom continued till the Emperor 
Theodosius's time: 

Arripe dilatam tua, dux, in tempora famam, 
Cluodque patris superest, successor laudis habeto . . . 
Nullus in urbe cadat, cujus sit poena voluplas . . . 
Jam solis contenta feris, infamis arena 
Nulla ciuenlatis hoiiiicidia ludat in armis.6 



" Prince, take the honours destin'd for thy reign — 
Inherit of thy father those remain- 
Henceforth let none at Rome for sport be slain, 
•Let none but beasts bloodstain the theatre, 
And no more homicides be acted there." 

It was in truth a wonderful example, and of 
great advantage for the training up the people, 
to see every day before their eyes a hundred, 
two hundred, nay, a thousand couples of men 
armed against one another, cut one another to 
pieces with so great constancy of courage that 
they were never heard to utter so much as one 
syllable of weakness or commiseration ; never 
seen to turn back, nor so much as to make one 
cowardly step to evade a blow, but rather ex- 
pose their necks to the adversary's s,word, and 
present themselves to receive the stroke ; and 
many of them, when wounded to death, have 
sent to ask the spectators if they were satisfied 
with their behaviour, before they lay down to 
die upon the place. It was not enough for 
them to fight and die bravely, but cheerfully 
too; insomuch that they were hissed and cursed 
if they made any dispute about receiving their 
death ; the very girls themselves set them on : 

Consurgit ad ictus, 
Et. quoties victor ferritin jugulo inserit, ilia 
Delicias ait esse suas, pectusque jacentis 
Virgo modesta jubet converso pollice ruinpi.' 

"The modest virgin is delighted so 
With the fell sport, that she applauds the blow; 
And when the victor bathes his bloody brand 
In's fellow's throat, and lays him on the sand, 
Then she's most pleas'd, and shows, by signs, she'd fain 
Have him rip up the bosom of the slain." 



5 Cornel. Celsi, Medccina, Prof. 
> Prudent. Jldv. Si/mmac. ii. 643. 
' Id. ib. 017. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



345 



The first Romans only condemned criminals to 
this example; but afterwards they employed 
innocent slaves in the work, and even freemen 
too, who sold themselves for this purpose; nay, 
senators and knights of Rome ; and also women : 



Nunc caput in mortem vendunt, et funus arena?, 
Atque hostein sibi quisque parat, cum bella quiescunt ; » 

"They sell themselves to death, and, since the wars 
Are ceas'd, each for himself a foe prepares ;" 

Hos inter fremitus novosque lusus .... 
Stat sexus rudis insciusque ferri, 
Et pugnas capit improbus viriles:' 

" Amidst these tumults and alarms 
The tender sex, unskill'd in arms, 
Immodestly will try their might, 
And now engage in manly fight :" 

which I should think very strange and incre- 
dible if we were not accustomed every day 
to see, in our own wars, many thousands of 
men of other nations, for money to stake their 
blood and their lives in quarrels wherein they 
have no manner of concern. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

OF THE ROMAN GRANDEUR. 

I will only say a word or two on this infinite 
argument to show the simplicity of those who 
compare the pitiful grandeurs of these times to 
that of Rome. In the seventh book of Cicero's 
Familiar Epistles (and let the grammarians put 
out that surname of familiar if they please, for 
in truth it is not very proper; and they who, 
instead of familiar, have substituted ad fami- 
liares, may gather something to justify them 
for so doing out of what Suetonius says in the 
Life of Caasar, that there was a volume of letters 
of his ad fnmiliares), there is one directed to 
Caesar, being then in Gaul, wherein Cicero 
repeats these words, which were in the end 
of another letter thatCaosar had written to him: 
"As to what concerns Marcus Furius, whom 
you have recommended to me, I will make him 
king of Gaul ; and if you would advance any 
other friend of yours, send him to me.'? It 
was no new thing for a simple citizen of Rome, 
as Caasar then was, to dispose of kingdoms; for 
he took away that of King Deiotarus from him, 
to give it to a gentleman of the city of Per- 
gamus called Mithridates ; 4 and those who wrote 
his life record several kingdoms by him sold; 
and Suetonius says 6 that he had at once from 
King Ptolemy three millions six hundred thou- 
sand crowns, which was very near selling him 
his kingdom. 



' Manilius, Matron, iv. 225. 

» Statins. Sijln. i. 6, 51. 

8 Cicero, Epi.it. Fam. vii. 5. The most received text has 

the [i:une ..»/. Orfinm. S 'omineniatnrs have regarded 

Oiesar'B offer as a mere jest; but Montaigne, who takes it as 
a serious offer, may very well be in the right, for ClEBttr'S 
proposal may merely have extended to making Cicero' 
friend one of the petty rrguli, whom the [tomans appointed 
tfver districts in the various parts of their conquOBte. 



Tot Galatae, tot Pontus eat, tot Lydi: 



Mark Antony said 7 that the grandeur of the 
people of Rome was not so much seen in what 
they took as what they gave; and, indeed, 
some ages before Antony, they had dethroned 
one amongst the rest, with so wonderful autho- 
rity, that in all the Roman History I have not 
observed anything that more denotes the height 
of their power. Antiochus possessed all Egypt, 
and was about conquering Cyprus, and other 
appendages of that empire. Being upon the 
progress of his victories, C. Popilius came to 
him from the Senate, and at their 
first meeting refused to take him ,| en v^ved of'his 
by the hand till he had first read conquests by a 
the letters he brought him. The J^J'™ a l t h e e 
king having read them told him 
he would consider of them ; but Popilius made 
a circumference about him with the wand he 
had in his hand, saying, "Return me an 
answer, that I may carry back to the Senate, 
before thou stirrest out of this circle." Antio- 
chus, astonished at the roughness of so positive 
a command, after a little pause replied, "I will 
obey the Senate's command;" 8 and then it was 
that Popilius saluted him as a friend to the 
people of Rome. After having renounced so 
great a monarchy, and such a torrent of suc- 
cessful fortune, upon three scratches of the pen ; 
in earnest he had reason, as he afterwards did, 
to send the Senate word, by his ambassadors, 
that he had received their order with the same 
respect as if it had been sent by the immortal 
gods. 9 

All the kingdoms that Augustus gained by 
the right of war he either restored 
to those who had lost them, or )nan y s restored 
presented them to strangers. And their conquered 

Tacitus, in reference to this Kjg 1 *™ 1 " 
, . „ „ . , , . „ their owners, 

speaking of Cogidunus, king of 
England, gives us, by a touch, a marvellous 
idea of that infinite power: "The Romans," 
says he, " were from all antiquity accustomed 
to leave the kings they had subdued in posses- 
sion of their kingdoms under their authority, 
that they might have even kings to be their 
slaves:" Ut haberrnt instrumenta servitutis 
et reges. K 'Tis likely that Solyrnan, whom we 
have seen make a gift of Hungary and other 
principalities, had therein more respect to this 
consideration than to that he was wont to 
allege, viz., that he was glutted and overcharged 
with so many monarchies, and so much domi- 
nion, as his own valour and that of his ancestors 
had acquired. 



* Cicero, de Divinnt. ii. 3' 
» Life of desar, c. 54. 

e Claud, in F.utrop. i. 203. 
1 Plutarch, in vita. 

• Livy, xlv. 19. 
» Id. ii. 

io Tacitus, Jigricola, c. 14. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

NOT TO COUNTERFEIT BEING SICK. 

There is an epigram in Martial of very good 

sense, for he has of all sorts, where he pleasantly 

tells the story of Ceolius, who, to 

Gout counter- avo i(j making his court to some 

feit became a . =•_ .... . 

real gout. great men of Home, to wait their 

rising, and to attend them abroad, 
pretended to have the gout ; and, the better to 
colour this pretence, anointed his legs, and had 
them wrapped up in a great many clouts and 
swathings, and perfectly counterfeited both the 
gesture and countenance of a gouty person, 
till in the end fortune did him the kindness to 
make him gouty indeed. 

Tantum cura potest, ct ars doloris! 
Desit fiiifn.Ti: Cedius podagram.i 

"So much lias counterfeiting brought about, 
Ctelius has ceased to counterfeit the gout."' 

I think I have read somewhere in Appian 2 a 
story like this, of one, who to escape the pro- 
scriptions of the Triumviri of Rome, and the 
better to be concealed from the discovery of 
those who pursued him, having shaded himself 
in a disguise, would yet add this invention, to 
counterfeit having but one eye; but when he 
came to have a little more liberty, and went to 
take off the plaster he had a great while worn 
over his eye, he found he had totally lost the 
sight of it indeed, and that it was absolutely 
gone. 'Tis possible that the action of sight was 
dulled for having been so long without exercise, 
and that the optic power was wholly retired into 
the other eye : for we evidently perceive that 
the eye we keep shut sends some part of its 
virtue to its fellow, so that the remaining eye 
will swell and grow bigger; as also idleness, 
with the heat of ligatures and plaisters, might 
very well have brought some gouty humour 
upon this dissembler in Martial. 

Reading in Froissard 3 the vow of a troop of 
young English gallants, to carry their left eyes 
bound up till they were arrived in France, and 
had performed some notable exploit upon us, I 
have oft been tickled with the conceit of its 
befalling them as it did the before-named Ro- 
man, and that they had returned with but an 
eye a-piece to their mistresses, for whose sakes 
they had entered into this vow. 

Mothers have reason to rebuke their children 

when they counterfeit having but 
It is proper to one eye, squinting, lameness, or 
hinder child- any other personal defect; for, 
reii Irom coun- , J ., .,;.,, , ,. ' . ' 
terfeiting per- besides that their bodies being 
sonai defects. then so tender may be subject to 

take an ill bent, fortune, I know 
not how, sometimes seems to take a delight to 
take us at our word ; and I have heard several 
examples related of people who have become 



1 Marlial, vii. 30. 8. 
'-' CiriL Wars, iv. 
3 Vol. i. 



really sick by only feigning to be so. I have 
lways used, whether on horseback or on foot, 
to carry a stick in my hand, and so as to affect 
doing it with a grace : many have threatened 
that this trick would one day be turned into 
necessity ; that is, that I should be the first of 
my family that should have the gout. 

But let us a little lengthen this chapter, and 
vary it with a piece of another colour, concern- 
ing blindness. Pliny 4 reports of one, that, 
once dreaming he was blind, found himself in 
the morning so indeed, without any preceding 
infirmity in his eyes. The force of imagination 
might assist in this case, as I have said else- 
where; and Pliny seems to be of the same 
opinion: but it is more likely that the motions 
which the body felt within (of which phy- 
sicians, if they please, may find out the cause), 
which took away his sight, were the occasion 
of his dream. 

Let us add another story, akin to this sub- 
ject, which Seneca relates in one of his Epistles : 
"You know," says he, writing to Lucilius, 
" that Harpaste, my wife's fool, lives upo me 
as an hereditary charge ; for, as to my own taste, 
I have an aversion to those monsters ; and 
if I have a mind to laugh at a fool, I need not 
seek him far, I can laugh at myself. This 
fool has suddenly lost her sight. I tell you a 
strange, but a very true thing ; she is not sen- 
sible that she is blind, but eternally importunes 
her keeper to take her abroad, because she says 
the house is dark. I pray you to believe that 
what we laugh at in her happens to every one 
of us; no one knows himself to be avaricious. 
Besides, the blind call for a guide ; we stray of 
our own accord. 1 am not ambitious, we say ; 
but a man cannot live otherwise at Rome; I 
am not wasteful, but the city requires a great 
expense; 'tis not my fault if I am choleric, and 
if I have not yet established any certain course 
of life; 'tis the fault of youth. Let us not 
seek our disease out of ourselves; 'tis in us, 
and planted in our bowels: and even this, that 
we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders 
us more hard to be cured. If we do not betimes 
begin to dress them, when shall we have done 
with so many wounds and evils wherewith 
we abound 1 And yet we have a most sweet 
and charming medicine in philosophy; for all 
the rest give no pleasure till after the cure: 
this pleases and heals at once." This is what 
Seneca says : he has carried me from my 
subject; but there is advantage in the change. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

OF THUMBS. 

Tacitus reports 6 that amongst certain bar- 
barian kings their manner was, when they 



i Wat. Hist. vii. 5' 

i Ep. 50. 

» Annuls, xii. 47. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



347 



would make a firm obligation, to join their 
right hands close to one another, and twist 
their thumbs; and when, by force of straining, 
the blood mounted to* the ends, they lightly 
pricked them with some sharp instrument, and 
mutually sucked them. 

Physicians say 1 that the thumbs are the 
masters of the hand, and that their Latin 
etymology is derived from pollere? The Greeks 
called them cWt^Etp, as who should say " another 
hand." And it seems that the Latins also some- 
times take them in this sense for the whole hand : 

Sed nee vocibus exeitata blandis, 
Molli pollice nee rogata, surgit.3 

It was at Rome a signification of favour to 
1 turn in the thumbs, 



and of disfavour to elevate and thrust them 
outward : 

Converso pollice vul?i 
Qucmlibet occidunt populariter.s 

"The vulgar with reverted thumbs 
- Kill each one that before them conies." 

The Romans exempted from war all such as 
were maimed in the thumbs, as having no 
longer sufficient strength to hold their weapons. 
Augustus confiscated the estate of a Roman 
knight, who had wilfully cut off the thumbs of 
two young children he had, to excuse them from 
going into the armies. 6 And before him, the 
senate, in the time of the Italian war, had con- 
demned Caius Vaticnus to perpetual imprison- 
ment, and confiscated all his goods, for having 
purposely cut oft" the thumb of his left hand, 
to exempt himself from that expedition. 7 

Some one, I forgot who, 8 having won a 
naval battle, cut off the thumbs of all his van- 
quished enemies, to render them incapable of 
fighting and of handling the oar. The Athe- 
nians also caused the thumbs of those of /Egina 
to be cut off, to deprive them of the precedence 
in the art of navigation. 9 

In Lacedremonia, pedagogues chastised their 
scholars by biting their thumbs. 10 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

COWARDICE THE MOTHER OF CRUELTY. 

I have often heard it said that cowardice is 
the mother of cruelty ; and 1 have found, by 



Al.ins Capito, apuil Macrobius, Saturnalia, vii. 13. 

Martial, xii. 98, 8. The verses are too free to be trans 
i'il. in however lie • a version. 
Horace, Ep. i. 18, GU. 

■ in <:,lu. c. 24. 

Valerius Al.ix. v. .1, 3. It is supposed that the term 
lio,in is derived from Hie Latin words expressing this 
BunlBtance— -pollice Ironro. 

I'liilii.-les, • of the Athenian generals in the I'elopo 

siau war. Plutarch, Life of Lysander. 



xperience, that that malicious and inhuman 
nimosity and fierceness is usually accompanied 
with a feminine weakness. I have seen the 
most cruel people, and upon very frivolous 
occasions, very apt to cry. Alexander, the 
tyrant of Pheres, durst not be a spectator of 
tragedies in the theatre, for fear lest his citizens 
should see him weep at the misfortunes of 
Hecuba and Andromache, who himself caused 
so many people every day to be murdered 
without pity." Is it meanness of spirit that 
renders them so pliable to all extremities 1 
Valour, whose effect is only to be exercised 
against resistance, 

Nee nisi bellantis gaudet cervice juvenci," 

"Neither, unless he fight, 
In conquering a bull doth take delight," 

stops when it sees the enemy at its mercy ; but 
pusillanimity, to say that it was also in the 
action, not having dared to meddle in the first 
act, that of danger, rushes into the second, that 
of blood and massacre. The execution after 
victories is commonly performed by the ras- 
cality and hangers-on of an army; and that 
which causes so many unheard-of cruelties in 
domestic wars is that the rout are flushed in 
being up to the elbows in blood, and ripping 
up bodies that lie prostrate at their feet, having 
no sense of any other valour : 



like cowardly house-curs, that in the house 
worry and tear the skins of wild beasts they 
durst not come near in the field. What is it 
in these times of ours that causes our quarrels to 
be all mortal ! and that whereas our fathers 
had some degree in their revenge, we now 
begin with the last in ours, and that at the 
first meeting nothing is said but "Kill!" 
what is this but cowardice! 

Every one is sensible that there is more 
bravery and disdain in subduing an enemy 
than in cutting his throat, and in making him 
yield than in putting him to the sword ; besides 
that the appetite of revenge is better satisfied 
and pleased, because its only aim is to make 
itself felt: and this is the reason why we do 
not fall upon a beast or a stone when it hurts 
us, because they are not capable of being sen- 
sible of our revenge ; and to kill a man is to 
save him from the injury and offence we intend 
him. And as Bias' 1 cried out to a wicked 



"Cicero, dc Off. iii. 11. 

V Plutarch, Life of Lycurgvs. 

" Pint. Life of Pclopidas. 

" Claudian, Ep. ad Iladrianum, v. 30. 

■3 Ovid, Trist. iii. 5, 35. 

" Plutarch, on the Delay of Divine Justice. Montaigne 
is mistaken in supposing that Bias pi lied the ( 'rrhomeiiiatis ; 
it is Patrol-Ins, one of the interlorutois in I lie dialogue, wIm 
cites tins example of the tardy vengeance of the gods on lltt 
traitor Lyciscus. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



fellow, "I know that, sooner or later, thou 
wilt have thy reward, but I am afraid I shall 
not see it ;" and pitied the Orchomenians, that 
the penitence of Lyciscus for the treason com- 
mitted against them, came in a season when 
there was no one remaining alive of those who 
had been interested in the offence, and whom 
the pleasure of this penitence should have 

affected : so revenge is to be re- 
Revenge is pented of when the person on 
effect'by kHling whom it is executed is deprived of 
an enemy. " the means of suffering under it; 

for as the revenger will look on to 
enjoy the pleasure of his revenge, so the person 
on whom he takes revenge should be a spec- 
tator too, to be afflicted and to repent. "He 
will repent it," we say; but because we have 
given him a pistol-shot through the head do 
we imagine he repents? On the contrary, if 
we but observe we shall find that he makes a 
mouth at us in falling: and so far from peni- 
tence, that he does not so much as repine at us; 
and we do him the kindest office of life, which 
is to make him die insensibly and suddenly. 
We have afterwards to hide ourselves, and run 
from place to place, from the officers of justice, 
who pursue us, whilst he is at rest. Killing is 
good to frustrate an offence to come, not to 
revenge one that is already past: 'tis more an 
act of fear than bravery, of precaution than 
courage, and of defence than attempt. It is 
manifest that by it we quit both the true end 
of revenge and the care of our reputation ; we 
are afraid if he lives he will do us another 
injury as great as the first; 'tis not out of 
animosity to him, but care of thyself, that thou 
riddest him out of the way. 

In the kingdom of Narsingua this expedient 

would be useless to us; where not 
Duels common on i„ soldiers, but tradesmen also, 
jn the Kingdom f . . ..~ . Jt , 

ot Narsingua. end their differences by the sword. 

The king never denies the field to 
any that will fight ; and sometimes, when they 
are persons of quality, looks on, rewarding the 
victor with a chain of gold ; but for the which 
any one that will may fight with him again : 
by which means, by having come off from one 
combat, he becomes engaged in many. 

If we thought by virtue to be always masters 
of our enemies, and to triumph over them at 
pleasure, we should be sorry they should escape 
from us as they do, by dying. We have a mind 
to conquer, but more with safety than honour ; 
and in our quarrel more pursue the end than 
the glory. 

Asinius Pollio, who, being a worthy man, 

was the less to be excused, com- 
Poiiio-s libel mitted a i lke error . wh having 

against Plan- . , , . ' . ' => 

cJs. written a libel against Plancus, 

forbore to publish it till he was 
first dead: which was to bite one's thumb 
at a blind man, to rail at one that is deaf, 



> It was Plancus himself who made this answer. Pliny, 2 Laertius, in vita. 
Preface to Vespasian. 



and to wound a man that has no feeling, rather 
than to run the hazard of his resentment. So 
it was said about him: "That it was only for 
hobgoblins to wrestle with the dead." * He 
that stays to see the author die whose writings 
he intends to question, what does he say, but 
that he is as weak as quarrelsome ! It was told 
Aristotle that some one had spoken ill of him : 
"Let him do more," said he, 2 "let him whip 
me too, provided I am not there." 

Our fathers contented themselves to revenge 
an insult with a lie, the lie with a box of the 
ear, and so forward ; they were valiant enough 
not to fear their adversary living and provoked : 
we tremble for fear so long as we see them on 
foot: and that this is so, does not our noble 
practice of these days, equally to prosecute to 
death both him that has offended us and him 
we have offended, make it out] 'Tis also a 
kind of cowardice that has introduced the cus- 
tom of seconds, thirds, and fourths in our duels: 
they were formerly duels; they 

are now skirmishes, rencounters, f econd ? '" tr °" 
.... a .. ' , ' duced in duels 

and battles, bohtude was doubt- by cowardice. 
less terrible to those who were 
the first inventors of this practice, quum in se 
cuique minimum Jiducise esset ; " they had little 
confidence in themselves ;" for naturally any 
company whatever is comfortable in danger. 
Third persons were formerly called in to prevent 
disorder and foul play only, and to be witness 
of the fortune of the combat: but since they 
have brought it to this pass that these them- 
selves engage, whoever is invited cannot hand- 
somely stand by as an idle spectator, for fear of 
being suspected either of want of affection or 
courage. Besides the injustice and unworthiness 
of such an action, of engaging other force and 
valour in the protection of your honour than 
your own, I conceive it a disadvantage to a 
brave man, and who only relies upon himself, 
to shuffle his fortune with that of a second; 
every one runs hazard enough in himself, with- 
out hazarding for another, and has enough to 
do to assure himself in his own valour for the 
defence of his life, without intrusting a thing 
so dear in a third man's hand. For, if it be 
not expressly agreed upon before to the con- 
trary, 'tis a combined party of all four, and if 
your second be killed, you have two to deal 
withal, with good reason : and to say that it is 
foul play, it is so indeed ; as it is, well-armed, 
to charge a man that has but the hilt of a sword 
in his hand, or, clear and untouched, a man that 
is desperately wounded ; but if these be advan- 
tages you have got by fighting, you may make 
use of them without reproach. The disparity 
and inequality is only weighed and considered 
from the condition of the combatants when they 
began; as to the rest, you may take your for- 
tune: and though you alone had three enemies 
upon you at once, your two companions being 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



A story of a 
duel between 
some French 
gentlemen, in 



killed, you have no more wrong done you than 
I should do, in a battle, by running a man 
through I should see engaged with one of our 
own men, with the like advantage. The nature 
of society will have it so; where there is troop 
against troop, 1 as where our Duke of Orleans 
challenged Henry, king of England, a hundred 
against a hundred; three hundred against as 
many, as the Argians against the Lacedaemo- 
nians; 2 and three to three, as the Horatii 
against the Curiatii, the multitude on either 
side is considered but as one single man : the 
hazard every where, where there is company, 
being confused and mixed. 

1 have a domestic interest in this discourse ; 
for my brother, the Sieur de Ma- 
tecoulom, was at Rome invited 
by a gentleman, with whom he 
had no great acquaintance, and 
oV'.MwuaT»H<r r wno was defendant, and chal- 
was engaged. lenged by another, to be his 
second. In this duel he found 
himself matched with a gentleman much better 
known to him; — I wish they would give me 
some reason for these laws of honour, which so 
frequently run counter to all reason. — After 
having despatched his man, 3 seeing the two 
principals still on foot and sound, he ran in to 
disengage his friend. What could he do less? 
Should he have stood still, and, if chance would 
have ordered it so, have seen him he was come 
thither to defend, killed before his thee] What 
he had hitherto done signified nothing to the 
business; the quarrel was yet undecided. The 
courtesy that you can and certainly ought to 
show to your enemy, when you have reduced 
him to an ill condition, and have a great advan- 
tage over him, I do not see how you can show, 
where the interest of another is in the case, 
where you are only called in as an assistant, 
and the quarrel is none of yours. He could 
neither be just nor courteous at the hazard of 
him he was to serve ; and so he was enlarged 
from the prisons of Italy at the speedy and 
solemn request of our king. Indiscreet nation ! 
We are not content to make our vices and fol- 
lies known to the world by report only, but we 
must go into foreign countries, there to show 
them what fools we are ! Put three Frenchmen 
into the deserts of Libya, they will not live a 
month together without fighting; so that you 
would say that this peregrination was a tiling 
purposely designed to give strangers the plea- 
sure of our tragedies, and for the most part such 
as rejoice and laugh at our miseries. We go 
into Italy to learn to fence, and fall to practise 
at the expense of our lives before we hive 
learned it; and yet by the order of discipline, 
we should put the theory before the practice: 
we discover ourselves to be but learners: 



•' O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom ! 
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come ! 
Hard elements of inauspicious war!" 

I know 'tis an art very useful to its end ; (in 
a duel betwixt two princes, cousins-german, 
in Spain, the elder, says Livy, 5 by his skill and 
dexterity in arms, easily surmounted the greater 
and less managed strength of the younger) ; 
and an art of which the knowledge, as I ex- 
perimentally know, hath inspired some with 
courage above their natural measure; but this 
is not properly valour, because it supports itself 
upon address, and is founded upon something 
besides itself. The honour of combat consists 
in the jealousy of courage, and not of skill; 
and therefore I have known a friend of mine, 
tamed as a great master in this exercise, in his 
quarrels make choice of such arms as might 
deprive him of this advantage, and that wholly 
depended upon fortune and assurance, that they 
might not attribute his victory rather to his 
skill in fencing than his valour. When I was 
young, gentlemen avoided the reputation of 
good fencers, as injurious to them; and learned 
with all imaginable privacy to fence, as a trade 
of subtlety, derogating from true and natural 
valour : 

Non schivar, non parar, non ritirarsi 
Voglion costor, ne qui destrezza ha parte; 



Non dan 


10 i colpi or fin 


ti, or pieni, or sea 
uso dell' arte. 




Togli e 1 


ira e' I' furor 1 




Odi le spade orribilmenl 


e nrtarsi 




A mezzo 


il ferro; il pie 


d' oruia non parte 




P.-mpr.-, 


il pie fermo, e 


la man sempre in 


noto 


Ne seen. 


e taglio in van 


ne punta a voto.« 





"They neither shrunk, nor vantage sought of ground, 
They travers'd not, nor skipt from part to part, 

Their blows were neither false nor feigned found, 
Fury and rai;e would let them use no art. 

Their swords together clash with dreadful sound. 
Their feet stand fast, and neither stir nor start, 

They move their hands, sledfast their feet remain. 

Nor blow nor foin they struck, nor thrust in vain. 

Butts, tilting, and barriers, the images of 
warlike fights, were the exercises of our fore- 
fathers : this other exercise is so much the less 
noble that it only respects a private end ; that it 
teaches us to ruin one another, against law and 
justice, and that it every way always produces 
very ill effects. It is much more worthy and 
becoming to exercise ourselves in things that 
rather strengthen than weaken our government, 
and that tend to the public safety and common 
glory. Publius Rutilius, consul, was the first 
that taught the soldiers to handle their arms 
| with skill, and joined art to valour; not for the 
use of private quarrel, but for war, and the 
quarrels of the people of Rome; 7 a popular 
, and patriotic art of defence : and besides the 
j example of Caesar, 3 who commanded his men to 



I Monstelct. vol. i. c. 9. 

« For the plain of Thyrea. Herod, i. 82. Pausanias, x.9. 
JitheniiHA, xv. B. 

' The details of this duel may be found in Drantome, On 
Duels. 



' JEneid. xi. 156. 
' I.ivy, xxviii. 21. 
1 Tassn. Otrusal. c. 12, St. 55. 
Val. Mai. ii :t 2. 
> Plutarch, in vitu. 



350 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



aim chiefly at the face of Pompey's soldiers in 
the battle of Pharsalia, a thousand other com- 
manders have also bethought them to invent 
new forms of weapons, and new ways of striking 
and defending, according as occasion required. 
But as Philopoemen ' condemned wrestling, 
wherein he excelled, because the preparatives 
that are therein employed were different from 
those that appertain to military discipline, to 
which alone he conceived men of honour ought 
to apply themselves, so it seems to me that this 
address to which we form our limbs, those 
twistings and motions which young men are 
taught in this new school, are not only of no 
use, but rather the contrary, and hurtful to the 
manner of fight in battle ; our people, too, 
commonly make use of particular weapons, 
peculiarly designed for this purpose: and I 
have known, when it has been disapproved 
that a gentleman, challenged to fight with 
rapier and poniard, should appear in the equi- 
page of a man at arms ; or that another should 
take his cloak instead of a poniard. It is wor- 
thy of consideration that Laches, in Plato, 
speaking of learning to fence after a manner 
like ours, says that he never knew any great 
soldier come out of that school, especially the 
masters of it : and indeed, as to them, our 
own experience tells us as much. As to the 
rest, we may at least conclude that they are 
qualities of no relation nor correspondence ; 
and, in the education of the children of his 
government, Plato 2 interdicts the 
^inferlS" "t of boxing, introduced by 
by Plato. Amycus and Lpeius, and that ot 

wrestling, by Antaeus and Cercyo, 
because they have another end than to render 
youth fit for the service of war, and contribute 
nothing to it. But I see I am somewhat strayed 
from my theme. 

The Emperor Maurice, being advertised by 
dreams and several prognostics, that one Phocas, 
an obscure soldier, should kill him, questioned 
his brother-in-law, Philippicus, who this Phocas 
was, and what his nature, qualities, and man- 
ners; and so soon as Philippicus, 

"ueiS ^mongs * ° ther thin S s ' hi ,\ d t0] d 
bloody. him that he was cowardly and 

timorous, the emperor immedi- 
ately thence concluded that he was then a 
murderer and cruel. 3 What is that that makes 
tyrants so bloody ] 'Tis only the solicitude of 
their own safety, and that their faint hearts can 
furnish them with no other means of securing 
themselves than in exterminating those that 
may hurt them, even so much as to women, for 
fear of a scratch : 

Cuncta ferit, dum cuncta timet.* 

" He strikes at all, who every one does fear." 



i Plutarch, in vita. 

1 Zonaras and Cedrenus, H. of the Emp. Maurice. 



The first cruelties are exercised for themselves ; 
thence springs the fear of a just 
revenge, which afterwards pro- ° ne act 0< " 
duces a series of new cruelties to sarfiy^produces 
obliterate one another. Philip, others, 
king of Macedon, who ha.d so 
much to do with the people of Rome, agitated 
with the horror of so many murders committed 
by his appointment, and doubting of being able 
to keep himself secure from so many families, at 
divers times mortally injured and offended by 
him, resolved to seize all the children of those 
he had caused to be slain, to despatch them 
daily one after another, and so to establish his 
own repose. 5 

Fine matter is never impertinent, however 
placed ; and therefore I, who more consider the 
weight and utility of what 1 deliver than its 
order and connexion, need not fear in this place 
to bring in a fine story, though it be a little by 
the bye ; for when they are rich in their own 
native beauty, and are able to justify themselves, 
the least end of a hair will serve to draw them 
into my argument. 

Amongst others condemned by Philip, Hero- 
dicus, prince of Thessaly, had been one: he 
had moreover, after him, caused his two sons- 
in-law to be put to death, each leaving a son 
very young behind him : Theoxena and Archo 
were their two widows. Theoxena, though 
highly courted to it, could not be persuaded to 
marry again. Archo married Poris, the greatest 
man among the iEnians, and by him had a great 
many children, which she, dying, left in a 
tender age. Theoxena, moved with a maternal 
charity towards her nephews, that she might 
have them under her own eyes, and in her own 
protection, married Poris. Presently comes a 
proclamation of the king's edict. This brave- 
spirited mother suspected the cruelty of Philip, 
and, afraid of the insolence of the soldiers 
towards these fine and tender children, boldly 
declared that she would rather kill them with 
her own hands than deliver them. Poris, 
startled at this protestation, promised her to 
steal them away, and to transport them to 
Athens, and there commit them to the custody 
of some faithful friend of his. They took there- 
fore the opportunity of an annual feast, which 
was celebrated at iEnia in honour of JSneas, 
and thither they went. Having appeared by 
day at the public ceremonies and banquet, they 
stole at night into a vessel prepared for that 
purpose, to escape away by sea. The wind 
proved contrary, and finding themselves in the 
morning within sight of the land from whence 
they had launched over-night, were made after 
by the guards of the port. At their approach, 
Poris laboured all he could to make the mari- 
ners do their utmost to escape from the pur- 
suers; but Theoxena, frantic with affection 



■> Claud, in Eutrop. 
» Livy, xl. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



351 



Tyrants con- 
trive to 
lengthen the 
torments of 
those they put 



and revenge, recurring- to her former resolution, 
prepared arms and poison, and exposing these 
before them: "Come, my children," said she, 
"death is now the only means of your defence 
and liberty, and shall administer occasion to 
the gods to exercise their sacred justice ; these 
sharp swords, these full cups, will open you the 
way to it ; courage, fear nothing. And thou, 
my son, who art the eldest, take this steel into 
thy hand, that thou may'st the most bravely 
die." The children, having on one side so 
powerful a counsellor, and the enemy at their 
throats on the other, ran all of them eagerly 
upon what was next to hand, and, half dead, 
were thrown into the sea. Theoxena, proud of 
having so gloriously provided for tiie safety of 
all her children, clasping her arms with great 
affection about her husband's neck : " Let us, 
my friend," said she, "follow these boys, and 
enjoy the same sepulchre they do." And, so 
embraced, threw themselves headlong overboard 
into the sea; so that the ship was carried back 
empty of the owners into the harbour. 

Tyrants, at once both to kill and to make 
their anger felt, have pumped 
their wits to invent the most lin- 
gering deaths. They will have 
their enemies dispatched, but not 
so fast that they may not have 
leisure to taste their vengeance.' 
And therein they are mightily perplexed, for if 
the torments they inflict are violent, they are 
short ; if long, they are not then so painful as 
they desire ; and thus they torment themselves 
in contriving how to torment others. Of this we 
have a thousand examples of antiquity, and 
I know not whether we, unawares, do not re- 
tain some traces of this barbarity. 

All that exceeds a simple death appears to 
me pure cruelty. Our law cannot expect that 
he whom the fear of being executed, by being 
beheaded or hanged, will not restrain, should 
be any more awed by the imagination of a lan- 
guishing fire, burning pincers, or the wheel. 
And I know not, in the mean time, whether we 
do not throw them into despair; for in what 
condition can the soul of a man, expecting 
four-and-twenty hours together to be broke 
upon a wheel, or, after the old way, nailed to a 
cross, be? Josephus relates 2 that in the time 
of the war the Romans made in Judea, happen- 
ing to pass by where they had three days before 
crucified certain Jews, he amongst them knew 
three of his own friends, and obtained the fa- 
vour of having them taken down; of whom 
two, he says, died, the third lived a great while 
after. 

Chalcondylas, a writer of good credit, in the 
records he lias left behind him of things that 
happened in his time, and near him, 3 tells us, 
as of the most excessive torment, of what the 



• An allusion to Caligula's sayini 
themselves il\ ilia." 
a In the History of his Life, towards the end 



h tlicm to feel 



Emperor Mechmet very often practised, of cut- 
ting off men in the middle, by the diaphragm, 
with one blow of a scymitar; by which it hap- 
pened that they died, as it were, two deaths at 
once, and both the one part and the other, says 
he, were seen to stir and struggle a great while 
after, in very great torment. I do not think 
there was any great suffering in this motion : 
the torments that are most dreadful to look on 
are not always the greatest to endure ; and I 
find those that other historians relate to have 
been practised upon the Epirot lords, to be more 
horrid and cruel, where fhey were condemned 
to be flayed alive by pieces, after so malicious 
a manner that they continued fifteen days in 
this misery. 

As also these two others: Croesus, 4 having 
caused a gentleman, the favourite of his brother 
Pantaleon, to be seized, carried him into a 
fuller's shop, where he caused him to be 
scratched and carded with cards and combs 
belonging to that trade till he died. George 
Sechel, chief commander of the peasants of 
Poland, who committed so many mischiefs 
under the title of the crusade, being defeated 
in battle, and taken by the waywode of Tran- 
sylvania, was for three days bound naked upon 
the rack, exposed to all sorts of torments that 
any one could contrive against him, during 
which time many other prisoners were kept 
fasting. In the end, he living and looking on, 
they made his beloved brother Lucat, for whom 
only he entreated, taking upon himself the 
blame of all their evil actions, to drink his 
blood ; and caused twenty of his most favoured 
captains to feed upon him, tearing his flesh in 
pieces with their teeth, and swallowing the 
morsels. The remainder of his body and bowels, 
so soon as he was dead, were boiled, and others 
of his followers compelled to eat thern. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON. 

Such as compare Cato the Censor with the 
younger Cato that killed himself, compare two 
beautiful natures, and much resembling one 
another. The first acquired his 
reputation several ways, and ex- catoof Utica 
eels in military exploits and the preferahie to 
utility of his public avocations ; ^\^ f „SS° 
but the virtue of the younger, 
besides that it were blasphemy to compare any 
to him in vigour, was much more pure and 
unblemished ; for who can acquit the Censor 
of envy and ambition, having dared to jostle 
the honour of Scipio, a man in worth, valour, 
and all other excellent qualities, infinitely be- 
yond him, or any other of his time I 



Hist, of the Turks, x. at the beginning. 4 Herod, i. ,u 2. 
■ Chronicle of Canon, book iv. p. 700. Cureus, Annals of 
Mia, p. 233. 



352 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



That which they report of him, amongst 
other things, that, in his extreme old age, he 
put himself upon learning the Greek tongue 
with a greedy appetite, as if to quench a long 
thirst, 1 does not seem to make much for his 
honour ; it being properly what we call being 
twice a child. All things have their season, 
even the best; and a man may say his Pater- 
noster out of time ; as they accused T. Quintus 
Flaminius, that, being general of an army, he 
was seen praying apart in the time of a battle 
that he won : 

Imponet finem sapiens et rebus honestis.3 

" The wise man limits even proper things." 

Eudemonidas, seeing Xenocrates, when very 
old, still very intent upon his school-lessons, 
" When will this man be wise," said he, " if 
he is still learning]" 3 And Philopcemen, to 
those who extolled King Ptolemy for every 
day inuring his person to the exercise of arms, 
" It is not," said he, " commendable in a king 
of his age to exercise himself in those things ; 
he ought now really to employ them." 4 The 
young are to make their preparations, the old 
to enjoy them, say the sages ; 5 and the greatest 
vice they observe in us is that our desires in- 
cessantly grow young again; we are always 
re-beginning to live. 

Our studies and desires should sometimes be 
sensible of age. We have one foot in the grave, 
and yet our appetites and pursuits spring every 
day new upon us : 

Tu secanda marmora 

Locus sub ipsum funus, et, sepulchri 

Immemor, struis domos:» 

"Command the pillar'd dome to rise, 
When, lo! the tomb forgotten lies." 

The longest of my designs is not above a year's 
extent: I think of nothing now but ending, 
rid myself of all new hopes and enterprizes, 
take my last leave of every place I depart from, 
and every day dispossess myself of what I have : 
Olim jam nee perit quidquam mihi, nee acqui- 
rilur - - - plus super est viatici quam viae:'' 
" Henceforward I will neither lose nor get : I 
have more wherewith to defray my journey, 
than I have way to go : 

Vixi, et, quern dederat cursum fortuna, peregi. 8 

" I 've lived, and finish'd the career 
Wherein my fortune placed me here." 

To conclude ; 'tis the only comfort I find in 
my old age, that it mortifies in me several cares 
and desires wherewith life is disturbed ; the 
care how the world goes, the care of riches, of 
grandeur, of knowledge, of health, of myself. 
There are some who are learning to speak, at a 
time when they should learn to be silent for 
ever. A man may always study, but he must 



1 Plutarch, Life of Cato the Censor. 

2 Id. Parallel of T. Q. Flaminius and Philopcemen. 

3 Id. Jipoth. of the Lacedmm. 
* Id. in Vila. 

& Seneca, Epist. 30. 



not always go to school. What a contemptible 
thing is an old abecedarian ! 



" For several things do several men delight ; 
And all things are not for all ages right." 

If we must study, let us study what is suitable 
to our present condition, that we may answer 
as he did, who, being asked to 
what end he studied in his de- What ought to 
crepid age : « That I may go out £ t e u a d " oldman ' s 
better," said he, " and at greater 
ease." Such a study was that of the younger 
Cato, feeling his end appproach, and which he 
met with in Plato's Discourse of the Immor- 
tality of the Soul ; not, as we are to believe, 
that he was not long before-hand furnished 
with all sorts of ammunition for such a de- 
parture; for of assurance, an established will 
and instruction, he had more than Plato in all 
his writings ; his knowledge and courage were 
in this respect above philosophy ; he applied 
himself to his study, not for the service of his 
death ; but, as a man whose sleeps were never 
disturbed in the importance of such a delibera- 
tion, he also, without choice or change, con- 
tinued his studies with the other accustomary 
actions of his life. The night that he was de- 
nied the prsetorship, he spent in play; that 
wherein he was to die, he spent in reading : the 
loss either of life or of office was all one to him. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

OF VIRTUE. 

I find, by experience, that there is a vast 
difference betwixt the starts and 

sallies of the soul and a resolute ^"inf^™ ca- 

and constant habit; and very parity of acting 

well perceive there is nothing we regu'iariy"^- 

may not do; nay, even to the cording to the 

surpassing the Divinity itself, principles of 

° m iy l solid virtue. 

says some one, 10 forasmuch as 
it is more to render a man's self impassable 
by his own study and energy, than to be so by 
his natural condition ; and even to be able to 
conjoin to man's imbecility and frailty a godly 
resolution and assurance ; but it is by fits and 
starts ; and in the lives of those heroes of times 
past, there are sometimes miraculous sallies, and 
that seem infinitely to exceed our natural force ; 
but they are indeed but sallies ; and 'tis hard to 
believe that in these so elevated qualities a man 
can so thoroughly imbue the soul that they 
should become constant and, as it were, natural 
in him. It accidentally happens even to us, 
who are but abortive births of men, sometimes 



e Horace, Od. ii. 18, 17. 
' Seneca, Epist. 77. 
8 JEneid, iv. 653. 
» Pseudo. Gallus, i. 104. 
i° Seneca, Epist. 73, de Provid. c. 5. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



353 



to dart out our souls, when roused by the dis- 
courses and examples of others, much beyond 
their ordinary stretch; but 'tis a kind of passion 
that pushes and pricks them on, and in some sort 
ravishes them from themselves ; for this whirl- 
wind once blown over, we see that they insen- 
sibly flag and slacken of themselves, if not to 
the lowest degree, at least so as to be no more 
the same ; insomuch as that, upon every trivial 
occasion, the losing of a hawk, or the breaking 
of a glass, we suffer ourselves to be moved little 
less than one of the common sort. I am of 
opinion that, order, moderation, and constancy 
excepted, all things are to be done by a man 
that is indifferent and defective in general. 
" Therefore it is," say the sages, " that to make 
a right judgment of a man, you are chiefly to 
observe his common actions, and surprise him 
in his every day habits." ' 

Pyrrho, he who erected so pleasant a know- 
ledge upon ignorance, endeavoured, as all the 
rest who were really philosophers did, to make 
his life correspond with his doctrine. And 
because he maintained the imbecility of human 
judgment to be so extreme as to be incapable 
of any choice or inclination, and would have 
it wavering and suspended, considering and 
receiving all things as indifferent, 'tis said that 
he always comported himself after the same 
manner and countenance: if he had begun a 
discourse, he would always end what he had to 
say, though the person he was speaking to had 
gone away; and if he walked, he never stopped 
tor any impediment that stood in his way, being 
preserved from precipices, the justle of carts, 
and other like accidents, by the care of his 
friends: 2 for to fear or to avoid any thing had 
been to jusile his own propositions, which de- 
prived the senses themselves of all certainty 
and election. Sometimes he suffered incisions 
and cauteries with so great constancy as never 
to be seen so much as to wince or shut his eyes. 
'Tis something to bring the soul to these imagi- 
nations, 'tis more to join thereto the effects ; and 
yet not impossible; but to conjoin them with 
such perseverance and constancy as to make 
them habitual is certainly, in attempts so re- 
mote from common custom, almost incredible 
to be done. Therefore it was that being one 
day taken in his house terribly scolding with 
his sister, and being reproached that he therein 
transgressed his own rules of indifference; 
" What !" said he, " must this foolish woman 
also serve for a testimony to my rules]" 
Another time, being seen defending himself 
against a dog, "It is," said he, "very hard 
totally to put off man; and we must endeavour 
and force ourselves to resist and encounter 
tilings first by effects, but at least by reason." 3 



' Diog. I.nert. ix. 63. 

" Vet Montaigne says, in I he twelfth chapter of this book, 
that they who represent Pynlio in this light extend Ilia 
doctrine heyond what it really was; anil that, like a ra- 
tional man, he made use of all his corporeal and spiritual 
lacullies as rule and reason. 

30* 



About seven or eight years since, 
a husbandman, who is Still living, Extraordinary 
but two leagues from my house, ^^i hy'a mid- 
having been long tormented with den resolution, 
his wife's jealousy, coming one 
day home from his work, and she welcoming 
him with her accustomed railing, entered into 
so great fury that, with a sickle he had yet in 
his hand, he totally cut off all those parts that 
she was jealous of, and threw them in her 
face. And 'tis said that a young gentleman of 
our nation, brisk and amorous, having by his 
perseverance at last mollified the heart of a 
fair mistress, enraged that upon the point of 
fruition he found himself unable to perform, 
and that 

Non viriliter 
Iners senile penis extulerat caput,* 
" The part he most had need of play'd him false," 

so soon as ever he came home, he deprived him- 
self of it and sent it his mistress, a cruel and 
bloody victim for the expiation of his offence. 
If this had been done upon a mature considera- 
tion, and upon the account of religion, as the 
priests of Cybele did, what should we say of 
so high an action "! 

A few days since, at Bergerac, within five 
leagues of my house, up the river Dordogne, 
a woman having over-night been beaten and 
abused by her husband, a choleric, ill-con- 
ditioned fellow, resolved to escape from his ill 
usage at the price of her life ; and going, so 
soon as she was up the next morning, to visit 
her neighbours, as she was wont to do, and 
having let some words fall as to recommending 
to them her affairs, she took a sister of hers by 
the hand and led her to the bridge; where 
being, and, as it were in jest, without any 
manner of alteration in her countenance, there 
taking leave of her, she threw herself head- 
long from the top into the river, and was 
drowned. That which is the most remarkable 
in this is that this resolution was a whole night 
maturing in her head. 

' It is quite another thing with the Indian 
women ; for it being the custom there for the 
men to have many wives, and the best beloved 
of them to kill herself at her husband's decease, 
every one of them makes it the business of her 
whole life to obtain this privilege, and gain 
this advantage over her companions; and the 
good offices they do their husbands aim at no 
other recompense but to be preferred in accom- 
panying thein in death : 

Ubi mortifero jacla est fax ultima lecto, 

Uxorum fusis stat pia turba coniis : 
Et ccrtaiiieu habent lethi.quue viva senualur 

Conjugiuin ; pudor est non licuisse niori; 
Anient viclrices, et rlainniie pectora prabent, 

linponuntuue suis ora perusta viris. 4 



s Laertius, in villi. 
* Tibul. Priap. earn). 



Propertius, iii. 13, 17. 



354 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



" When to the pile they throw the hindling hrand, 
The pious wives with hair dishevelled stand, 
Striving which living shall in death attend 
Her spouse, and gain an honourable end : 
Those tiius preferred their breasts to flames expose. 
And their scorched lips to their dead husband's close." 

A certain author of our times reports that he 
has seen in those oriental nations this custom 
in practice, that not only the wives bury them- 
selves with their husbands, but even the slaves 
he has enjoyed also, which is done after this 
manner : — The husband being dead, the widow 
may, if she will (but few do), demand two or 
three months respite, wherein to order her 
affairs. The day being come, she mounts on 
horseback, dressed as for her wedding, and 
with a cheerful countenance says she is going 
to sleep with her spouse, holding a looking- 
glass in her left hand, and an arrow in the 
other; being thus conducted in pomp, accom- 
panied with her kindred and friends, and a 
great concourse of people, rejoicing, she is at 
last brought to the public place appointed 
for such spectacles. This is a spacious square, 
in the midst of which is a pit full of wood, and 
adjoining to it a mount raised four or five steps, 
upon which she is brought and served with a 
magnificent repast; which being done, she falls 
to dancing and singing, and gives order when 
she thinks fit to kmdle the fire. This being 
performed, she descends, and taking the nearest 
of her husband's relations by the hand, they 
walk together to the river close by, where she 
strips herself stark naked, and, having dis- 
tributed her clothes and jewels to her friends, 
plunges herself into the water, as if there to 
cleanse herself from her sins; coming out 
thence, she wraps herself in yellow linen of 
eight and twenty ells long; and again giving 
her hand to this kinsman of her husband's, they 
return back to the mount, where she makes 
a speech to the people, and recommends her 
children to them, if she have any. Betwixt 
the pit and the mount there is commonly a 
curtain drawn, to screen the burning furnace 
from their sight, which some of them, to mani- 
fest their great courage, forbid. Having ended 
what she has to say, a woman presents her 
with a vessel of oil, wherewith to anoint her 
head and her whole body ; which having done 
with, she throws it into the fire, and in an in- 
stant precipitates herself after. Immediately the 
people throw a great many billets and logs 
upon her, that she may not be long in dying, 
and convert all their joy into sorrow and 
mourning. If they are persons of meaner con- 
dition, the body of the defunct is carried to the 
place of sepulture, and there placed sitting, the 
widow kneeling before him, and embracing the 
corpse closely, and thus remains, while they 
build round them a wall, which so soon as it 
is raised to the height of the woman's shoulders, 
some of her relations come behind her, and, 
taking hold of her head, writhe her neck; 



i Cluint. Curt. viii. 9; Strabo, xv. 



and so sonn as she is dead the wall is pre- 
sently raised up and closed, where they remain 
entombed. 

There was in the same country, something 
like this in their Gymnosophists; 
for not by constraint of others, The Gymnoso- 

■ .i • n ■, phists volun- 

nor by the impetuosity of a sud- tarily burnt, 
den humour, but by the express 
profession of their order, their custom was, so 
soon as they arrived at a certain age, or that 
they saw themselves threatened by any disease, 
to cause a funeral pile to be erected for them, 
and on the top a stately bed, where, after 
having joyfully feasted their friends and ac* 
quaintance, they lay them down with so great 
resolution that, fire being applied to it, they 
were never seen to stir hand or foot ; ' and 
after this manner one of them, Calanus by 
name, expired in the presence of the whole 
army of Alexander the Great. 2 And he was 
neither reputed holy nor happy amongst them 
that did not thus destroy himself; dismissing 
his soul, purged and purified by the fire, after 
having consumed all that was earthly and 
mortal. This constant premeditation of the 
whole life is that which makes the wonder. 

Amongst our other controversies, that as to the 
word fatum is also crept in ; and, to tie things 
to come, and even our own wills, to a certain and 
inevitable necessity, we are still upon this argu- 
ment of time past : " Since God foresees that 
all things shall so fall out, as doubtless he does, 
it must then necessarily follow that they must 
so fall out." To which our masters reply, 
" That the seeing any thing should come to 
pass, as we do, and as God himself also does 
(for, all things being present with him, he 
rather sees than foresees), is not to compel an 
event; that is, we see because things do fall 
out, but things do not fall out because we see ; 
events cause knowledge, but knowledge does 
not cause events. That which we see happen 
does happen ; but it might have happened 
otherwise; and God, in the catalogue of the 
causes of events, which he has in his presence, 
has also those which we call accidental and 
involuntary, which depend upon the liberty he 
has given our free-will, and knows that we 
shall do amiss, because we would do so." 

Now I have seen a great many commanders 
encourage their soldiers with this fatal necessity ; 
for, if our time be limited to a certain hour, 
neither the enemy's shot, nor our own boldness, 
nor our flight and cowardice, can either shorten 
or prolong our lives. This is easily said, but 
see who will be so persuaded ; and if it be so 
that a strong and lively faith draws along with 
it actions of the same, certainly this faith we so 
much brag of is very light in this age of ours, 
unless the contempt it has of works makes it 
disdain their company. So it is that to this 
very purpose, the Sieur de Joinville, as credible 
a witness as any other whatever, tells us of the 

2 Plutarch, Life of Mexander. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



355 



Bedouins, a nation amongst the Saracens, with 
whom the king St. Louis had to do in the Holy 
Land, that thoy in their religion did so firmly 
helieve the number of every man's days to be 
from all eternity prefixed and set down by an 
inevitable decree, that they went naked to the 
wars, excepting a Turkish sword, and their 
bodies only covered with a white linen cloth : 
and, for the greatest curse they could utter 
when they were angry, this was always in their 
mouth: "Accursed be thou, as he that arms 
himself for fear of death." ' This is a testimony 
of faith very much beyond ours. And of this 
sort is that, also, that two monks of Florence 
gave in our fathers' days. 2 Being engaged in 
some controversy of learning, they agreed to 
go both of them into the fire, in the public 
square, to prove the faith of each in his argu- 
ments ; and all things were prepared, and the 
thing just upon the point of execution, when it 
was interrupted by an unexpected accident. 

A young Turkish lord, having performed a 
notable exploit in his own person in the sight 
of both armies, that of Amu rath and that of 
Huniades, ready to join battle, being asked by 
Amurath, who, in so tender and inexperienced 
years (for it was his first sally in arms), had 
inspired him with so brave a courage, replied 
that his chief tutor for valour was a hare ; " For 
being," said he, "one day a hunting I found a 
hare sitting, and though I had a brace of excel- 
lent greyhounds with me, yet methought it 
would be best for sureness to make use of my 
bow ; for she sat very fair. I then fell to let- 
ting fly my arrows, and shot forty that I had 
in my quiver, not only without hurting, but 
without starting her from her form. At last I 
slipped my dogs after her, but to no more pur- 
pose than I had shot. By which I understood 
that she had been secured by her destiny ; and 
that neither darts nor swords can wound with- 
out the permission of fiite, which we can neither 
hasten nor defer." This story may serve to let 
us see, by the way, how flexible our reason is 
to all sorts of images. A person of great years, 
name, dignity, and learning, boasted to me to 
have been induced to a certain very important 
mutation in his faith, by a strange, whimsical 
incitement, and otherwise so very inconclusive, 
that I thought it much stronger the contrary 
way: he called it a miracle, and 1 too, but in 
another sense. The Turkish historians say that 
the persuasion those of their nation have im- 
printed in them of the fatal and 
The common unalterable prescription of their 

Ion ii,I:i | ioi] of , , r -,. ', , 

thenoursigeof oavs uoes manifestly conduce to 

(he Turks. the giving them great assurance 

in dangers. And I know a great 

prince who makes a very fortunate use of it : 



whether it be that he does really believe it, or 
that he makes it his excuse for so wonderfully 
hazarding himself: may fortune be not too soon 
weary of her favour to him. 

There has not happened in our memory a 
more admirable effect of resolution than in those 
two who conspired the death of the Prince 
of Orange. 3 'Tis to be wondered at how the 
second that executed it, could ever be persuaded 
into an attempt wherein his companion, who 
had done his utmost, had had so ill success; 
and after the same method, and with the same 
arms, to go attack a prince, armed with so recent 
cause of distrust, powerful in followers and 
bodily strength, in his own hall, amidst his 
guards, and in a city wholly at his devotion. 
He assuredly employed a very resolute arm and 
courage, enflamed with furious passion. A 
poniard is sure for striking home: but, by rea- 
son that more motion and force of hand is 
required than with a pistol, the blow is more 
j subject to be put by and hindered. That this 
I man went to a certain death I make no doubt; 
for the hopes any one could flatter him withal 
j could not find place in any sober understand- 
ing; and the conduct of his exploit suffi- 
ciently manifests that he had no want of that, 
any more than of courage. The motives of so 
powerful a persuasion may be diverse, for our 
fancy does what it will both with itself and us. 
The execution that was done near Orleans was 
nothing like this; 4 there was in that more of 
chance than vigour; the wound was not mortal 
if fortune had not made it so; and the attempt 
to shoot on horseback, and at a distance, and at 
one whose body was in motion by the moving 
of his horse, was the attempt of a man who had 
rather miss his blow than fail of saving himself; 
as was apparent by what followed after ; for he 
was so astonished and stupified with the thought 
of so high an execution, that he totally lost his 
judgment, both to find his way and govern his 
tongue. What needed he to have done more 
than to fly back to his friends and cross the 
river 1 'Tis what I have done in less dangers, 
and I think of very little hazard, how broad 
soever the river may be, provided your horse 
have good going in, and that you see on the 
other side good landing according to the stream. 
The other, 6 when they pronounced his dreadful 
sentence: "I was prepared for it," said he; 
" and I will make you wonder at my patience." 

The Assassins, a nation bordering upon Pho3- 
nicia, are reputed, amongst the . 

«t i i ? .A people w ho 

Mahometans, a people of great i„. M y u . a,.,,..,. 
devotion and purity of manners, nation the 
They hold that the nearest way | u ™} iB £ a,h ,0 
to gain Paradise is to kill some 
one of a contrary religion ; which is the reason 



1 Mem. de Joinville, c. 30. 

a On the 7th April, 1409. See the history of the famous 
Jerome Savonamlu. in the Mem. of Comities, viii. r. I!!; 
(.'iiHTiardini, lii. ; Hayle, at the word Sm-onarola ; Sismondi, 
l<epul,/i,,,i,.< ll.i/ieunrs, c. <)8, vol. *ii. 

■' The founder of the Republic- of Holland. On the 18th 
March, ljffi, he was wounded with a pistul-fihot by a Ilia- 



cavan, named Tean de .Tauroiruy. I'eniverin" from Ihis. he 
was killed on the 10th July, 158-1 l>y a pistol-shot, in his 
house at Delft, by Balthazar Gerard, a native of Franchc- 
Compte. 

* The assassination of the Duke of Guise, by Poltrot. 

a Gerard. 



356 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



they have often been seen, being but one or 
two, without arms, to make an attempt against 
powerful enemies at the price of a certain death, 
and without any consideration of their own 
danger. So was our Count Raimond of Tripoli 
assassinated (which word is derived from their 
name, in the heart of his city, during our 
enterprises of the holy war. 1 And likewise 
Conrad, marquis of Montserrat, 2 the murderers 
at their execution carrying themselves with 
great pride and glory that they had performed 
so brave an exploit. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Or A MONSTROUS CHILD. 

This story shall go by itself; for I will leave 
physicians to discourse of it. Two days ago 
I saw a child which two men and a nurse, who 
called themselves the father, the uncle, and 
the aunt of it, carried about to get money by 
showing it, by reason it was so strange a crea- 
ture. It was, as to all the rest, of a common 
form, and could stand upon its feet; could go 
and gabble much like other children of its age ; 
it had never as yet taken any other nourishment 
but from the nurse's breasts, and what, in my 
presence, they tried to put into its mouth, it 
only chewed a little and spit out again without 
swallowing; its cry, indeed, seemed a little odd 
and particular; it was just fourteen months old. 
Under the breast it was joined to another child, 
but without a head, and that had the spine of 
the back without motion, the rest entire; for 
though it had one arm shorter than the other, 
this was broken by accident at their birth ; they 
were joined breast to breast, as if a lesser child 
would reach its arms about the neck of one 
something bigger. The juncture and thickness 
of the place where they were conjoined was not 
above four fingers, or thereabouts, so that if you 
thrust up the imperfect child you might see the 
navel of the other below it ; so the joining was 
betwixt the paps and the navel. The navel of 
the imperfect child could not be seen, but all 
the rest of the belly could ; so that all the rest 
that was not joined of the imperfect one, as 
arms, buttocks, thighs, and legs, hung dangling 
upon the other child, and might reach to the 
mid-leg. The nurse moreover told us that it 
urined at both bodies; and also the members 
of the other were nourished, sensible, and in 
the same plight with that she gave suck to; 
excepting that they were shorter and less. 
This double body, and several limbs belonging 
to one head, might be interpreted a favourable 
prognostic to the king, 3 of maintaining the 
various parts of our state under the union of his 



i In 1151, at Tripoli. 

a At Tyre, 24th April, 1192. 

s Henry III. 

« Cicero, de Divin. ii. 22. 



laws; but lest the event should prove otherwise, 
'tis better to let it alone; for, except in things 
past, there is no divination; Ut, quum facta 
sunt, turn ad conjecturam aliqua interpreta- 
tions revocentur,* " so as, when they are come 
to pass, they should then by some interpre- 
tation be recalled to conjecture," as 'tis said 
of Epimenides, that he always prophesied of 
things past. 5 

I have lately seen a herdsman in Medoc, of 
about thirty years of age, who has no sign of 
any genital parts : he has three holes, by which 
he voids his water ; he is bearded, has desire, 
and covets the society of women. 

Those that we call monsters are not so to 
God, who sees in the immensity 
of his work the infinite forms that Whether there 
he has comprehended therein; pJo P "riyso rs 
and it is to be believed that this called, 
figure which astonishes us has 
relation to some other of the same kind un- 
known to man. From his omniscience nothing 
but the good, the usual, and the regular pro- 
ceeds; but we do not discern the disposition 
J and relation : Quod crebro videt non miratur, 
eliamsi, cur fiat, nescit. Quod ante non vidit, 
id, si evenerit, ostentum esse censet. 6 "What 
he often sees he does not admire, though he be 
ignorant how it comes to pass. But when a 
thing happens he never saw before, that he 
looks upon as a portent." What falls out con- 
trary to custom we say is contrary to nature ; 
but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. 
Let therefore this universal and natural reason 
expel the error and astonishment that novelty 
brings along with it. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

OF ANGER. 

Plutarch is admirable throughout, but espe- 
cially where he judges of human actions. The 
fine things he says in the parallel of Lycurgus 
and Numa, upon the subject of our great folly 
in abandoning children to the care and govern- 
ment of their fathers, are very easily discerned. 
The most of our civil governments, as Aristotle 
says, 7 leave, after the manner of the Cyclops, 
to every one the ordering of their wives and 
children according to their own foolish and 
indiscreet fancy; and the Lacedaemonian and 
Cretensian are almost the only governments 
that have committed the education of child- 
ren to the laws: who does not see that in a 
state all depends upon their nurture aad bring- 
ing up 1 And yet they are left to the mercy 
of parents, let them be as foolish and wicked 
as they will, without any check. 



6 Aristotle, Rhetoric. 
• Cicero, ut supra. 
i Ethics, X. 9. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Amongst other things, how often have I, as 
I have passed along the streets, 

"onoVparontl; had a S ood mind to get Up a 

who punish ' farce, to revenge the poor boys 
their children whom I have seen flayed, knocked 
in the in;tilness j , • , , J . . , 

of passion. down, and miserably beaten, by 

some father or mother mad with 
rage ! You shall see them come out with fire 
and fury sparkling in their eyes, 

Rabie jecur incendente, feruntur 
Praecipes ; ut saxn jtiL'is nhrupta, quihus mons 
Subtrahitur, clivoque latus pendente recedit. 1 

" As when impetuous winds and driving rain 
Have mined a rock that overhung the plain, 
The massy ruin falls with thundering force, 
And bears down all that interrupts its course." 

(and, according to Hippocrates, the most dan- 
gerous maladies are those that disfigure the 
countenance), with a roaring and terrible voice, 
very often against those that are but just come 
from nurse. And there they are lamed and 
spoiled with blows, whilst our justice takes no 
cognizance of it, as if these maims and disloca- 
tions were not executed upon members of our 
commonwealth : 

Gratum est, quod patriae civem populoque dedisti, 
Si facis ut patriaj sit idoneus, utilis agris, 
Utilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis.a 

" True, you have given a citizen to Rome. 
And she shall thank you if the youth become, 
By your o'er-ruling care, or soon or late, 
An useful member of the parent state: 
Fit to assist the earth in her increase, 
And proper for affairs of war and peace." 

There is no passion that so much transports 
men from their right judgments as anger. No 
one would demur at punishing a judge with 



death who should condemn 



criminal upon 



the account of his own choler ; why any more 
then should parents and pedants be allowed to 
whip and chastise children in their anger? 
'Tis then no longer correction, but revenge. 
Chastisement is instead of physic to children ; 
and should we endure a physician who should 
be animated against and enraged at his patient? 
We ourselves, to do well, should never lay 

The faults of a hand "P?" ° UF "™>£ wlli , lst 

the person our anger lasts; whilst the pulse 

whom we pu- beats quick, and that we feel an 

seemw't^dif- emotion . '" ourselves, let us defer 

ferentfi-om the business; things will appear 

what they are otherwise to us when we are 

in rea 1 y. ca j m ^ ^ ,^,. g ^ en ^^ 

sion that commands, 'tis then passion that 
speaks, and not we; faults seen through pas- 
sion are magnified, and appear much greater 
to us than they really are, as bodies do being 
seen through a mist. 1 He who is hungry uses 
meat ; but he that will make use of correction 
should have no appetite, either of hunger or 
thirst, to it. And, moreover, chastisements 



i Juvenal, vi. 647. 

a Id. xiv. 70. 

5 Ovid, de Arte Am. iii. 503. 



that are inflicted with deliberation and discre- 
tion are much better received, and with greater 
benefit, by him who suffers ; otherwise he will 
not think himself justly condemned by a man 
transported with anger and fury ; and will 
allege his master's excessive passion, his in- 
flamed countenance, his unwonted oaths, his 
emotion and precipitous rashness, for his own 
justification : 

Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine vense, 

Lumina Gorgoneo stevius igne micant. 

" Rage swells the lips, with black blood fill the veins, 
And in their eyes fire worse than Gorgon's reigns." 

Suetonius reports, 4 that Caius Rabirius having 
been condemned by Cresar, the thing that 
most prevailed upon the people, to whom he 
had appealed, to determine the cause in his 
favour, was the animosity and vehemency that 
Caesar had manifested in that sentence. 

Saying is one thing, doing another ; we are 
to consider the sermon and the 
preacher distinctly. Those men A digression 
took a pretty business in hand on P ,utar ch's 

i • . ■ , , good nature 

who in our times have attempted and equity, 
to shake the truth of our church 
by the vices of her ministers; she draws her 
proofs elsewhere : 'tis a foolish way of arguing, 
and that would throw all things into confusion ; 
a man whose manners are good may have 
false opinions, and a wicked man may preach 
truth, nay, though he believe it not himself. 
'Tis doubtless a fine harmony when doing and 
saying go together ; and I will not deny but 
that saying, when action follows, is of greater 
authority and efficacy ; as Eudamidas said, 
hearing a philosopher talk of military affairs: 
"These things are finely said, but he that 
speaks them is not to be believed, for his ears 
have never been used to the sound of the 
trumpet." 5 And Cleomenes, hearing an orator 
declaiming upon valour, burst out into laughter ; 
at which the other, being angry, "I should," 
said he to him, " do the same if it were a swal- 
low that spoke of this subject; but if it were 
an eagle I should willingly hear him." 6 I 
perceive, methinks, in the writings of the an- 
cients that he who speaks what he thinks 
strikes much more home than he that only dis- 
sembles. Hear but Cicero speak of the love 
of liberty; hear Brutus speak of it; his very 
writings sound that this man would purchase 
it at the price of his life. Let Cicero, the 
father of eloquence, treat of the 
contempt of death, and let Se- Parallel of 
i ' , ., n . , Cicero and 

neca do the same : the first Ian- Seneca, 

guishingly drawls it out, so that 
you perceive he would make you resolve upon 
a thing on which he is not resolved himself; 
he inspires you not with courage, for he him- 
self has none ; the other animates and inflames 



' Life of Camar. 

' Plutarch, Apoth. of the Lacedtcm. 

' Id. ib. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESS-AYS. 



you. In the same way, I never read an 
author, of those who treat of virtue and of great 
actions, that I do not closely examine what 
kind of man he was himself; for the Ephori 
at Sparta seeing a dissolute fellow propose a 
wholesome advice to the people commanded 
him to hold his peace, and intreated a virtuous 
man to attribute to himself the invention, and 
to propose it. 1 

Plutarch's writings, if well understood, suf- 
ficiently speak their author ; and so that I think 
I know him even into his soul, and yet I could 
wish that we had some account of his life. 
And I am thus far wandered from my subject, 
upon the account of the obligation I have to 
Aulus Gellius for having left us in writing this 
story of his manners, that has a bearing on my 
subject of anger: — A slave of his, a vicious, 
ill-conditioned fellow, but that 
pvoached for na ^ the precepts of philosophy 
anger by a often ringing in his ears, having 

slave of his. fm gome offence of hig been 

stripped by Plutarch's command, whilst he was 
whipping muttered at first that it was without 
cause, and that he had done nothing to deserve 
it; but at last falling in good earnest to ex- 
claim against, and to rail at, his master, he 
reproached him that he was no philosopher, as 
he had boasted himself to be ; that he had 
often heard him say it was indecent to be 
angry, nay, had writ a book to that purpose ; 
and that causing him to be so cruelly beaten 
in the height of his rage totally gave the lie to 
all his writings. To which Plutarch calmly 
and coldly answered, " How, knave !" said 
he, "by what dost thou judge that I am now 
angry? Does either my face, my colour, or 
my voice, give any manifestation of my being 
moved ? I do not think my eyes look fierce, 
that my countenance appears troubled, or that 
my voice is dreadful. Am I red ? do I foam ? 
does any word escape my lips I ought to repent ? 
Do I start? do I tremble with fury? For 
those, I tell thee, are the true signs of anger." 
And so turning to the fellow that was whipping 
him, "Ply on thy work," said -he, "whilst 
this gentleman and 1 dispute." This is the 
story. 2 

Archytus Tarentinus, returning from a war 
wherein he had been captain-general, found all 
things in his house in very great disorder, and 
his lands quite out of tillage, through the ill 

husbandry of his steward; whom 
That correc- having caused to be called to 
ought' to^be n ' m > "Go," said he ; " if I were 
given in anger, not in anger I would soundly 

drub your sides." 3 Plato like- 
wise, being highly offended with one of his 
slaves, gave Speusippus orders to chastise him, 
excusing himself from doing it because he was 
in anger. 4 And Charillis, a Lacedaemonian, 



' Aulus Gellius, xviii. 3. 
2 Id. i. 20. 

a Cicero, Tusc. Quas. iv. ; 
* Seneca, tie Ira, iii. 12. 



to a Helot, who carried himself insolently and 
audaciously towards him ; " By the gods !" 
said he, " if I were not angry I would imme- 
diately put thee to death." 6 

'Tis a passion that is pleased with and flatters 
itself. How often, being moved under a false 
cause, if the person offending makes a good 
defence, and presents us with a just excuse, 
are we vexed at truth and innocence itself? 
In proof of which, I remember a marvellous 
example of antiquity: Piso, otherwise a man 
of very eminent virtue, being moved against a 
soldier of his, for that returning alone from 
forage he could give him no account where he 
had left his companion, took it for granted that 
he had killed him, and presently condemned 
him to death. He was no sooner mounted 
upon the gibbet but behold his wandering com- 
panion arrives; at which all the army were 
exceedingly glad, and after many embraces of 
the two comrades, the hangman carried both 
the one and the other into Piso's presence, all 
the assistants believing it would be a great 
pleasure even to him himself; but it proved 
quite contrary ; for, through shame and spite, 
his fury, which was not yet cool, redoubled; 
and, by a subtlety which his passion suddenly 
suggested to him, he made three criminal for 
having found one innocent, and caused them 
all to be dispatched. The first soldier, because 
sentence had passed upon him; the second, 
who had lost his way, because he was the cause 
of his companion's death; and the hangman, 
for not having obeyed the order given him. 

Such as have had to do with testy women 
may have experienced into what 
a rage it puts them to oppose wome^ro- 
silence and coldness to their fury, voked by your 
and for a man to disdain to nourish t h e t n J nswen " s 
their anger. The orator Celius 
was wonderfully choleric by nature; and to 
one who supped in his company, a man of 
gentle and sweet conversation, and who, that 
he might not move him, approved and con- 
sented to all he said; he, impatient that his 
ill humour should thus spend itself without 
aliment : " For the love of the gods ! contradict 
me in something," said he, " that we may be 
two." 6 Women, in like manner, are only 
angry that others may be angry again, in 
imitation of the law of love. Phocion, to one 
that interrupted his speaking by injurious and 
very opprobrious words made no other return 
than silence, and to give him full liberty and 
leisure to vent his spleen ; which he having 
accordingly done, and the storm blown over, 
without any mention of this disturbance he 
proceeded in his discourse where he had left 
oft" before. 7 No answer can nettle a man like 
such contempt. 

Of the most choleric man in France (anger 



i Plutarch, Jlpotheg. 
1 Seneca, de Ira, iii. 18. 
Plutarch, Inst, to those who manage State Jlffa, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



is always an imperfection, but more excusable 
in a soldier, for in that trade it cannot some- 
times be avoided), I often say that he is the 
most patient man that I know, and the most 
discreet in bridling his passions; which agitate 
him with so great violence and fury, 

jm flamma sonore 
undantis abeni, 
Kxiillanlipie a-stn latices, liirit intus aquai, 
Fumidus, atquc alto spumis exuberat ainnis; 
Nee jam so capit unua ; volat vapor ater ad auras;' 



"So when unto til 
A crackling flam 
The bubbling liij 
To swell ami foa 
Above the brims they 
Black 



their fiery way, 

:limb aloft, ami cloud the day ;" 



that he must of necessity cruelly constrain him- 
self to moderate it. And, for my part, I know 
no passion which I could with so much violence 
to myself attempt to cover and conceal ; I 
would not set wisdom at so high a price; and 
do not so much consider what he does, as how 
much it costs him to do no worse. 

Another boasted himself to me of the regu- 
larity and sweetness of his manners, which is 
in truth singular; to whom I replied, "That 
it was indeed something, especially in persons 
of so eminent quality as himself, upon whom 
every one had their eyes, to present himself 
always well-tempered to the world ; but that 
the principal thing was to make provision for 
within and for himself; and that it was not 
well, in my opinion, to order his business so as 
inwardly to grate himself, which I was afraid 
he did in putting on and outwardly maintaining 
this mask and appearance of calm." 

A man incorporates anger by concealing it, 
as Diogenes said to Demosthenes, who, for fear 
of being seen in a tavern, withdrew himself 
into it; "The more you retire the farther you 
enter in." 2 I would rather advise that a man 
should give his servant a box of the ear a little 
unseasonably than wreck his fancy to represent 
this grave and composed countenance; and 
had rather discover my passions than hide them 
at my own expense : they grow less in venting 
and manifesting themselves; and 'tis much 
better their point should act without than be 
turned against ourselves within: Omnia vilia 
in wpcrlo leviora sunt ; et tunc perniciosissima 
quum, simulala sanitate, subsidunl} " All 
vices are less dangerous when open to be seen, 
and then most pernicious when they lurk under 
a dissembled good temper." 

I admonish all those in my family who 

_ , have authority to be angry, in 

Hubs to be ob- .. a . i . ii • 

served in the tne nrst P^cv to manage their 
discovery of anger, and not to lavish it upon 
donil'sncs!'" 8 ' everv occasion, for that lessens 
the ellect: rash and constant 
scolding runs into custom, and renders itself 

i JEneid, vii. 402. 



despised ; what you lay on a servant for a theft 
is not felt, because it is the same he has seen 
you a hundred times employ against him for 
having ill washed a glass, or set a stool out of 
place: secondly, that they are not angry to 
no purpose, but make sure that their reprehen- 
sions reach him with whom they are offended ; 
for ordinarily they rail and bawl before he 
comes into their presence, and continue scolding 
an age after he is gone ; 

Et secum petulans amentia certat:* 
" And petulant madness with itself contends :" 

they attack his shadow, and push the storm in 
a place where no one is either chastised or in- 
terested, but in the clamour of their voice. I 
likewise in quarrels condemn those who huff 
and vapour without an enemy ; these rhodo- 
montades should be reserved to discharge upon 
the offending party : 

Mugitus veluti cum prima in praelia taurus 
Terrificos ciet, atnue irasci in cornua tentat, 
Arhoris obuixns trunco, ventosnue lacessit 
lctibus, et sparsa ad pugnani proludit arena.* 

"So doth the bull, in his lov'd female's sixht, 
Proudly he bellows, and preludes the fight: 
He tries his mighty horns against a tree. 
And meditates Ins absent enemy: 
He pushes at the winds ; be digs the strand 
With his black hoot's, and spurns the yellow sand." 

When T am angry, my anger is very sharp, but 
withal very short, and as private 
as I can ; I lose myself, indeed, in Tne author's 
promptness and violence, but not an'd'iitt'ie Seta' 
in trouble, so that I throw out all sions. 
sorts of injurious words at random, 
and without choice, and never consider perti- 
nently to dart my language where I think it 
will deepest wound; for I commonly make use 
of no other weapon in my anger than my tongue. 
My servants have a better bargain of me in 
great occasions than in little: the little ones 
surprise me; and the mischief on't is that, when 
you are once over the precipice, 'tis no matter 
who gave you the push, for you always go to 
the bottom ; the fall urges, moves, and makes 
haste of itself. In great occasions this satisfies 
me, that they are so just, every one expects a 
reasonable indignation ; and then I glorify my- 
self in deceiving their expectation: against 
these I fortify and prepare myself; they disturb 
my head, and threaten to transport me very far, 
should I follow them ; I can easily contain my- 
self from entering into one of these passions, 
and am strong enough, when I expect them, to 
repel their violence, be the cause never so great ; 
but if a passion once prepossess and seize me, it 
carries me away, be it for never so small a mat- 
ter: I bargain thus with those who may have 
to contend with me : " When you see me fir»t 
moved, let mo alone, right or wrong: I'll do 



« Claudian, in Eutrop. i. 237. 
6 JEneid, xii. 103. 



:ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the same for you." The storm is only begot 
by concurrence of angers, which easily spring 
from one another, and are not born together: 
let every one have his own way, and we shall 
be always at peace. A profitable advice, but 
hard to execute. Sometimes, also, it falls out 
that I put on a seeming anger, for the better 
governing of my house, without any real emo- 
tion. As age renders my humours more sharp, 
I study to oppose them ; and will, if I can, order 
it so that, for the future, I may be so much the 
less peevish and hard to please, as I have more 
excuse and inclination to be so, although I have 
heretofore been reckoned amongst those that 
have the greatest patience. 

A word to conclude this chapter. Aristotle 
says 1 "that anger sometimes serves for arms to 
virtue and valour." "Pis likely 
Whether wrath it- may be so : nevertheless, they 
amCET virtue who contradict him 2 pleasantly 
and valour. answer that 'tis a weapon of novel 
use ; for we move all other arms, 
this moves us ; our hands guide it not, 'tis it that 
guides our hands ; it holds us, we hold not it. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH. 

The familiarity I have had with these two 
authors, and the assistance they have lent to 
i my age and to my book, wholly built up of 
what I have taken from them, oblige me to 
stand up for their honour. 

As to Seneca, amongst a million of little 
pamphlets that those of the so called reformed 
religion disperse abroad for the defence of their 
cause, and which sometimes proceed from so 
good a hand that 'tis pity his pen is not em- 
ployed in a better subject, I have formerly seen 
one that, to complete the parallel he would fain 
make out betwixt the government of our late 
poor King Charles the Ninth and that of Nero, 
compares the late Cardinal of Lorraine with 
Seneca; their fortunes, in having both of them 
been prime ministers in the government of their 
princes, and their manners, conditions, and 
deportments, having been very near alike. 
Wherein, in my opinion, he does the said lord- 
cardinal a very great honour ; for though I am 
one of those who have a very great esteem for 
his wit, eloquence, and zeal to religion and the 
service of his king, and think it was a happiness 
for the age wherein so new, so rare, and so 
necessary a person to the public lived, to have 
an ecclesiastical person, of so high birth and dig- 
nity, and so sufficient and capable of his place; 



i Ethics, 111. 8. 

2 Seneca, do iru, i. 16. 

a Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 11; xiv. 53; xv. 60. Even in 
Tacitus, however, there are terrilile imputations against 
Seneca. Jtnnal. xiv. 7, 11.. See also the controversy re- 
specting Seneca between La Harpe and Diderot. 



yet, to confess the truth, I do not think his 
capacity by many degrees near to the other, nor 
his virtue either so pure, entire, or steady, as 
that of Seneca. 

Now the book whereof I speak, to bring 
about its design, gives a very injurious descrip- 
tion of Seneca, having borrowed his reproaches 
from Dion the historian, whose testimony I do 
not at all believe : for besides that he is incon- 
sistent, after having called Seneca one while 
very wise, and, again, a mortal enemy to Nero'3 
vices, in making him elsewhere avaricious, an 
usurer, ambitious, effeminate, voluptuous, and a 
pretender to philosophy under false colours; his 
virtue manifests itself so lively and vigorous in 
his writings, and his vindication is so clear from 
any of these imputations of riches and excessive 
expenditure, that I cannot believe any testimony 
to the contrary ; and, besides, it is much more 
reasonable to believe the Roman historians in 
such things, than Greeks and strangers ; now, 
Tacitus and the rest speak very honourably both 
of his life and death, 3 and represent him to us a 
very excellent and virtuous person in all things ; 
and I will allege no other reproach against 
Dion's report but this, which I cannot avoid, 
namely, that he has so sickly a judgment in the 
Roman affairs that he dares to maintain Julius 
Caesar's cause against Pompey, and that of 
Antony against Cicero. 

Let us come to Plutarch. John Bodin 4 is a 
good author of our time, and a writer of much 
greater judgment than the rout of scribblers of 
his age, and deserves to be carefully read and 
considered : I find him, though, a little bold in 
that passage of his method of history where he 
accuses Plutarch not only of ignorance (wherein 
I would let him alone, for that is not in my 
line), but that he often writes things incredible 
and absolutely fabulous: these are his own 
words. If he had simply said things otherwise 
than they are, it had been no great reproach ; 
for what we have not seen we are forced 
to receive from other hands, and take upon 
trust; and we know that he, on purpose, some- 
times variously relates the same story: as in 
the judgment of the three best captains that 
ever were, given by Hannibal; 'tis one way 
in the life of Flaminius, and another way 
in that of Pyrrhus. But to charge him with 
having taken incredible and impossible things 
for current pay, is to accuse the most judicious 
author in the world of want of judgment. And 
this is his example : " As," says he, " when 
he relates that a Lacedaemonian boy suffered 
his bowels to be torn out by a fox-cub he had 
stolen, and kept it still concealed under his 
robe till he fell down dead, rather than he would 
his theft." 6 I hold, in the first place, 



4 A celebrated jurisconsult of Angers, highly commended 
by D'Aguesseau. His Mcthodus ad facilem historiarum 
cognitionem, referred to by Montaigne, was published at 
Paris in 1566. 

6 Life of Lycurgus. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY* 



this example to be ill chosen, forasmuch as it 
is very hard to limit the power of the faculties 
of the soul, where we have greater power to 
limit and know the bodily force ; and, therefore, 
if I had been he, T should rather have chosen 
an example of this second sort; of which there 
are that are less credible : as, amongst others, 
that which he relates of Pyrrhus, "that, all 
wounded as he was, he struck one of his ene- 
mies, who was armed from head to foot, so 
great a blow with his sword that he clave him 
down from his crown to his seat, so that the 
body was divided into two parts." In his ex- 
ample, I find no great miracle, nor do I admit 
of the salvo with which he excuses Plutarch, 
to have added this word, as 'tis said, to suspend 
our belief; for unless it be in things received by 
authority, and the reverence to antiquity or 
religion, he would never have himself admitted, 
or enjoined us things incredible in themselves 
to believe; and that this word, as 'tis said, is 
not put into this place to that effect, is easy to 
be seen, because he elsewhere relates to us 

upon this subject, of the patience 
The patience of f t j ie Lacedaemonian children, 
nian children, examples happening in his time, 

more unlikely to prevail upon our 
faith : as what Cicero 1 has testified before 
him, as having, as he says, been at the place 
that, even in his time, there were children 
found, who, in the trial of patience they were 
put to before the altar of Diana, suffered them- 
selves to be there whipped till the blood ran 
down all over their bodies, not only without 
crying out, but without so much as a groan, 
and some till they there voluntarily lost their 
lives: and that which Plutarch, also, amongst 
a hundred other witnesses, relates that, at a 
sacrifice, a burning coal being fallen into the 
6leeve of a Lacedsemonian boy, as he was 
censing, he suffered his whole arm to be burnt, 
till the smell of the broiling flesh was perceived 
by the assistants. 2 There was nothing, accord- 
ing to their custom, wherein their reputation 
was more concerned, nor for which they were to 
undergo more blame and disgrace, than in being 
taken in theft. I am so fully satisfied of the 
greatness of that people's courage that his 
story does not only not appear to me, as to 
Bodin, incredible; but I do not find it so 
much as rare and strange. History is full of a 
thousand more cruel and rare examples ; it is, 
indeed, for such things, a miracle altogether. 
Marcellinus, 3 concerning theft, reports, that 

in his time there was no sort of 
Thievery much torments which could compel the 

practised by the _ . '. , 

fcfypiiaus. Egyptians, when taken in the 

fact, though a people very much 
. addicted to it, so much as to tell their name. 
A Spanish peasant, being put to the rack 



about the accomplices of the 
murder of the Praetor Lucius Piso, JgEft" 
cried out in the height of the peasant; 
torment, " That his friends should 
not leave him, but look on in all assurance, 
and that no pain had power to force from him 
one word of confession:" which was all they 
could get the first day. The next day, as they 
were leading him a second time to another 
trial, strongly disengaging himself from the 
hands of his guards, he furiously ran his head 
against a wall, and beat out his brains ! 4 
^Epicharis, having tired and glutted the 
cruelty of Nero's satellites, and undergone their 
fire, their beating, and their engines, a whole 
day together, without one syllable of confes- 
sion of her conspiracy, being the next day 
brought again to the rack, with her limbs 
almost torn to pieces, conveying the lace of 
her robe with a running noose over one of the 
arms of her chair, and suddenly slipping her 
head into it, with the weight of her own body 
hanged herself. 5 Having" the courage to die 
after that manner, it is to be presumed that 
she purposely lent her life to the trial of her 
fortitude the day before, to mock the tyrant, 
and encourage others to the like attempt 
against him. 

And whoever will enquire of our soldiers of 
the experiences they have had in our civil wars 
will find effects of patience and endurance in 
tin's miserable age of ours, and amongst the 
soft and more than Egyptianly effeminate rab- 
ble, worthy to be compared with those we 
have now related of the Spartan virtue. 

I know there have been simple peasants 
amono-st us who have endured 
the soles of their feet to be broiled ™£ s f n £ rtaM 
upon a gridiron, their finders- during the 
ends to be writhed off with the ^ ™£ 
cock of a pistol, and their bleed- t j me . 
ing eyes squeezed out of their 
heads by the force of a cord twisted about their 
brows, before they would so much as consent 
to ransom. I have seen one left stark-naked 
for dead in a ditch, his neck black and swollen, 
with a halter yet about it, with which they 
had dragged him all night at a horse's tail, 
his body wounded in a hundred places with 
stabs of daggers which had been given him, 
not to kill him, but to put him to pain and 
to affright him, who had endured all this, 
and even to being rendered speechless and in- 
sensible, resolved, as he himself told me, rather 
to die a thousand deaths (as, indeed, as to 
matter of suffering, he already had done) before 
he would pay a penny; and yet he was one 
of the richest husbandmen of all the country 
round. How many have been seen patiently 
to suffer themselves to be burnt and roasted for 



TVsc. Quas. 



14. 



» Val. Max. iii. at. 1, attributes this effort of endurance 
to a Macedonian boy, assisting at a sacrifice offered by 
Alexander. 

31 



i Tacitus, Annals, iv. 45. 



362 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



opinions taken upon trust from others, and by 
. them not at all understood] I 
nate . " have known a hundred and a 

hundred women, for Gascony has 
a certain prerogative for obstinacy, whom you 
might sooner have made eat fire than forsake 
an opinion they had conceived in anger; they 
are more exasperated by blows and constraint; 
and he that made the story of the woman who 
in defiance of all corrections, threats, and bas- 
tinadoes, ceased not to call her husband lousy 
knave, and that being plunged over head and 
ears in water yet lifted her hands above her 
head and made a sign of cracking lice, feigned 
a tale of which, in truth, we every day see a 
manifest image in the obstinacy of women. 
And obstinacy is the sister of constancy,, at 
least in vigour and stability. 

We are not to judge what is possible, and 
what is not, according to what is credible and 
incredible to our apprehension, as I have said 
elsewhere: and it is a great fault, and yet a 
fault that most men are guilty of (which, 
nevertheless, I do not mention with any reflec- 
tion upon Bodin), to make a difficulty of 
believing that in another which they could not, 
or would not, do themselves. Every one thinks 
that the sovereign stamp of human nature is 
imprinted in him, and that from it all others 
must take their rule ; and that all proceedings 
which are not like his are feigned and false. 
What bestial stupidity ! Is anything of another's 
actions or faculties proposed to him 1 The first 
thing he calls to the consultation of his judg- 
ment is his own example ; and as matters go 
with him so they must, of necessity, do with 
all the world besides. O dangerous and in- 
tolerable folly ! For my part, I consider some 
men infinitely beyond me, especially amongst 
the ancients ; and, though I clearly discern my 
inability to come near them by a thousand 
paces, I do not forbear to keep them in sight, 
and to judge of what elevates them so, of which 
I also perceive some seeds in myself; as I also 
do of the extreme meanness of some other 
minds, which I neither am astonished at nor 
yet disbelieve. I very well perceive the turns 
the former take to raise themselves to such a 
pitch, and admire their grandeur; and those 
flights that I think the bravest I seek to 
imitate; and, though I want wing, yet my 
judgment goes eagerly with them. 

The other example he introduces, " of things 
incredible and wholly fabulous," delivered by 
Plutarch, is " That Agesilaus was fined by the 
Ephori tor having wholly engrossed the hearts 
and affections of the citizens to himself alone." 
I do not see what sign of falsity is to be found 
here ; Plutarch speaks of things that must 
needs be better known to him than to us; and 
it was no new thing in Greece to see men 
punished and exiled for this very thing of 



being too acceptable to the people ; witness the 
ostracism and pctalism. 1 

There is yet in this place another accusation 
laid against Plutarch, which- 1 
am especially affronted at ; where SSta'to" 
Bodin says that he has faithfully parallel of the 
paralleled the Romans and the Greeks and Ro- 

{-, , . ., , , . mans, was un- 

ureeks amongst themselves; but just in the 
not the Romans with the Greeks ; preferences he 
witness, says he, Demosthenes gave " 
and Cicero, Cato and Aristides, Sylla and Ly- 
sander, Marcellus and Pelopidas, Pompey and 
Agesilaus ; supposing that he has favoured the 
Greeks in giving them so unequal companions. 
This is exactly to attack what in Plutarch is 
most excellent, and most to be commended ; 
for in his parallels (which is the most admirable 
part of all his works, and with which, in my 
opinion, he is himself the most pleased), the 
fidelity and sincerity of his judgments equal 
their depth and weight: he is a philosopher 
that teaches us virtue. Let us see whether we 
cannot defend hirn from this reproach of falsity 
and prevarication. All that I can imagine 
could give occasion to this censure is the great 
and shining lustre of the Roman names which 
we have ever before us: it does not seem likely 
to us that Demosthenes could rival the glory 
of a consul, proconsul, and questor of that 
great republic: but, to consider the truth of 
the thing, and the men in themselves, which is 
Plutarch's chiefest aim, and more to balance 
their manners, their natures, and parts, than 
their fortunes, I think, contrary to Bodin, that 
Cicero and the elder Cato come very far short 
of the men with whom they are compared. I 
should sooner, for his purpose, have chosen the 
example of the younger Cato compared with 
Phocion; for in this couple there would have 
been a more likely disparity to the Roman's 
advantage. As to Marcellus, Sylia, and Pom- 
pey, I very well discern that their exploits of 
war are more dazzling, more full of pomp and 
glory, than those of the Greeks whom Plutarch 
compares with them : but the bravest and 
most virtuous actions, no more in war than 
elsewhere, are not always the most renowned ; 
I often see the names of captains obscured by 
the splendour of other names of less desert ; 
witness Labienus, Ventidius, Telesinus, and 
several others : and to take it by that, were I 
to complain on the behalf of the Greeks, could 
I not say that Camillus was much less com- 
parable to Themistocles, the Gracchi to Agis 
and Cleomenes, and Numa to Lycurgus? But 
'tis folly to judge of things that have so many 
aspects at one view. 

When Plutarch parallels them, he does not 
for all that make them equal: 
who could more learnedly and no 1 ,' *™ an ' an 
conscientiously have marked their equality bo- 
distinctions? Does he parallel tween <bo 8 e 



1 The ostracism prevailed at AthenB, and was a sentence was in use at Syracuse, involved a banishment of five yeare 
of political banishment for ten years. Petalism, which only. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



3C3 



whom he com- the victories, featg of arms, the 
pared together. p 0wer f the armies conducted by 
Pompey, and his triumphs, with those of Age- 
silaus? "I do not believe," says he, "that 
Xenophon himself, if he were now living, 
though he was allowed to write whatever 
pleased him to the advantage of Agesilaus, 
would dare to bring them into comparison." 
Does he speak of paralleling Lysander to 
Sylla? "There is," says he, " no comparison, 
either in the number of victories, or in the 
hazard of battles; for Lysander only gained 
two naval engagements, &c." Assuredly, this 
is not derogatoiy from the Romans; in having 
only simply named them with the Greeks, lie 
can have done them no injury, what disparity 
6oever there may be betwixt them; and Plu- 
tarch does not entirely oppose them to one 
another; there is no preference in general; he 
only compares the pieces and circumstances one 
after another, and gives of every one a particu- 
lar and separate judgment. Wherefore, if any 
one would convict him of partiality, he ought 
to pick out some one of those particular judg- 
ments ; or say, in general, that he was mistaken 
in comparing such a Greek to such a Roman, 
when there were others more fit and nigher 
resembling, to parallel him to. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE STORY OF SPURINA. 

Philosophy thinks she has not made an ill use 
of her talent when she has given the sove- 
reignty of the soul, and the authority of re- 
straining our appetites to reason. 
Whether the Amongst which, they who judge 
h'u's'aiv i'll', 1 .' " that there are none more violent 
most violent. than those which spring from 
love have this opinion, also, that 
they seize both body and soul, and possess the 
whole man, so that even health itself depends 
upon them, and medicine is sometimes con- 
strained to pimp for them : but a man might 
also say on the contrary, that the mixture of 
the body brings an abatement and weakening; 
for such desires are subject to satiety, and 
capable of material remedies. 

Many, being determined to rid their soul 
from the continual alarms of this appetite, have 
made use of incision and amputation of the re- 
belling members; others have subdued their 
force and ardour by the frequent application of 
cold things, as snow and vinegar: the sack- 
cloths of our ancestors were for this purpose, 
which is a cloth woven of horses'-hair, of 
which some of them made shirts, and others 
girdles to torture and correct their reins. 

A prince, not long ago, told me that, in his 



youth, upon a solemn festival in the court of 
King Francis the First, where every body was 
very finely dressed, he took a fancy to put on 
his father's hair shirt, which was still kept in 
the house ; but how great soever his devotion 
was, he had not patience to wear it till night, 
and was ill from it a long time after; adding 
withal, that he did not think there could be any 
youthful heat so fierce that the use of this 
recipe would not mortify; and yet perhaps he 
never essayed the most violent ; for experience 
shows us that such emotions are often found 
under rude and slovenly clothes, and that a 
hair shirt does not always render those chaste 
that wear it. 

Xenocrates proceeded with greater severity 
in this affair; for his disciples, to make trial of 
his continency, having slipped Lais, that beau- 
tiful and famous courtezan, into his bed quite 
naked, excepting the arms of her beauty and 
her wanton allurements, her philters?, finding 
that, in spite of his reason and philosophical 
rules, his unruly flesh began to mutiny, he 
caused those members of his to be burned 
that he found consenting to this rebellion. 1 
Whereas the passions which wholly reside in 
the soul, as ambition, avarice, and the rest, find 
the reason much more to do, because it cannot 
there be relieved but by its own means ; neither 
are those appetites capable of satiety, but grow 
sharper and increase by fruition. 

The sole example of Julius Csesar may suffice 
to demonstrate to us the disparity 
of those appetites ; for never was Cffisar ' s eK j}"?~ , 

r > ... ' pie a proof that 

man more addicted to amorous ambition ia 
delights than he. Of which the '""'"er to be 
delicate care he had of his person, |^ d tha " 
to that degree of effeminacy as to 
make use of the most lascivious means to that 
end then practised, as to have the hairs of his 
whole body plucked off; and to be larded all 
over with perfumes with the extremest nicety, 
is one testimony ; 2 and he was a beautiful per- 
son in himself, of a fair complexion, tall and 
sprightly, full faced, with quick hazel eyes, if 
we may believe Suetonius; for the statues that 
we see at Rome do not in all points answer this 
description. Besides his wives, whom he four 
times changed, without reckoning the amours 
of his childhood with Nicomedes, king of Bi- 
thynia, he had the maidenhead of the renowned 
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt; witness the little 
Ctesario that he had by her: 3 he also made 
love to Eunoe, queen of Mauritania, 4 and at 
Rome to Posthumia, the wile of Servius Sul- 
pitius; to Lollia, the wife of Gabinius; to 
Tertulla, the wife of Crasslis; and even to 
Mutia, wife to the great Pompey : which was 
the reason, the Roman historians say, that she 
was repudiated by her husband, which Plutarch 
confesses to be more than he knew ; and the 
Curios, father and son, afterwards reproached 



364 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Pompey, when he married Caesar's daughter, 
that he had made himself son-in-law to a man 
who had made him a cuckold ; and one that he 
himself was wont to call iEgisthus : besides all 
these he entertained Servilia, Cato's sister, and 
mother to Marcus Brutus, whence, every one 
believes, proceeded the great affection he 
had to Brutus, by reason that he was born at a 
time when it was likely he might be his son. So 
that I have reason, methinks to take him for a 
man extremely given to this debauch, and of a 
very amorous constitution : ' but the other pas- 
sion of ambition, with which he was exceedingly 
infected, arising in him to contend with it, it 
was soon compelled to give way. 

And here calling to mind Mahomet, who won 
Constantinople, and finally exterminated the 
Grecian name, I do not know where these two 
passions were so evenly balanced ;. equally an 
indefatigable lecher and soldier: but where 
they both meet in his life, and jostle one 
another, the quarrelling ardour always gets the 
better of the amorous passion ; and this, though 
it was out of its natural season, never regained 
an absolute sovereignty over the other till he 
was arrived at an extreme old age, and unable 
to undergo the fatigues of war. 

What is related, for a contrary example, of 
Ladislaus, king of Naples, is very 
ampleVovfiig remarkable; who being a great 
love to be captain, valiant, and ambitious, 

am°bS than P ro P osed t0 himself, for the prin- 
cipal end of his ambition, the 
execution of his pleasure, and the enjoyment of 
some rare beauty. His death was of a piece : 
for having by a close and tedious siege, re- 
duced the city of Florence to so great distress 
that the inhabitants were compelled to capitu- 
late about surrender, he was content to let them 
alone, provided they would deliver up to him a 
virgin of excelling beauty he had heard of in 
their city: they were forced to yield to it, and 
by a private injury to divert the public ruin. 
She was the daughter of a famous physician of 
his time, who, finding himself involved in so 
foul a necessity, resolved upon a high attempt. 
As every one was laying a hand to trick up his 
daughter, and to adorn her with ornaments and 
jewels, to render her more agreeable to this new 
lover, he also gave her a handkerchief most 
richly wrought, and of an exquisite perfume, 
which she was to make use of at their first 
approaches, an implement they never go with- 
out in those parts: this handkerchief, poisoned 
with his utmost art, coming to be rubbed be- 
tween the chafed flesh and open pores, both of 
the one and the other, so suddenly infused the 
poison, that immediately converting their warm 



i When lie entered Rome on liis triumphal car, the sol- 
diers cried — 

" TJrbani, servate uxores: ma?chum calvum adducimus." 
-^Suetonius, in vita. 

3 Colenuccio, Hist. JVeap. v., who throws a doubt over 
the story. 



into a cold sweat, they presently died in one 
another's arms. 2 

But I return to Caesar. His pleasures never 
made him steal one minute of an hour, nor step 
one step aside, from occasions „ 

,,..,. % . Crcsars cha- 

that might conduce any way to ractor , 
his advancement: that passion 
was so sovereign in him over all the rest, and 
with so absolute an authority possessed his soul, 
that it guided him at pleasure. In truth, this 
troubles me, when, as to every thing else, I 
consider the greatness of this man, and the 
wonderful parts wherewith he was endued, 
learned to that degree in all sorts of knowledge, 
that there is hardly any one science of which 
he has not written : 3 he was so great an orator, 
that many have preferred his eloquence to that 
of Cicero; and he, I conceive, did not think 
himself inferior to him in that particular, for his 
two Anti-Catos were chiefly written to counter- 
balance the elocution that Cicero had expended 
in his Cato. As to the rest, was ever soul so 
vigilant, so active, and so patient of labour as 
hisl and doubtless it was embellished with 
many rare seeds of virtue, innate, natural, and 
not put on. He was singularly sober, and so 
far from being delicate in his diet, that Oppius 
relates," that having one day at table medicinal 
instead of common oil set before him in some 
sauce, he ate heartily of it that he might not 
put his entertainer out of countenance; another 
time he caused his baker to be whipped for 
serving him with a finer than ordinary sort of 
bread. Cato himself used to say of him that 
he was the first sober man that ever made it his 
business to ruin his country. And as to the 
same Cato calling him one day drunkard, it fell 
out thus : being both of them one day in the 
senate, at a time when Catiline's conspiracy 
was in question, of which Caesar wa3 suspected, 
one came and brought him a letter sealed up: 
Cato believing thafit was something the con- 
spirators gave him notice of, called to him to 
deliver it into his hand ; which Csssar was con- 
strained to do to avoid further suspicion: it 
was, by chance, a love-letter that Servilia, 
Cato's sister, had written to him ; which Cato 
having read, he threw it back to him, saying, 
"There, drunkard." This, I say, was rather 
a word of disdain and anger than an express 
reproach of this vice ; as we often rate those 
that anger us with the first injurious words that 
come into our mouths, though nothing due to 
those we are offended at: to which may be 
added, that the vice which Cato cast in his dish 
is wonderfully near a-kin to that wherein he 
had trapped Caesar; for Bacchus and Venus, 
according to the proverb, do very willingly 



grammar, eloquence, history ; his letters to the Senate, to 
Cicero, to his friends ; Ins poems ; a tragedy called CEJipus; 
a collection of apothegms, which Augustus prohibited the 
publication of. There has also been attributed to him a 
work Upon Augurs, and a Cosmography. 
' Spud Suetonius. The various illustrations of Cffisar 



3 Suetonius, in his Life of Cmsar, speaks of his works in | which follow are taken from the same author. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



365 



agree; but with me Venus is most sprightly 
when I am most sober. 

The examples of his sweetness and clemency 
to those by whom he had been offended are in- 
finite; I mean besides those he gave during the 
time of the civil wars, which, as plainly enough 
appears by his writings, he practised to cajole 
his enemies, and to make them less afraid of his 
future dominion and victory. But I must also 
say that if these examples are not sufficient 
proofs of his natural mildness, they at least ma- 
nifest a marvellous confidence and grandeur of 
courage in this person. He has often been 
known to dismiss whole armies, after having 
overcome them, to his enemies, without deigning 
so much as to bind them by oath, either to 
favour him, or even not to bear arms against 
him. He has three or four times taken some of 
Pompey's captains prisoners, and as often set 
them at liberty. Pompey declared all those to 
be his enemies who did not follow him to the 
war; Caesar proclaimed all those to be his 
friends who sat still and did not actually take 
arms against him. To such captains of his as 
ran away from him to go over to the other side, 
he sent moreover their arms, horses, and equip- 
age. The cities he had taken by force he left 
at full liberty to take which side they pleased, 
imposing no other garrison uppn them but the 
memory of his generosity and clemency. He 
gave strict and express charge, the day of his 
great battle of Pharsalia, that, without the 
utmost necessity, no one should lay a hand 
upon the citizens of Rome. These, in my 
opinion, were very hazardous proceedings, and 
'tis no wonder if those in our civil war, who, 
like him, fight against the ancient state of their 
country, do not follow his example; they are 
extraordinary means, which only belong to 
Ceesar's fortune and his admirable foresight in 
the conduct of affairs. When I consider the 
incomparable grandeur of his soul, I excuse 
victory that it could not disengage itself 
from him, even in so unjust and so wicked a 
cause. 

To return to his clemency : we have many 
excellent examples in the time of his government, 
when all things being reduced to his power, he 
had no more need to dissemble. Caius Mem- 
miushad written very severe orations against him, 
which he had as sharply answered : yet he did 
not soon after forbear to use his interest to make 
him consul. Caius Calvus, who had composed 
several injurious epigrams against him, having 
employed many of his friends to mediate a re- 
conciliation with him, Cajsar voluntarily per- 
suaded himself to write first to him. And our 
good Catullus, who had so rudely ruffled him 
under the name of Mamurra, coming to make 
' his excuses to him, he made him the same day 
sit at his table.. Having intelligence of some 
who spoke ill of him, he did no more but only 
in a public oration declare that he had notice of 
it. He feared his enemies still less than he 
hated them: some conspiracies and cabals that 
31* 



were made against his life being discovered to 
him, he satisfied himself in publishing, by pro- 
clamation, that they were known to him, with- 
out further prosecuting the conspirators. As 
to the respect he had to his friends, Caius 
Oppius, being with him upon a journey, and 
finding himself ill, he gave him up the only room 
he had for himself, and lay all night upon the 
hard ground in the open air. As to what con- 
cerns his justice: he put a beloved servant of 
his to death for lying with a noble Roman's 
wife, though there was no complaint made. 
Never had man more moderation in his vic- 
tory, nor more resolution in his adverse 
fortune. 

But all these good inclinations were stifled 
and spoiled by his furious ambi- . 

tion, by which he suffered himself by ambition, 
to be so transported and misled 
that a man may easily maintain that that pas- 
sion guided the rudder of all his actions: of a 
liberal man, it made him a public thief to sup- 
ply his bounty and profusion, and made him 
utter this vile and unjust saying, "That if the 
most wicked and profligate persons in the world 
had been faithful in serving him towards his 
advancement, he would cherish and prefer them 
to the utmost of his power, as much as the best 
of men." It intoxicated him with so excessive 
a vanity that he dared to boast, in the presence 
of his fellow-citizens, "That he had made the 
great commonwealth of Rome a name without 
form, and without body;" and to say "that his 
answers for the future should stand for laws;" 
and also to receive the body of the senate com- 
ing towards him, sitting; to suffer himself to be 
adored, and to have divine honours paid to him 
in his own presence. In fine : this sole vice, in 
my opinion, spoiled in him the most rich and 
beautiful nature that ever was; and has ren- 
dered his name abominable to all good men, in 
that he would erect his glory upon the ruins of 
his country, and the subversion of the greatest 
and most flourishing republic the world shall 
ever see. There might, on the contrary, be 
many examples produced of great men whom 
pleasure has made to neglect the conduct of 
their affairs, as Mark Antony and others; but 
where love and ambition should be in equal 
balance, and come to jostle with equal forces, 
I make no doubt but the last would win the 
prize. 

But to return to my subject. 'Tis much to 
bridle our appetites by the discourse of reason, 
or by violence to contain our members within 
their duty; but to lash ourselves to our neigh- 
bour's interest, and not only to divest ourselves 
of the charming passion that tickles us, of the 
pleasure we feel in being agreeable to others, 
and courted and beloved of every one; but also 
to conceive a hatred against the graces that 
produce that effect, and to condemn our beauty 
because it enflames others, of this, I confess, 
I have met with few examples; this is one. 
Spurina, a young man of Tuscany, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Qualis gemma micat, fulvum quie dividit aurum, 
Ant collo decus, aut capiti ; vel quale per artem 
Inclusuin liuxo, aut Ericia tercbintho, 
Lucet ebur,i 

" As shines a gem in yellow gold enchas'd, 
On neck or head, for decoration placed; 
Or iv'ry, which by art doth lustre get, 
Amidst a circle of Erician jet," 

being endowed with a singular beauty, and so 
excessive that the chastest eyes could not 
chastely behold its rays ; not contenting him- 
self with leaving so much flame and fever as he 
every where kindled without relief, entered into 
a furious spite against himself, and those great 
endowments nature had so liberally conferred 
upon him ; as if a man were responsible to him- 
self for the faults of others; and purposely 
slashed and disfigured, with many wounds and 
scars, the perfect symmetry and proportion that 
nature had so curiously imprinted in his face. 

To give my opinion, I more admire at, than 
honour, such actions ; such excesses are enemies 
to my rules. The design was conscientious and 
good, but certainly a little defective in pru- 
dence. What if his deformity served afterwards 
to make others guilty of the sin of hatred, or 
contempt, or of envy, at the glory of so com- 
mendable an action, or of calumny, interpreting 
this humour a mad ambition? Is there any 
form whence vice cannot, if it will, extract 
occasion to exercise itself, one way or other? It 
had been more just, and also more noble, to 
have made of these gifts of God a subject of 
regular and exemplary virtue. 

They who retire themselves from the common 
They who se- offices, from that infinite number 
crete them- of rules, tiresome in many ways, 
fommo"s ^hat fetter a man of exact con- 
of society have duct m civil life, are m my opi- 
the best bar- n ion very discreet, what sharp- 
galn ' ness of constraint soever they 

impose upon themselves in so doing. 'Tis in 
some sort a kind of dying to avoid the pain 
of living well. But though these may be enti- 
tled to credit in other respects, to that of con- 
quering difficulty I do not think they are ; the 
real difficulty is in keeping one's-self upright 
amidst the waves of the world, truly and exactly 
performing all the parts of one's duty. It is 
peradventure more easy to do without the other 
sex, altogether, than, having the enjoyment of 
a wife, to keep one's-self entirely to that one 
woman. Sheer poverty is for the most part a 
far less anxious and discomforting state than a 
middling fortune ; to use the goods of life ra- 
tionally is much more difficult than entirely to 
do without them; moderation is a virtue that 
calls for a vast deal more effort to exercise it 
than suffering. The well-living of the younger 
Scipio has a thousand shapes; that of Diogenes 
but one; 2 this as much excels ordinary lives in 
simplicity as exquisite and accomplished lives 
excel it in utility and force. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

OBSERVATION ON THE MODE OF CARRYING ON 
WAR ACCORDING TO JULIUS CESAR. 

'Tis said of many great leaders, that they have 

had certain books in particular 

„ -, j ,J /-. . Csesar's Com- 

esteem, as Alexander the ureat, mentaties a 
Homer ; Scipio Africanus, Xeno- proper lesson 
phon; Marcus Brutus, Polybius; ^y ery ge ' 
Charles the Fifth, Philip de Co- 
mines; and 'tis said that, in our times, Machi- 
avel is elsewhere in repute. But the late 
Marshal Strozzi, who took Caesar for his man, 
doubtless made the best choice ; for that book 
ought to be the breviary of every great soldier, 
as being the true and sovereign pattern of the 
military art; and, moreover, God knows with 
what grace and beauty he has embellished that 
rich matter with so pure, delicate, and perfect 
expression, that, in my opinion, there are no 
writings in the world comparable to his, as to 
that. 

I will set down some rare and peculiar pas- 
sages of his wars that remain in my memory. 

His army being in some consternation upon 
the rumour that was spread of the great forces 
that King Juba was leading against him, instead 
of abating the notion which his soldiers had 
conceived at the news, and of lessening the 
forces of the enemy, having called them all to- 
gether to encourage and re-assure them, he took 
a quite contrary way to what we are used to 
do, for he told them that they needed no more 
to trouble themselves with inquiring after the 
enemy's forces, for that he was certainly in- 
formed thereof; and then told them of a number 
much surpassing the truth, and the report that 
was rumoured in his army; 3 following the ad- 
vice of Xenophon ; forasmuch as the imposture 
is not of so great importance to find an enemy 
weaker than we expected, as to find him 
really strong, after having been made to believe 
that he was weak. 

It was also his use to accustom his soldiers 
simply to obey, without taking 
upon them to control, or so much ^ e c ^,'^ nK 
as to speak of their captain's de- soldiers, 
signs, which he never communi- 
cated to them but upon the point of execution ; 
and took a delight, if they discovered anything 
of what he intended, immediately to change his 
orders, to deceive them ; and to that purpose 
would often, when he had assigned his quarters 
in a place, pass forward and lengthen his day's 
march, especially if it was foul weather. 

The Swiss, in the beginning of his wars in 
Gaul, having sent to him to demand a free 
passage over the Roman territories, though 
resolved to hinder them by force, he neverthe- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



367 



less spoke kindly to the messengers, and took 
some days' respite to return an answer, to make 
use of that time for calling his army together. 
These poor people did not know how good a 
husband he was of his time ; for he often re- 
peated, that it is the best part of a captain to 
know how to make use of occasions, and his 
diligence in his exploits are in truth unparal- 
leled and incredible. 

If he was not very conscientious in taking 
advantage of an enemy under colour of a treaty 
of agreement, he was as little in this, that he 
required no other virtue in a soldier, but valour 
only, and seldom punished any other faults but 
mutiny and disobedience. He would often, 
after his victories, turn them loose to all sorts 
of licence, dispensing them, for some time, from 
the rules of military discipline withal, for he 
had soldiers so well trained up that, powdered 
and perfumed, they would run furiously to the 
fight. In truth, he loved to have them richly 
armed, and made them wear engraved, gilded, 
and damasked armour, to the end that the care 
of saving this might engage them to a more 
obstinate defence. Speaking to them, he called 
them by the name of fellow-soldiers, which we 
yet use; which his successor, Augustus, re- 
formed, supposing he had only done it upon 
necessity, and to cajole those who only followed 
him as volunteers ; 



"Great Crcsar, who inv <;pn'ral iliil appear 
Upon the banks of Hhiue, 's my fellow here : 
For wickedness where it once hold does take, 
All men whom it defiles does equal make ;" 

but that this fashion was too mean and low for 
the dignity of an emperor and general of an 
army ; and therefore brought up the custom of 
calling them soldiers only. 

With this courtesy Ceesar mixed great seve- 
rity to keep them in awe: the ninth legion 
having mutinied near Placentia, he ignomini- 
ously cashiered them, though Pompey was then 
yet on foot, and received them not again to 
grace till after many supplications. He quieted 
them more by authority and boldness than by 
gentle ways. 

In that place where he speaks of his passage 
over the Rhine towards Germany, he says that, 
thinking it unworthy of the honour of the Roman 
people to waft over his army in vessels, he built 
a bridge, that they might pass over dry-foot. 
There it was that he built that wonderful bridge, 
of winch he gives a particular description ; for 
he nowhere so willingly insists upon his own 
actions as in representing to us the subtlety of 
his inventions in such kind of things. 

I have also observed this, that he set a great 
value upon his exhortations to the soldiers before 
the fight; for where he should show that he was 
either surprised or hurried, he always brings 



in this, that he had not so much as leisure to 
harangue his army. Before that „ , 
great battle with those of Tour- EfiSKSSTbe. 
nay, " Csesar," he says, 2 "having fore a battle of 
given orders for every thing else, £™' ""i ,<jrt - 
presently ran where fortune car- 
ried him, to encourage his people, and meet- 
ing with the tenth legion, had no time to 
say any thing to them but this, that they 
should remember their wonted valour ; not be 
astonished, but bravely sustain the enemy's 
encounter; and the enemy being already ap- 
proached within a dart's cast, he gave the 
signal of battle; and going suddenly thence 
elsewhere to encourage others, he found that 
they were already engaged." His tongue has 
indeed done him notable service upon several 
occasions; and his military eloquence was in 
his own time so highly reputed that many of 
his army writ down his harangues as he spoke 
them, by which means there were volumes of 
them collected, that continued a long time after 
him. He had so particular a grace in speaking 
that they who were familiarly acquainted with 
him, and Augustus amongst others, hearing 
those orations read, could distinguish even to 
the phrases and words that were not his. 

The first time that he went out of Rome with 
any public command, he arrived in eight days 
at the river Rhone, having with him in his 
coach a secretary or two before him, who were 
continually writing, and him that carried his 
sword behind him. And certainly, though a 
man did nothing but travel on, he could hardly 
have arrived at that promptitude with which, 
having been everywhere victo- 
rious he left Gaul, and follow- ^ esg in 
ing Pompey to Brundusium, in his expeditions, 
eighteen days' time he subdued 
all Italy, returned from Brundusium to Rome, 
and from Rome went through the very heart of 
Spain, undergoing extreme difficulties in the 
war against Afranius and Petreius, and in the 
long siege of Marseilles ; thence he returned 
into Macedonia, beat the Roman army at 
Pharsalia ; passed thence in pursuit of Pompey 
into Egypt, which he also subdued; from 
Egypt he went into Syria and Pontus, where 
he fought Pharnaces; thence into Africa, 
where he defeated Scipio and Juba; again 
returned through Italy into Spain, where he 
defeated Pompey's sons: 

Ocyor et coeli flammis, et tigricle fa;ta. 3 

Ac veluti montis saxum de vevtice praceps 
Cum ruit avulsum vento, sou turbidus imber 
Prnluil, am annis solvit suhkipsa yeliistas, 
Fertur m abruptum magm) minis impmbus actu, 
E.\ullali|ue solo silvas, arnienia, virosque 
Involvens secum.4 

"Swifter than lightning, or the furious course 
Of the fell tigress when she is a nurse." 

" As when a fragment from a mountain lorn 
By raging tempests, or a torrent borne; 



363 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Or sapp'd by time, or loosen'd from the roots, 
Prone through the void the rocky ruin shoots; 
Kolling from crag to crag, from steep to steep, 
Down sink at once the shepherds and the sheep; 
Involv'd alike, they rush to nether ground, 
Stuun'd with the shock they fall, and, stunn'd, from 
earth rebound." 

Speaking of the siege of Avaricum, he says, 1 
that it was his custom to be night and day with 
the pioneers. In all enterprises of consequence 
he always reconnoitred in person, and never 
brought his army into quarters till he had first 
viewed the place ; and, if we may believe Sue- 
tonius, when he passed over into England, he 
was the first man that sounded the shore where 
they landed. 

He used to say that he more valued a victory 
obtained by counsel than by force ; and in the 
war against Petreius and Afranius, fortune 
presenting him with an occasion of manifest 
advantage, he declined it, saying, 2 "That he 
hoped, with a little more time and less hazard, 
to overthrow his enemies." He there also 
played a notable part, in commanding his 
whole army to pass the river by swimming, 
without any manner of necessity : 

Rapuitque ruens in prcelia miles, 
(Auod fugiens timuisset iter: mox uda receptis 
Membra fovent arniis, gelidosque a gurgite, cursu, 
Kestituunt artus.s 

" The soldier rushes through a pass to fight 
He would have been afraid t' have ta'en in flight : 
Then with his arms his wet limbs covers o'er, 
And his numb'd joints by rubbing doth restore." 

I find him a little more temperate and con- 
siderate in his enterprises than Alexander; for 
the latter seems to seek and run headlong upon 
dangers, like an impetuous torrent that attacks 
and rushes against every thing it meets, without 
choice or discretion ; 

Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus, 
Qui regna Dauni perfluit Appuli, 
Dum saevit, horrendamque cultia 
Diluvium meditatur agris;* 

"So bounding Aufidus, who leaves 
The Daunian realms, fierce rolls his waves, 
When to the golden labours of the swain 
He meditates his wrath, and deluges the plain;" 

but then he was a general in the flower and first 
heat of his youth, whereas Csesar took up the 
trade at a ripe and well-advanced age: to 
which may moreover be added that Alexander 
was of a more sanguine, hot, and choleric con- 
stitution, apt to push him on to such extrava- 
gances, which he also inflamed with wine, from 
which Cffisar was very abstinent. But where 
necessary occasion required, never did any man 
venture his person more than he: indeed, for 
my part, methinks, I read in many of his ex- 
ploits a determined resolution to throw his life 
away, to avoid the shame of being overcome. 
In his great battle with those of Tournay, he 
charged up to the head of the enemies without 



his shield, as he was surprised, seeing the van 
of his own army beginning to give ground; 
which also several times befel him. Hearing 
that his people were besieged, he passed through 
the enemy's army in disguise, to go and encou- 
rage them with his presence. Having crossed 
over to Dyrrachium with very slender forces, 
and seeing the remainder of his army, which 
he left to Antony's conduct, slow in following 
him, he undertook alone to repass the sea in a 
very great storm; and privately stole away to 
fetch the rest of his forces, the ports on the 
other side being seized by Pompey, and the 
whole sea being in his possession. And as to 
what he performed by force of hand, there are 
very many exploits that in hazard exceed all 
the rules of war : for with how small means did 
he undertake to subdue the kingdom of Egypt; 
and afterwards to attack the forces of Scipio 
and Juba, ten times greater than his 1 These 
people have had I know not what of more than 
human confidence in their fortune; and his 
usual saying was, that men must execute and 
not deliberate upon, high enterprises. After the 
battle of Pharsalia, when he had sent his army 
away before him into Asia, and was passing in 
one single vessel the strait of the Hellespont, 
he met Lucius Cassius at sea with ten great 
men of war, where he had the courage not only 
to stay his coming, but to stand up to him, and 
summon him to yield, which he did. 

Having undertaken that furious siege of 
Alexia, where there were fourscore thousand 
men in garrison, and all Gaul being in arms 
to raise the siege, having set an army on foot 
of eight thousand horse and two hundred and 
forty thousand foot, what boldness and mad 
confidence was it in him that he would not 
give over his attempt and retire, in two so 
invincible difficulties, which nevertheless he 
underwent: and after having won that great 
battle against those without soon reduced those 
within to his mercy. 5 The same happened to 
Lucullus at the siege of Tigranocerta against 
King Tigranes; but the condition of the enemy 
was not the same, considering the effeminacy 
of those with whom Lucullus had to deal. 

I will here set down two rare and extraordi- 
nary events concerning this siege of Alexia ; 
one, that the Gauls having drawn their powers 
together to encounter Coesar, after they had 
made a general muster of all their forces, re- 
solved in their council of war to dismiss a good 
part of this great multitude, that they might 
not fall into confusion. This example of fearing 
being too many is new ; but to take it right, it 
stands to reason that the body of an army 
should be of a moderate greatness, and regu- 
lated to certain bounds, both out of respect to 
the difficulty of providing for them, and the 
difficulty of governing them and keeping them 
in order. At least it is very easy to make it 



t De Bcllo Oallico, vii 
a De Bella CHvili, 1, 72 
» Lucan, iv. 131. 



* Horace, Od. iv. 14, 25. 
« De Bcllo Oallico, vii. 64. 
« Id. ib. 






MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



appear by example, that armies! 
Monstrous ar- so monstrous in number have sel- 

mies of 110 great , , ... 

er r ect . dom done any thing to purpose. 

According to the saying of Cyrus 
in Xenophon, " 'Tis not the number of men, 
but the number of good men, that gives the 
advantage;" the remainder serving rather to 
impede than assist. And Bajazet principally 
grounded his resolution of giving Tamerlane 
battle, contrary to the opinion of all his cap- 
tains, upon this, that his enemy's numberless 
number of men gave him assured hopes of con- 
fusion. Scanderberg, a very good and expert 
judge in such matters, was used to say that ten 
or twelve thousand faithful fighting men were 
sufficient to a good leader, to secure his repu- 
tation in all sorts of military occasions. The 
other thing I will here record, which seems to 
be contrary both to the custom and the rules of 
war, is, that Vercingentorix, who was made j 
general of all the parts of revolted Gaul, should 
go shut up himself in Alexia ; for he who has 
the command of a whole country ought never 
to fix himself any where, but in case of the last 
extremity, and that the only hope he had left 
is in the defence of that particular place: other- 
wise he ought to keep himself always at liberty, 
that he may have means to provide in general 
for all parts of his government. 

To return to Caesar. He grew in time more 
slow, and more considerate, as his friend Oppius 
bears witness ; conceiving that he ought not 
easily to hazard the glory of so many victories, 
of which one blow of fortune might deprive 
him. 'Tis what the Italians say, when they 
would reproach the rashness and fool-hardiness 
of young people, calling them bisognosi cTonore, 
necessitous of humour; and that being in so 
great a want and dearth of reputation, they 
have reason to seek it at what price soever, 
which those ought not to do who have acquired 
enough already. There might reasonably then 
be some moderation, and some satiety, in his 
thirst and appetite of glory as well as in other 
things; and there are enough that practise it 

He was far remote from that religious ob- 
servance of the ancient Romans, who would 
never prevail in their wars but by dint of true 
and simple valour; and yet he was more con- 
scientious that we should be in these days, and 
did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a 
victory. In the war against Ariovistus, whilst 
he was parleying with him, there happened a 
great tumult, which was occasioned by the fault 
of Ariovistus's light horse ; by which tumult 
Ctesar saw he had a very great advantage of 
the enemy; yet he would make no use on't, 
lest he should be reproached with a treacherous 
proceeding. 

He always used to wear rich accoutrements, 
an 1 of a shining colour, in battle, that he might 
be the more remarkable, and belter observed. 

He always carried a stricter hand over his 



soldiers, and kept them closer in, when near 
the enemy. 

When the ancient Greeks would accuse any 
one of insufficiency they would say, in common 
proverb, " That he could neither read nor 
swim :" he was of the same opinion, that swim- 
ming was of great use in war, and himself 
found it so ; for being to use diligence he com- 
monly swam over the rivers in his way; for he 
loved to march on foot, as did the great Alex- 
ander. Being in Egypt forced, to save him- 
self, to go into a little boat, and so many people 
leaping in with him that it was in danger of 
sinking, he chose rather to commit himself to 
the sea, and swam to his fleet, which lay two 
hundred paces off, holding in his left hand his 
tablets out of the water, and drawing his coat- 
armour in his teeth, that it might not fall into 
the enemy's hand ; yet he was then at a pretty 
advanced age. , 

Never had any general so much credit with 
his soldiers : in the beginning of the civil wars 
his centurions offered him to find every one a 
man-at-arms at his own charge, and the foot 
soldiers to serve him at their own expense; 
those who were better off, moreover, under- 
taking to defray the most necessitous. The 
late Mons.de Chastillon 1 showed us the like 
example in our civil war; for the French of 
his army furnished money out of their own 
purses to pay the strangers that were with 
them. They are but rarely found examples of 
so ardent and so ready an affection amongst 
the soldiers of elder times, who kept themselves 
strictly to their rules of war; passion has a 
more absolute command over us than reason ; 
and yet it happened in the war against Han- 
nibal that, following the example of the Romans 
in the city, the soldiers and captains refused 
their pay in the army; and in Marcellus's 
camp those were branded with the name of 
mercenaries who would receive any. Having 
come by the worse near Dyrrachium, his sol- 
diers came and offered themselves to be chastised 
and punished, so that there was more need to 
comfort than reprove them. One single cohort 
of his withstood four of Tompey's legions above 
four hours together, till they were almost all 
killed with arrows ; so that there were a hun- 
dred and thirty thousand shafts found in the 
trench: a soldier, called Scceva, who com- 
manded at one of the avenues, invincibly main- 
tained his ground, having lost an eye, and 
with one shoulder and one thigh shot through, 
! and his shield pierced in two hundred and 
I thirty places. Many of his soldiers being taken 
prisoners, rather chose to die than promise to 
take the contrary side. Granius Petronius, 
I being taken by Scipio in Africa, Scipio having 
| put his companions to death sent him word 
that he gave him his life, fur lie was a man of 
j quality and questor ; to whom Petronius sent 
answer back that Ctesar's soldiers were accus- 



rc.isparil ilr Cnliirny. tin- scniral of that name. Count de ' 
ligny and Seigneur de Clialiilon-sur-Loing, Admiral of | 



France, assassinated 24th August. 157J (the St. Bar- 
tholomew). 



370 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



tomed to give others their lives, arid not to 
receive it, and immediately with his own hand 
killed himself. 

Of their fidelity there are infinite examples; 
amongst which that which was 

farrison of "^ d ° ne b ? th ° Se who VVere besie g ed 

Salona. in Salona, a city that stood for 

Csesar against Pompey, is not, 
for a rare accident that there happened, to be 
forgot. Marcus Gctavius kept them close 
besieged ; they within being reduced to the 
extremest necessity of all things, so that, to 
supply the want of men, most of them being 
either slain or wounded, they had manumitted 
.all their slaves, and had been constrained to 
cut off all the women's hair to make strings, 
besides a wonderful dearth of victuals, and yet 
they continued resolute never to yield. After hav- 
ing drawn the siege to a great length, by which 
Octavius was grown more negligent and less 
attentive to his enterprise, they made choice of 
one day about noon ; and having first placed 
the women and children upon the walls, to 
make a show, sallied upon the besiegers with 
such fury that, having routed the first, second, 
and third corps of guards, and afterwards the 
fourth and all the rest, and beaten them all out 
of their trenches, they pursued them even to 
their ships, and Octavius himself was fain to 
fly to Dyrrhachium, where Pompey lay. I do 
not remember that I have met with any other 
example where the besieged ever gave the 
besiegers a total defeat, and won the field ; nor 
that a sally ever arrived at the consequence of 
a pure and entire victory of battle. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

OF THREE GOOD WOMEN. 

Good women are not by dozens, as every one 
knows, and especially in the duties of marriage ; 
for that is a bargain full of so many difficult 
circumstances that 'tis hard for a woman's 
will long to endure such a restraint; men, 
though their condition be something better 
under that tie, have yet enough to do. The 
true touch and test of a happy marriage re- 
spects the time the connection lasts, if it has 
been constantly mild, loyal, and commodious. 
In our age women commonly reserve the pub- 
lication of their good offices, and 
opini'on^fthe their vehement affection towards 
\wmipn wiio their husbands, until they have 

t'heTloyefor ]ost them ' or at least til1 then 
tin'ir ii'isiiaiids defer the testimonies of their good 
till they are will. A tardy and unseasonable 
-■ testimony! by which they rather 

manifest that they never loved them till dead ; 
their life is nothing but trouble, their death full 
of love and courtesy. As fathers conceal their 
affections from their children, women likewise 
conceal theirs from their husbands, to maintain 
a modest respect. This mystery is not for my 



palate ; 'tis to much purpose that they scratch 
themselves and tear their hair; I whisper in a 
waiting-woman's or a secretary's ear, " How 
were they ? How did they live together?" I 
always have that good saying in my head ; 
Jactuntius mmrent quas minus dolenl: 1 "They 
make the most ado who are least concerned :" 
their whimpering is offensive to the living, 
and vain to the dead. We should willingly 
give them leave to laugh after we are dead, 
provided they will smile upon us whilst we are 
alive. Is it not enough to make a man revive 
out of spite, that she who spit in my face' 
whilst I was, shall come to kiss my feet when 
I am no more'? Tf there be any honour in 
lamenting a husband, it only appertains to 
those who smiled upon them whilst they had 
them : let those who wept during their lives 
laugh at their death, as well outwardly as 
within. Moreover, never regard those blub- 
bered eyes, and that pitiful voide ; but consider 
her port, her complexion, and the plumpness 
of her cheeks, under all those formal veils; 'tis 
there she speaks out. There are few who do 
not mend upon't, and health is a quality that 
cannot lie. That starched and ceremonious 
countenance looks not so much back as forward, 
and is rather intended to get a new husband than 
to lament the old. When I was a boy, a very 
beautiful and virtuous lady, who is yet living, 
and the widow of a prince, had I know not 
what more ornament in her dress than our laws 
of widowhood will well allow; which being 
reproached withal, as a great indecency, she 
made answer, " That it was because she was 
resolved to have no more lovers, and would 
never marry again." 

I have here, not to differ from our cus- 
toms, made choice of three women, who also 
employed the utmost of their goodness and 
affection about their husbands' deaths ; yet are 
they examples of another kind than are now in 
use, and such as will hardly be drawn into 
imitation. 

The younger Pliny had, near a house of his 
in Italy, a neighbour who was exceedingly tor- 
mented with certain ulcers in his private parts. 
His wife, seeing him so long to languish, en- 
treated that he would give her leave to see, and 
at leisure to consider of the condition of his dis- 
ease, and that she would freely tell him what 
she thought. This permission being obtained, 
and she having curiously examined the business, 
found it impossible he could ever be cured, and 
that all he was to hope for or expect was a 
great while to linger out a painful and misera- 
ble life, and, therefore, as the most sure and 
sovereign remedy, resolutely advised him to kill 
himself; and finding him a little tender and 
backward in so rough an attempt: "Do not 
think, my friend," said she, "that the torments 
I see thee endure are not as sensible to me as 



i An adaptation from Tarinis. .nnvnh it. 77.. vili^se wnr 
are: Periispc Gcrnumkuiu iinUl jnctantius mxrcHt, qua 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



371 



thyself, and that, to deliver myself from them, 
I will not myself make use of the same remedy 
I have prescribed to thee. I will accompany 
thee in the cure as I have done in the disease; 
fear nothing-, but believe that we shall have 
pleasure in this passage that is to free us from 
so many miseries: we will go happily toge- 
ther." Which having said, and roused up her 
husband's courage, she resolved that they should 
throw themselves headlong into the sea out of 
a window that looked over it. And that she 
might maintain to the last the loyal and vehe- 
ment affection wherewith she had embraced him 
during his life, she would also have him die in 
her arms; but, for fear they should fail,_ and 
lest they should quit their hold in the fall', she 
tied herself fast to him by the waist, and so 
gave up her own life to procure her husband's 
repose. This was a woman of mean condition, 
amongst which class of people 'tis no new thing 
to see some examples of rare virtue : 



" And as she fled mankind, 
Here justice left iier last love-trace behind." 

The other two were noble and rich, where ex- 
amples of virtue are rarely lodged. 

Arria, the wife of Cecina Paetus, a consular 
person, was the mother of another Arria, the 
wife of Trasea Partus, he whose virtue was so 
renowned in the time of Nero, and, by means 
of this son-in-law, the grandmother of Fannia ; 
for the resemblance of the names of these men 
and women, and of their fortunes, have made 
many mistakes. This first Arria, 
The story of the her husband, Cecina Paetus, hav- 
u^'wife of™' m g Deen made prisoner by some 
Cecina Panus. of the Emperor Claudius's people, 
after Scribonianus's defeat, whose 
party he had embraced in the war, begged of 
those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome 
that they would take_her into their ship, where 
she should be of much less charge and trouble 
to them than a great many persons they must 
otherwise have to attend her husband, and that 
she alone would undertake to serve him in his 
chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices. 

They refused her : whereupon she pat herself 
into a fisher-boat she hired on the spot, and 
in that manner followed him from Sclavonia. 
Being come to Rome, Junia, the widow of 
Scribonianus, one day, for the resemblance of 
their fortune, accosting her in the emperor's 
presence, she rudely repulsed her with these 
words: "I speak to thee," said she, "or give 
ear to any thing thou sayest! to thee, in whose 
lap Scribonianus was slain! and thou art yet 
alive !" These words, with several other signs, 
gave her friends to understand that she would 
undoubtedly dispatch herself, impatient of sup- 
porting her husband's fortune. And Trasea, 
her son-in-law, beseeching her not to throw 



away herself, and saying to her, " What ! if I 
should run the same fortune that Cecina has 
done, would you that your daughter, my wife, 
should do the samel" "Would 1?" replied 
she, "yes, yes, I would, if she had lived as 
long, and in as good intelligence with thee, as 
I have done with my husband." These answers 
made them more careful of her, and to have a 
more watchful eye to her deportment. One 
day, having said to those that looked to her : 
" 'Tis to much purpose that you take all this 
pains to prevent me ; you may indeed make me 
die a worse death, but to keep me from dying 
is not in your power," she suddenly furiously 
started from a chair wherein she sat, and with 
all her force ran her head against the wall, by 
which blow, being laid flat in a swoon, and 
very much wounded, after they had again with 
much ado brought her to herself: "I told 
you," said she, " that if you refused me some 
easy way of dying, I should find out another, 
how painful soever." The conclusion of so 
admirable a virtue was thus: Her husband, 
Paetus, not having resolution enough of his 
own to dispatch himself, as he was by the 
emperor's cruelty enjoined, one day amongst 
others, after having first employed all the rea- 
sons and exhortations which she thought most 
prevailing to persuade him to it, she snatched 
the poniard he wore, from his side, and holding 
it ready in her hand for the conclusion of her 
admonitions : " Do thus, Paetus," said she, 
in the same instant giving herself a mortal stab 
in the breast, and then drawing it out of the 
wound presented it to him, ending her life with 
this noble, generous, and immortal saying: 
Paete, non dolet, "Paetus, it is not painful;" 
having strength only to pronounce these three 
never-to-be-forgotten words: 2 

Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Poeto, 
Quem de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis: 

Si qua fides, vuluus quod feci non dolet, inquit, 
Sed quod tu fades, id uiihi, Pajte, dolet: 3 



'When the chaste Arria rrave the reeking sword, 
That had new gored her h 'art, to her (bar lord ; 
Pajtus, the wound ['ve made hurts not, quoth she; 
The wound which lliou wilt make 'tis that hurts me : 



the action was much more noble in itself, and 
of a braver sense than the poet could express it ; 
for she was so far from being deterred by her 
husband's wound and death, and her own, that 
she had been the promotrcss, and had given the 
advice; but, having performed this high and 
courageous enterprise for her husband's conve- 
nience only, she had even in the last gasp of 
her life no other concern but for him, and of 
dispossessing him of the fear of dying with her. 
Paetus presently struck himself to the heart 
with the same weapon, ashamed, I should 
think, to have stood in need of so dear and pre- 
cious an example. 

Pompeia Paulina, a young and very noble 



i Virgil, Oeorg. ii. 473. 



2 Pliny, Ep. iii. 16. 



s Mart. i. 14. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Roman lady, had married Seneca 
Seneca's wife, in his extreme old age. Nero, his 

fine pupil, sent his guards to him 
to denounce the sentence of death ; which was 
performed after this manner: when the Roman 
emperors of those times had condemned any 
man of quality, they sent to him by their 
officers to choose what death he would, and to 
execute it within such or such a time, which 
was limited, according to the mettle of their 
^ indignation, to a shorter or a longer respite, 
that they might therein have better leisure to 
put their affairs in order, and sometimes depriv- 
ing them of the means of doing it by the short- 
ness of the time; and if the condemned seemed 
unwilling to submit to the order, they had 
people ready at hand to execute it, either by 
cutting the veins of the arms and legs, or by 
compelling them by force to swallow a draught 
of poison. But persons of honour would not 
stay this necessity, but made use; of their own 
physicians and surgeons for the purpose. Se- 
neca with a calm and steady countenance heard 
the charge, and presently called for paper to 
write his will, which being by the captain de- 
nied, he turned himself towards his friends, 
saying to them : " Since I cannot leave you 
any other acknowledgment of the obligation I 
have to you, 1 leave you at least the best thing 
I have, namely, the image of my life and man- 
ners, which I entreat you to keep in memory 
of me; that so doing you may acquire the glory 
of sincere and real friends." And therewithal, 
one while appeasing the sorrow he saw them in 
with gentle words, and presently raising his 
voice to reprove them : " What," said he, 
"are become of all our brave philosophical 
precepts] what are become of all the provi- 
sions we have so many years laid up against 
the accidents of fortune 1 Was Nero's cruelty 
unknown to ns? What could we expect from 
him, who murdered his mother and brother, 
but that he should put his tutor to death, 
who had taught and bred him V After having 
spoken these words in general, he turned 
himself towards his wife, and embracing her 
fast in his arms, as, her heart and strength fail- 
ing her, she was ready to sink down with grief, 
he begged of her for his sake to bear this 
event with a little more patience, telling her 
that now the hour was come wherein he was to 
show, not by argument and discourse, but by 
effect, the fruit he had acquired by his studies; 
and that he really embraced his death, not only 
without grief, but moreover with exceeding joy : 
"wherefore, my dearest," said he, "do not 
dishonour it with thy tears, that it may not 
seem as if thou lovest thyself more than my re- 
putation ; moderate thy grief, and comfort thy- 
self in the knowledge thou hast had of me and 
of my actions, leading the remainder of thy life 
in the same virtuous manner thou hast hitherto 
done." To which Paulina, having a little re- 
covered her spirits, and warmed her magnani- 
mity with the heat of a most generous affection, 



replied : " No, Seneca, I am not a woman to 
suffer you to go alone in such a necessity : I will 
not have you to think that the virtuous exam- 
ples of your life have not yet taught me how to 
die ; and when can I ever better, or more be- 
comingly, do it, or more to my own desire, than 
with you ? and therefore assure yourself I will 
go along with you." Then Seneca, taking this 
noble and generous resolution of his wife in good 
part, and also willing to free himself from the 
fear of leaving her exposed to the mercy and 
cruelty of his enemies after his death : " I have, 
Paulina," said he, " sufficiently instructed thee 
in what would serve thee happily to live ; but 
thou more covetest, I see, the honour of dying : 
in truth, I will not grudge it thee; the con- 
stancy and resolution in our common end are 
the same, but the beauty and glory of thy part 
is much greater." Which being said, the sur- 
geons at the same time opened the veins of both 
their arms; but those of Seneca being more 
shrunk up, as well with age as abstinence, mak- 
ing his blood to flow more slowly, he moreover 
commanded them to open the veins of his 
thighs ; and lest the torments he endured might 
intimidate his wife's heart, and also to free him- 
self from the affliction of seeing her in so sad a 
condition, after having taken a very affectionate 
leave of her, he entreated she would suffer them 
to carry her into her chamber, which they 
accordingly did. But all these incisions being 
not yet enough to make him die, he commanded 
Statius Anneus, his physician, to give him a 
draught of poison, which had not much better 
effect ; for, by reason of the weakness and cold- 
ness of his limbs, it could not arrive to his 
heart ; wherefore they were forced to superadd 
a very hot bath, and then feeling his end ap- 
proach, whilst he had breath, he continued 
excellent discourses upon the subject of his pre- 
sent condition, which the secretaries wrote down 
so long as they could hear his voice; and his 
last words were long after in high honour and 
esteem among men (it was a great loss to us 
that they were not reserved down to our times). 
Then, feeling the last pangs of death, with the 
bloody water of the bath he sprinkled his head, 
saying, " This water I dedicate to Jupiter the 
Deliverer." Nero, being presently advertised 
of all this, fearing lest the death of Paulina, 
who was one of the best descended ladies of 
Rome, and against whom he had no particular 
unkindness, should turn to his reproach, he sent 
back orders in all haste to bind up her wounds, 
which his people did without her knowledge; 
she being already half dead, and without any 
manner of sense. Thus, though she lived, con- 
trary to her own design, it was very honour- 
ably, and according to her own virtue, her pale 
complexion ever after manifesting how much 
life was run from her veins. 1 
These are my three very true stories, which 



' Tacitus, Annal. xv. 64. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



373 



I find as entertaining and as 
The writers of trag-jc as any of those we make 

tragedy must » f , . . . 

have recourse ot our own heads, wherewith to 
to history for entertain the common people; 
!neir U pty S . and I wonder they who under- 
take such matters do not rather 
cull out ten thousand very tine stories, which 
are to be found in very good authors, that 
would save them the trouble of invention, and 
be more useful and diverting: and he who 
would make a collection of them would need to 
add nothing of his own but the connection only, 
as it were the solder of another metal; and 
by this means embody a great many true events 
of all sorts, disposing and diversifying them 
according as the beauty of the work should 
require, after the same manner almost as Ovid 
has made up his Metamorphoses, of the infinite 
number of various fables. 1 

In this last couple this is moreover worthy 

of consideration, that Paulina 

^■^^h- voluntarily offered to lose her 

affection to his .. •> . , , , , 

wife. life for the love of her husband, 

and that her husband had for- 
merly also forborne to die for the love of her. 
According to our notions, there is no just coun- 
terpoise in this exchange; but, according to 
his stoical humour, I should say he thought he 
had done as much for her in prolonging his 
life upon her account as if he had died for her. 
In one of his letters to Lueilius, 2 after he has 
given him to understand that, being seized with 
a fever at Rome, he presently took coach to go 
to a house he had in the country, contrary to 
his wife's opinion, who would by all means 
persuade him to stay : and that he told her, 
" That the ague he was seized with was not a 
fever of the body, but the place," he goes on 
thus : " She let me go," says he, " giving me 
a strict charge of my health. Now I, who 
know that her life is involved in mine, begin 
to make much of myself," that I may preserve 
her ; and I lose the privilege, my age has givon 
me, of being more constant and resolute in 
many things, when I call to mind that in this 
old fellow there is a young girl who is inte- 
rested in his health. And since I cannot per- 
suade her to love me more courageously, she 
makes me more solicitously to love myself; 
for we must allow something to honest affec- 
tions; and sometimes, though occasions impor- 
tune us to the contrary, we must call back life, 
even though it be with torment ; we must hold 
the soul fast in our teeth, since the rule of 
living amongst good men is not so long as they 
please, but as long as they ought. He that 
loves not his wife or his friend so well as to 
prolong his life for them, but will obstinately 
die, is too delicate and too effeminate : the soul 
must impose this upon itself when the utility of 
our friends so requires ; we must sometimes lend 



• In the edition of l.WX Montaigne added— "or ns Ari- 
osto has arranged in succession so many different fable*;" 
but he afterwards omitted this passage, probably because 

32 



ourselves to our friends, and when we would 
die for ourselves must break that resolution for 
them. 'Tis a testimony of grandeur and courage 
to return to life for the consideration of another, 
as many excellent persons have done; tiiid 'tis 
a mark of singular good nature to preserve old 
age (of which the greatest convenience is the 
indifferency as to its duration, and a more stout 
and disdainful use of life), when a man per- 
ceives that this office is pleasing, agreeable, and 
useful to some person by whom we are very 
much beloved. And a man reaps by it a very 
pleasing reward ; for what can be more delight- 
ful to be so dear to his wife, as upon her ac- 
count to become dear to himself. Thus has 
my Paulina loaded me not only with her own 
fears, but my pwn: it has not been sufficient 
to consider how resolutely I could die, but I have 
also considered how irresolutely she would bear 
my death. I am enforced to live, and sometimes 
to live is magnanimity." These are his own 
words, excellent as they everywhere are. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

OF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN. 

Should I be asked my opinion and choice of 
all the men who have come to my knowledge, 
I should make answer that, methinks, I find 
three more excellent than all the rest. 

One of them Homer ; not that Aristotle or 
Varro, for example, were not perhaps as learned 
as he ; nor that possibly Virgil was not equal 
to him in his own art; which I leave to be 
determined by such as know them both, and 
are best able to judge. I, who for my part 
understand but one of them, can only say this, 
according to my poor talent, that I do not 
believe the muses themselves could go beyond 
the Roman : 

Tale facit carmen docta tcstudine, quale 
Cynthius impositis temperat articulus:S 



and yet in this judgment we are not to for- 
get that it is chiefly from Horner that Virgil 
derives his excellence; that he is his guide and 
teacher; and that one portion of the Iliad only 
has supplied him with body and matter out of 
which to compose his great and divine JEneid. 
I do not count that way : I mix several other 
circumstances that render this poet admirable 
to me, even as it were above human condition ; 
and, in truth, I often wonder that he who has 
erected, and by his authority given, so many 
deities reputation in the world, was not deified 
himself. Being blind and poor, living before 
the sciences were reduced to rulo and certain 



he has here in view only serious relations, whereas those 
of Armstn are mostly comic, 
a Ep. 104. 3 1'ropert. 2, 34, 79. 



374 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



observation, he was so well acquainted with 
them that all those who have since taken upon 
them to establish governments, to carry on 
wars, and to write either of religion or phi- 
losophy, of what sect soever, or of the arts, 
have made use of him as of a most perfect 
instructor in the knowledge of all things, and 
of his books as of an inexhaustible treasure of 
all sorts of learning: 

Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, 
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo ac Crautore dicit;* 



and as this other says, 

A quo, ceu fonte perenni 
Vatum Pieriis ora rigautur aquis;2 

" From whose ne'er-failing spring the poet sips, 
And in Pierian waters wets his lips ;" 



and the other, 



" Of all the muses' friends, Homer alone 
Is judg'd most worthy of the poet's throne ;" 

and the other, 

Cujusque ex ore profuso 
Omnis posteritas latices in earmina duxit, 
Amnemque in tenues ausa est deducere rivos, 
Unius fecunda bonis. 4 

"From whose abundant spring 
' Succeeding poets draw the songs they sing; 

From him they take, from him adorn their themes, 
And into little channels cut his streams: 
Rich in his store." 

'Tis contrary to the order of nature, that he 
has made the most excellent production that 
can possibly be; for the ordinary birth of 
tilings is imperfect; they usually thrive and 
gather strength by growing: whereas he has 
rendered the infancy of poetry and several 
other sciences mature, perfect, and accomplished 
at first. And for this reason he may be called 
the first and the last of poets, according to the 
noble testimony antiquity has left us of him : 
" That as there was none before him whom he 
could imitate, so there has been none since that 
could imitate him." 5 His words, according to 
Aristotle, 6 are the only words that have motion 
and action; the only substantial words. Alex- 
ander the Great, having found a rich cabinet 
amongst Darius's spoils, gave order it should 
be reserved for him to keep his Homer in: 7 
saying, " That he was the best and most faith- 
ful counsellor he had in his military affairs." 8 
For the same reason it was that Cleomenes, the 



Horace, Ep. i. 2, 3. 

Ovid, Amor, iii. 9, 25. 

Lucret. iii. 1050. 

Manil. li. ti. 

Veil. Pateiculus, i. 5. 

Poetics, c. 24. 

Pliny, JVal. Hist. vii. 

Plutarch, Life of Alexander. 

Id. Jlpotliegms of the Lacedam. 



son of Anaxandridas. said, " That he was the 
poet of the Lacedaemonians, for he was the 
best master in the discipline of war." 9 This 
singular and particular commendation is also 
left of him in the judgment of Plutarch: 10 
" That he is the only author in the world that 
never glutted nor disgusted his readers, pre- 
senting himself always another thing, and 
always flourishing in some new grace." That 
wanton Alcibiades, having asked one who pre- 
tended to learning for a book of Homer, gave 
him a box on the ear because he had none, which 
he thought as scandalous as we should to take 
one of our priests without a breviary. Xeno- 
phanes complained one day to Hiero, the tyrant 
of Syracuse, that he was so poor he had not 
wherewithal to maintain two servants: — 
"What!" replied the tyrant, "Homer, who 
was much poorer than you are, keeps above 
ten thousand, though he is dead !" " What did 
PanaBtius leave unsaid, when he called Plato 
" the Homer of philosophers 1" 12 Besides, what 
glory can be compared to his! Nothing is so 
frequent in men's mouths as his name and 
works ; nothing so known and received as Troy, 
Helen, and the war about her, when perhaps 
there was really never any such thing. Our 
children are called by names that he feigned 
above three thousand years ago: who knows 
not Hector and Achilles ? Not only some par- 
ticular families, but most nations also, seek 
their origin in his inventions. Mahomet, the 
second of that name, Emperor of the Turks, 
writing to our Pope Pius the Second : "lam 
astonished," says fie, " that the Italians should 
appear against me, considering that we have 
our common descent from the Trojans, and 
that it concerns me as well as it does them to 
revenge the blood of Hector upon the Greeks, 
whom they countenance against me." I3 Is it 
not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and 
emperors have so many ages played their parts, 
and to which the vast universe serves for a 
theatre? Seven Grecian cities contended for 
his birth, so much honour even his obscurity 
helped him to! 

Smyrna,Rhodos,Colophon,Salamis,Chios,Argos, Athena.™ 

'• By Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, 
Chios, Argos, and Athens, he claim'd is." 

The other is Alexander the Great; for who- 
ever will consider the age at , 
which he began his enterprises, ££" 
the small means by which he 
effected so glorious a design ; the authority he 
obtained at so tender an age, with the greatest 



'» In his treatise, on Speaking too much. 

11 Plutarch, jipotheg. of the Kings. 

"Cicero, Tusc. Quas. i. 32. 

ls " See," says Bayle (article Jlcarnania), "how chime- 
rical evils, forged by poeis, have served as an apology for 
real evils." This letter of Mahomet's was probably written 
by some renegade Greek, or, more probably still, invented 
by some imaginative historian." 

" Politian, Manto. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



375 



and most experienced captains of the world, 
by whom he was followed ; the extraordinary 
favour wherewith fortune embraced him, and 
favoured so many hazardous, not to say rash 



Impellens quicqnid sibi Minima petenti 
Obstaret, guadensque viam fccisse rnina ; 1 
"Whose high designs no hostile force could stay, 
And who by ruin lov'd to clear his way;" 

that grandeur, to have, at the age of three and 
thirty years, passed victorious through the whole 
habitable earth, and at half a life to have at- 
tained to the utmost of what human nature can 
do: so that you cannot imagine the legitimate 
duration of his life, and the continuation of 
his increase in valour and fortune, even to a 
due maturity of age, but that you must withal 
imagine something more than man; to have 
so many royal branches to spring from his 
soldiers, leaving the world at his death divided 
amongst four successors, simple captains of his 
army, whose posterity afterwards so long con- 
tinued and maintained that vast possession ; so 
many excellent virtues as he was master of, j 
justice, temperance, liberality, truth in his word, 
love towards his own people, and humanity 
towards those he overcame ; for his manners in 
general seem, in truth, incapable of any man- 
ner of reproach, though some particular and 
extraordinary actions of his may perhaps fall 
under censure; but it is impossible to carry on 
such great things as he did, altogether within 
the strict rules of justice; such as he are to 
be judged in gross, by the main end of their 
actions ; the ruin of Thebes and Persepolis, the 
murder of Menander and of Hsephestion's phy- 
sician, the massacre of so many Persian prison- 
ers at once, of a troop of Indian soldiers, not 
without prejudice to his word, and of the Cos- 
seians, so much as to the very children, are 
indeed sallies that are not well to be excused; 
for, as to Clitus, the fault was more than re- 
compensed in his repentance, and that very 
action, as much as any other whatever, mani- 
fests the sweetness of his nature, a nature most 
excellently formed to goodness ; and it was 
ingeniously said of him, "That he had his 
virtues by nature, and his vices by chance." 2 
As to his being given a little to bragging, and 
a little too impatient of hearing himself ill 
spoken of; and as to those mangers, arms, and 
bits he caused to be strewed in the Indies, 3 all 
those little vanities methinks may very well be 
allowed to his youth and the prodigious prosperity 
of his fortune. And who will consider withal 
his so many military virtues, his diligence, fore- 
sight* patience, discipline, subtlety, magnani- 
mity, resolution, and good fortune, wherein, 
though we had not the authority of Hannibal to 
assure us, he was the first of men ; the admirable 
beauty and symmetry of his person, even to a 



miracle, his majestic port, and imposing deport- 
ment, in a face so young, so ruddy, and so 
radiant : 

Qualis, ubi Ocpani perfusus Lucifer imda, 
(litem Venus ante alios astrorum diliget ignes, 
Extulit os sacrum ccelo, tenebraeque resolvit; « 

"So doth the morning star from Ocean rise, 
Beyond all stars grateful to Venus' eyes, 
Shakes from his rosy locks the pearly dews, 
Dispels the darkness, aad the day renews;" 

The excellence of his knowledge and capacity, 
the duration and grandeur of his glory, pure, 
clean, without spot or envy, and that long after 
his death it was a religious belief that his very 
medals brought good fortune to all that carried 
them about them; 5 and that more kings and 
princes have written his acts than other histo- 
rians have written the acts of any other king 
or prince whatever ; and that to this very day 
the Mahometans, who despise all other histo- 
ries, admit of and honour his alone, by a special 
privilege: whoever, I say, will seriously con- 
sider these particulars will confess that, all these 
things put together, I have reason to prefer him 
before Cccsar himself, wjio alone could make 
me doubtful in my choice: for it cannot be 
denied but that there was more of his own in 
his exploits, more of fortune in those of Alex- 
ander. They were in many things equal, and 
perhaps Caesar had the advantage in some par- 
ticular qualities ; they were two fires, or two 
torrents, to over-run the world by several 
ways ; 

Et velut immissi diversis partibus ignes 
Arentem in silvam, et virgulta snnantia lattro; 
Aut ubi decursu rapido de montilms altis 
Dant Bonitum spuniosi ainnes. et in adquora currunt, 
Quisque suum populatus iter: 6 

" And like to fires in sev'ral parts applied 
To a dry grove of crackling laurel's side; 
Or like the cataracts of foaming rids, 
That tumble headlong from the" lofty hills, 
To hasten to the ocean ; even so 
They bear down all before them where they go:" 

but though Caesar's ambition had been more 
moderate, it would still be so unhappy, having 
the ruin of his country and the universal mis- 
chief to the world for its abominable object, 
that, all things collected together and put into 
a balance, 1 must needs incline to Alexander's 
side. 

The third, and in my opinion the most ex- 
cellent of all, is Epaminondas. 
Of glory he has not near so Epaminondas. 
much as the other two (which 
also is but a part of the substance of the thing) ; 
of valour and resolution, not of that sort which 
is pushed on by ambition, but of that which 
wisdom and reason can raise in a regular soul, 
he had all that could be imagined. Of this 
virtue of his he has, in my thought, given as 



» Lucan, i. 11'.). 

- Quintus (Junius, v. 

a Plutarch, in vitu. 



* JEneid. viii. 589. 

» Treb. l'ollio. Triginta Tijrann, c. 14. 

o .ffineid, xii. SSI. 



376 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



ample proof, as either Alexander himself or 
Caesar; for although his war exploits were 
neither so frequent nor so renowned, they were 
yet, if duly considered in all their circumstances, 
as important, as bravely fought, and carried 
with them as manifest testimony of valour and 
military conduct as those of any whatever. The 
Greeks have done him the honour, without 
contradiction, to pronounce him the greatest 
man of their nation; 1 and to be the first of 
Greece is easily to be the first of the world. As 
to his knowledge, we have this ancient judg- 
ment of him, " That never any man knew so 
much, and spoke so little as he;" 2 for he was 
of the Pythagorean sect: but, when he did 
speak, never man spoke better; an excellent 
orator, and of powerful insinuation. But as 
to his manners and conscience, he infinitely 
surpassed all men that ever undertook the ma- 
nagement of affairs; for in this one thing, which 
ought chiefly to be considered, which alone 
denotes what we are, and which alone I coun- 
ter-balance with all the rest put together, he 
comes not short of any philosopher whatever, 
not even of Socrates himself: innocence in him 
is a quality, peculiar, sovereign, constant, uni- 
form, incorruptible; compared to which, it 
appears in Alexander subject to something else, 
uncertain, variable, effeminate, and accidental. 

Antiquity has judged that in thoroughly sift- 
ing all the other great captains, there is found 
in every one some peculiar quality that illus- 
trates his name; in this man alone there is a 
full and equal virtue throughout, that leaves 
nothing to be wished for in him, whether in 
private or public employment, whether in peace 
or war, whether gloriously to live or die. I do 
not know any form or fortune of man that 
I so much honour and love. 

'Tis true that I look upon his obstinate 
poverty, as it is set out by his best friends, 
as a little too scrupulous and nice: and this 
is the only action, though high in itself and well 
worthy of admiration, that I find so severe as 
not to desire to imitate myself, to the degree it 
was in him. 

Scipio ^Emilianus alone, could one give him 
as brave and magnificent an end and as pro- 
found and universal a knowledge, 
Slh^i^il" might be put into the other scale 

anus the only c °, . r . _^ , 

one to be com- °r the balance. Oh ! what an 
pared with him. injury has time done me, to de- 
prive me of the sight of two of 
the most noble lives, which, by the common 
consent of all the world, one the greatest of the 
Greeks, and the other of the Romans, were in 
all Plutarch. What materials ! What a work- 



1 Diod. Sic. xv. 88. Pausanias, viii. 2. &c. Cicero, also, 
dc Orat. lii. 54. assigns him the same place. 

2 Plutarch, On the Damon of Socrates. 
s Id. Life of Coriolanus. 

1 Id. On the Damon of Socrates. 
* Id. ib. 



For a man that was no saint, but, as we say, 
a gallant man, of civil and ordinary manners, 
and of a moderate ambition, the richest life that 
I know, and full of the richest and most to be 
desired parts, all things considered, is, in my 
opinion, that of Alcibiades. 

But as to what concerns Epaminondas, I will 
here, as the example of an excessive goodness, 
add some of his opinions. He declared that 
the greatest satisfaction he ever had in his 
whole life was the contentment he gave his 
father and mother in his victory of Leuctra; 3 
wherein he says very much, preferring their 
pleasure before his own, so just, and so full of 
so glorious an action. He did not think it 
lawful, even to restore the liberty of his coun- 
try, to kill a man without knowing a cause; 4 
which made him so cold in the enterprise of his 
companion Pelopidas, for the relief of Thebes. 
He was also of opinion that men in battle ought 
to avoid the encounter of a friend that was on 
the contrary side, and to spare him. 5 And his 
humanity, even towards his enemies themselves, 
having rendered him suspected by the Boetians, 
for that, after he had miraculously forced the 
Lacedaemonians to open him the pass, which 
they had undertaken to defend at the entry of the 
Morea, near unto Corinth, he contented himself 
with having charged through them, without 
pursuing them to the utmost, he had his com- 
mission of general taken from him, very honour- 
ably upon such an account, and for the shame 
it was to them, soon after, upon necessity, to 
restore him to his command, and to acknow- 
ledge how much upon him depended their safety 
and honour; victory like a shadow attending 
him wherever he went; and indeed the prospe- 
rity of his country, as being from him derived, 
died with him. 6 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

OF THE RESEMBLANCE OF CHILDREN TO 
THEIR FATHERS. 

This faggotting up of so many divers pieces is 
done in this way : I never set pen to paper but 
when too great idleness becomes troublesome, 
and never any where but at home ; so that it is 
made up at several interruptions and intervals, 
occasions keeping me sometimes many months 
abroad. 7 As to the rest I never correct my 
first by any second conceptions : perhaps I may 
alter a word or so; but 'tis only to vary the 
phrase, and not to omit my former meaning. 8 
I have a mind to represent the progress of my 
humour, that every one may see every piece as 



6 Diod. Sic. xv. 88. Nepos, in vita. Justin, vi. 8. 

7 This chapter was written by Montaigne after his return 
from his journey through Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, 
on which he had been absent seventeen months. 

8 Vet the edition of 15F8 contains several passages which 
Montaigne afterwards greatly altered or entirely omitted, 
to the advantage, certainly, of his work. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



377 



it came from the forge. I could wish I had 
begun sooner, that I might see more the course 
of my mutations. A servant of mine, that I 
employed' to transcribe for me, thought he had 
got a prize by stealing several pieces from me, 
such as he took a fancy to ; but it is my com- 
fort that he will be no greater a gainer than I 
shall be a loser by the theft. I am grown older 
by seven or eight years since I began ; which 

has not been without some new 
partencfin^he acquisition: I have in that time 
disease which become acquainted with the stone, 
dreaded 1 " 5 ^y the liberality of years, a long 

conversation with which hardly 
wears off without some such inconvenience. 
I could have been glad that of other presents 
age has to present long-lived men withal, it had 
chosen one that would have been more welcome 
to me, for it could not possibly have laid upon 
me a disease, for which, even from my infancy, 
I have had so great a horror ; and it is in 
truth, of all the ills of old age, that of which 
I have ever been most afraid. I have often 
thought, with myself, that I went on too far, 
and that in so long a voyage I should at last 
run myself into some disadvantage ; I perceived, 
and often declared, that it was time to knock 
off, and that death was to be cut out in the 
sound and living part, according to the sur- 
geons 1 rule in amputations; and that nature 
made him pay very strict usury who did not 
in due time pay the principal. And yet I was 
so far from being ready that, in eighteen 
months' time, or thereabout, that I have been 
in this uneasy condition, I have so inured my- 
self to it as to be content to live on in it ; and 
have found wherein to comfort myself, and to 
hope : so much are men enslaved to their 
miserable being that there is no condition so 
wretched that they will not accept, provided 
they may live ! Hear Maecenas : 

Debilem facito manu, 
Dehilem pede, coxa; 
Lubicros quate dentcs: 
Vita dum superest, bene est:* 

" Maim both my hands and feet, break legs and thighs. 
Knock out my teeth, and bore out both my eyes, 
Let me but live, all's well enough, he cries." 

And Tamerlane, with a foolish humanity, pal- 
liated the fantastic cruelty he exercised upon 
lepers, when he put all he could hear of to 
death, to deliver them, as he pretended, from 
the painful life they lived ; for there was not 
one of them who would not rather have under- 
gone a triple leprosy than to be deprived of 
their being; and Antisthenes the Stoic 2 being 
very sick, and crying out, " Who will deliver 
me from these evils?" Diogenes, who was 
come to visit him : " This," said he, presenting 
him a knife, " presently, if thou wilt." " I do 
not mean from my life," he replied, " but from 



i M.-rcenits-, nputl Seneca. Kp. 10]. 

■> Or rather the Cynic, ol" which sect he wns the head, 
thniich, in the main, there is no great difference betwixt the 
two sects as to their doctrine. 

32* 



my disease." 3 The sufferings that only attack 
the mind I am not so sensible of as most other 
men ; partly out of judgment, for the world 
looks upon several things as dreadful, or to be 
avoided at the expense of life, that are almost 
indifferent to me: partly through a stupid and 
insensible complexion I have, in evils which 
do not point-blank hit me; which insensibility 
I look upon as one of the best parts of my 
natural condition; but essential and corporeal 
pains, I am very sensible of. And yet having 
long since foreseen them, though with a sight 
weak and delicate, and softened with the long 
and happy health and quiet that God has been 
pleased to give me the greatest part of my time, 
I had in my imagination fancied them so insup- 
portable that in truth I felt the fear of them 
more than I have since felt actual pain from 
them ; by which I am still more fortified in this 
belief, that most of the faculties of the soul, as. 
we employ them, more trouble the repose of life 
than they are any way useful in it. 

I am in conflict with the worst, the most, 
sudden, the most painful, the most mortal, and 
the most irremediable of all dis- 
eases; I have already had the The stone the 

. . _ „ . j . , most pa i m mi I ol 

trial of five or six very long and all diseases, 
very painful fits, and yet I either 
flatter myself, or there is even in this estate 
what is very well to be endured by a man who 
has his soul free from the fear of death, and the 
menaces, conclusions, and consequences, which 
physic is ever thundering in our ears. But the 
effect, even of pain itself, is not so sharp and 
intolerable as to put a man of understanding 
into impatience and despair. I have at least 
this advantage from my stone, that what I could 
not hitherto wholly prevail upon myself to re- 
solve upon, as to reconciling and acquainting 
myself with death, it will perfect; for the more 
it presses upon and importunes me, I shall be so 
much the less afraid to die. I had already gone 
so far as only to love life for life's sake, but my 
pain will dissolve this intelligence: and God 
grant that in the end, should the sharpness of it 
be once greater than I shall be able to bear, it 
does not throw me into the other less vicious 
extreme, to desire and wish to die \ 

Summum nee metuas diem, nee optes« 
" Neither to wish nor fear to die :" 

they are two passions to be feared, but the one 
has its remedy much nearer at hand than the 
other. 

As to the rest, I have always found the 
precept that so exacllv enjoins _ . . . 

j/.^cjj j j Complaint may 

so firm a countenance, and so |„. freely in- 
disdainful and indifferent a com- dulged in the 
portment in the toleration of »8<my of pain. 
infirmities, to be merely ceremonial. Why 



> Diog. Lnertius, in the life of Antisthcpcs. 
« Mart. x. 47. 



378 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



should philosophy, which only has respect to 
life and its effects, trouble itself about these 
external appearances'! Let us leave that care 
to actors and masters of rhetoric, that set so 
great a value upon our gestures ; let her, in 
God's name, allow this vocal frailty, if it be 
neither cordial nor stomachical, to the disease ; 
and permit the ordinary ways of expressing 
grief by sighs, sobs, palpitations, and turning 
pale, that nature has put out of our power; 
provided the courage be undaunted, and the 
expressions not sounding of despair, let her be 
satisfied. What matter is it if we wring our 
nands, if we do not wring our thoughts 1 She 
forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, 
not to seem ; let her be satisfied with governing 
our understandings, which she has taken upon 
her the care of instructing; in the fury of the 
stone let her maintain the soul in a condition to 
know itself, and to follow its accustomed way, 
contending with, and enduring, not meanly 
truckling under pain ; moved and heated, not 
subdued and conquered in the contention ; 
capable of discourse and other things to a cer- 
tain degree. In so extreme ills, 'tis cruelty 
to require so exact a composedness ; 'tis no 
great matter what faces we make, if we find 
any ease by it ; if the body find itself relieved 
by complaining, let it complain; if agitation 
ease him, let him tumble and toss at pleasure; 
if he finds the disease evaporate (as some phy- 
sicians hold that it helps women in delivery), 
extremely to cry out, or, if it do but amuse his 
torments, let him roar. We need not command 
his voice to sally, let us but stop it not. Epicu- 
rus' not only forgives his sage for crying out 
in torments, but advises him to it: Pugiles 
etiam, quum feriunt, in jactandis cxstibus 
ingemiscunt, quia profundenda voce omne cor- 
pus intenditur, venitque plaga vehementior? 
" When men fight with the csestus they groan 
out in laying on, because the whole strength of 
body goes along with the voice, and the blow 
is laid on with greater force." We have enough 
to do to deal with the disease, without troubling 
ourselves with these superfluous rules. 

This I say in excuse of those whom we 
ordinarily : 



Montaigne 
kept bis tem- 
per in the 
height of his 
pain. 



impatient in the assaults of this 
malady ; for as to what concerns 
myself, I have passed it over 
hitherto with a little better coun- 
tenance, and contented myself 
with grunting, without roaring 
out. Not, nevertheless, that I put any great 
constraint upon myself to maintain this exterior 
decency, for I make little account of such an 
advantage; I allow herein as much as the pain 
requires ; but either my pains are not so exces- 
sive, or I have more than ordinary patience. 
I complain, I confess, and am a little impatient 
in a very sharp fit, but I do not arrive to such 
a degree of despair as he who — 



Laertiun. in vita. 
! Cicero, Tusc. Quas. ii. 23. 
> Attius. Philocleles, apud Cicero, de Finib. ii. 29. 



Ejulatu, questu, gemitu, fiemilibus 
Resonando, multum flebiles voces refert:' 

" Howling, roaring, and a thousand groans, 
Express'd his torments in most dismal tones :" 

I relish myself in the midst of my dolor ; and 
have always found that I was in a capacity to 
speak, think, and give a rational answer, as well 
as at any other time, but not so coldly and 
indifferently, being troubled and interrupted 
by the pain. When I am looked upon by my 
visitors to be in the greatest torment, and that 
they therefore forbear to trouble me, I often try 
my own strength, and myself set some discourse 
on foot, the most remote I can contrive from my 
present condition. I can do any thing upon a 
sudden endeavour, but it must not continue 
long. What pity 'tis I have not the faculties 
of that dreamer Cicero, who, dreaming he was 
lying with a wench, found he had discharged 
his stone in the sheets ! 4 My pains do strangely 
disappetite me that way. In the intervals from 
this excessive torment, when my ureters only 
languish without any great dolor, I presently 
feel myself in my wonted state, forasmuch as 
my soul takes no other alarm but what is sensi- 
ble and corporeal, which I certainly owe to the 
care I have had of preparing myself by me- 
ditation against such mishaps : 

Laborum 
Nulla mini nova nunc fades inopinave surgit: 
Omnia pracepi, atque animo mecum ante peregi.5 

" No face of pain or labour now can rise 
Which, by its novelty, can me surprise, 
I've been accustom'd all things to explore, 
And been inured unto them long before." 

I am, however, a little roughly handled for a 
learner, and with a sudden and sharp alteration, 
being fallen in an instant from a very easy and 
happy condition of life into the most uneasy and 
painful that can be imagined ; for, besides that 
it is a disease very much to be feared in itself, 
it begins with me after a more sharp and severe 
manner than it uses to do with other men : my 
fits come so thick upon me that I am scarcely 
ever at ease. Yet I have hitherto kept my mind 
so upright that, provided I can still continue 
it, I find myself in a much better condition of 
life than a thousand others who have no fever 
nor other disease but what they create them- 
selves from defect in their reason. 

There is a certain sort of crafty humility that 
springs from presumption, as this. That we 
confess our ignorance in many things, and are 
so courteous as to acknowledge that there are 
in the works of nature some qualities and con- 
ditions that are imperceptible to us, and of 
which our understanding cannot discover the 
means and causes : by this honest and conscien- 
tious declaration we hope to obtain that people 
shall also believe us in those that we say we do 
understand. We need not trouble ourselves to 



* Cicero, dc Divin. ii. 09. 
6 JEneid, vi. 103. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



379 



seek out miracles and strange difficulties ; me- 
thinks there are such incomprehensible wonders 
amongst the things that we ordinarily see, as 
surpass all difficulty of miracles. What a 
wonderful thing it is that the drop of seed from 
which we are produced should carry in itself 
the impression, not only of the bodily form, but 
even of the thoughts and inclinations of our 
fathers? /.Where can that drop of fluid matter 
contain fliat infinite number of forms? And 
how can they carry on these resemblances, with 
so temerarious and irregular a progress that a son 
shall be like his great-grandfather, the nephew 
like his uncle 1 In the family of Lepidus, at 
Rome, there were three, not successively, but 
by intervals, that were born with the same eye 
covered with a cartilage. 1 At Thebes there was 
a race that carried from their mother's womb 
the form of the head of a lance, and who was 
not born so was looked upon as illegitimate. 2 
And Aristotle says that in a certain nation, 
where the women were in common, they 
assigned the children to their fathers by their 
resemblance. 3 

'Tis to be believed that I derive this infirmity 
from my father; for he died wonderfully tor- 
mented with a great stone in his 
The author's bladder. He was never sensible 
either afflicted -,. ,. ,.., ,, . .. 

with the stone, of his disease till the sixty-seventh 
year of his age, and before that 
had never felt any grudging or symptoms of it, 
either in his reins, sides, or any other part ; and 
had lived till then in a happy and vigorous state 
of health, little subject to infirmities, and con- 
tinued seven years after in this disease, and died 
a very painful lingering death. I was born 
above five-and-twenty years before his disease 
seized him, and in the time of his most flourish- 
ing and healthful state of body, his third child 
in order of birth. Where could his propensity 
to this disease lie lurking all that while'! And 
he being so far from the infirmity, how could 
that small part, of his substance carry away so 
great an impression for its share? And how so 
concealed that, five-and-forty years after, I be- 
gan to be sensible of it, the only one to this 
hour, amongst so many brothers and sisters, 
and all of one mother, that was ever troubled 
with it. He that can satisfy me in this point, 
I will believe him in as many other miracles as 
he pleases; always provided that, as their man- 
ner is, he does not give me a doctrine much 
more intricate and fantastic than the thing 
Lteelf, for current pay. 

Let the physicians a little excuse the liberty 
„. I take; for by the same infusion 

rfpb°y n sic mP and fatal insinuation it is, that I 
have received a hatred and con- 
tempt of their doctrine; the antipathy I have 
against their art is hereditary. My father 
lived threescore and fourteen years, my grand- 



Pliny, JVat. Hist. vii. 12. 

Plutarch, On those of whom the Gods defer the punish- 



father sixty-nine, my great-grand father almost 
fourscore years, without ever tasting any sort 
of physic; and with them whatever was not 
ordinary diet, served instead of a drug. Physic 
is grounded upon experience and examples ; so 
is my opinion. And is not this an express and 
very advantageous experience ? 1 do not know 
that they can find me, in all their records, three 
that were born, bred, and died under the same 
roof, who have lived so long under their conduct. 
They must here of necessity confess that if rea- 
son be not, fortune at least is, on my side; and 
with physicians fortune goes a creat deal further 
than reason. Let them not take me now at a 
disadvantage, let them not threaten me in the 
subdued condition I now am in; for that were 
treachery. And, to say truth, I have got 
enough the better of 'them, by these domestic 
examples, that they should rest satisfied. Hu- 
man things are not usually so constant ; it has 
been two hundred years, save eighteen, that 
this trial has lasted, for the first of them was 
bom in the year 1402; 'tis now indeed very 
irood reason that this experiment should begin 
to fail us. Let them not therefore reproach me 
with the infirmities which have me now by the 
throat; is it not enough for my part that I have 
lived seven and forty years in perfect health; 
though it should be the end of my career, 'tis of 
the longer sort. My ancestors had an aversion 
to physic by some secret and natural instinct; 
for the very siffht of a potion was loathsome to 
my father. The Seigneur de Gaviac, my uncle 
by the father's side, a churchman, and a vale- 
tudinarian from his birth, and who yet made 
that crazy life to hold out sixty-seven years, 
being once fallen into a furious fever, it was 
ordered by the physicians he should be plainly 
told that if he would not make use of help (for 
so they call that which is often quite contrary), 
he would infallibly be a dead man. The good 
man, though terrified with this dreadful sen- 
tence, yet replied, "I am then a dead man." 
But God soon after made the prognostic false. 
The youngest brother, there were four, and by 
many years the youngest, the Sienr de Bussa- 
guet, was the only man of the family that made 
use of medicine, by reason, I suppose, of the 
commerce ho had with the other arts, for he 
was a counsellor in the court of parliament; 
and it succeeded so ill with him, that, being in 
outward appearance of the strongest constitu- 
tion, he yet died before any of the rest, the 
Sieur de St. Michel only excepted. 

'Tis possible I may have derived this natural 
antipathy to physic from them ; 
but, had there been no other con- "\j™,*Z\-!- r Z 
sideration in the case, 1 would ij'jiucf physic.' 
have endeavoured to have over- 
come it; for all those conditions that spring in 
us without reason are vicious ; and is a kind of 



meat; ivlm howover says nothing about the reputed ille- 
gitimacy of those born without the lance-murk, 
a A people of Libya. Herodotus, iv. 180. 



380 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



disease that we are to wrestle with. It may be 
I had this propensity naturally, but I have sup- 
ported and fortified it by arguments and reasons, 
which have established me in the opinion I am 
of: for I also hate the consideration of refusing 
physic for the nauseous taste ; I should hardly 
be of that humour, thinking health worth pur- 
chasing by all the most painful cauteries and 
incisions, that can be applied : and, according 
to Epicurus, I conceive that pleasures are to be 
avoided, if greater pains be the consequence ; 
and pains to be coveted, that will terminate in 
greater pleasures. 1 Health is a precious thing, 
and indeed the only one meriting that a man 
should lay out not only his time, sweat, labour, 
and goods, but also his life itself to obtain 1 it; 
forasmuch as without it life is painful and inju- 
rious to us; pleasure, wisdom, learning, and 
virtue, without it wither away and vanish : and 
in the most quaint and solid discourses that 
philosophy would imprint in us to the contrary, 
we need no more but oppose the image of Plato 
being struck with an epilepsy or apoplexy, and 
in this supposition to defy him to call the rich 
faculties of his soul to his assistance. All means 
that conduce to health can neither be too pain- 
ful nor too dear for me. But I have some other 
appearances that make me strangely suspect all 
this merchandise. I do not deny but there may 
be some art, and that there are, amongst so 
many works of nature, things proper for the 
conservation of health ; that is most certain : I 
very well know that there are some simples that 
moisten, and others that dry ; I experimentally 
know that radishes are windy, and senna leaves 
purging; and several other experiences I have, 
as I know that mutton nourishes, and wine 
warms me; and Solon said 2 that eating was 
like other drugs, physic against hunger; I do 
not disapprove the use we make of things the 
earth produces, nor doubt in the least of the 
power and fertility of nature, and its application 
to our necessities ; I very well see that pikes 
and swallows live by her laws ; but I mistrust 
the inventions of our wit, knowledge, and art; 
to countenance which we have abandoned 
nature and her rules, and wherein we keep no 
bounds nor moderation. As we call the mixture 
of the first laws that fall into our hands, Jus- 
tice, and their practice and dispensation very 
foolish and very unjust; and as those who scoff 
at and accuse it, cannot, nevertheless, insult 
that noble virtue, but only condemn the abuse 
and profanation of that sacred title; so in 
physic I very much honour that glorious name, 
and the end it is studied for, and what it pro- 
mises to the service of mankind ; but what it 
foists upon us I neither honour nor esteem. 



i Cicero, Tuec. Qucrs. v. 33. Laertius, in vita. 

2 Or rather Plutarch who makes Solon say it, in the Ban- 
quet of the Seven &>rrcs. 

3 Montaigne might very well assure us.upon the authority 
of Pliny, xxix. 1, that the Romans did not admit of physio 
till six hundred years after the foundation of Koine ; and 
that, after they had made trial of the art, they condemned 
and banished the physicians from their city ; but as to his 
addition, that they were expelled at the instance of Cato the 



In the first place, experience makes me dread 
it; for amongst all my acquaintance, I see 
set of people so soon sick, and so long before 
they are well, as those who take much physic : 
their very health is altered and corrupted by their 
frequent prescriptions. Physicians are not content 
to deal only with the sick, but they will more- 
over corrupt health, for fear men should at any 
time escape their authority. Do they not, from 
a continual and perfect health, extract suspicion 
of some great sickness to ensue? I have been 
sick often enough, and have always found my 
sickness easy enough to be supported (though 
I have ma.de trial of almost all sorts), and as 
short as those of any other, without their help, 
or without swallowing their ill-tasting doses. 
My health is full and free, without other rule 
or discipline than my own custom and pleasure: 
every place serves me well enough to stay in, 
for I need no other conveniences when sick 
than what I must have when I am well. I 
never disturb myself that I have no physician, 
or apothecary^ or any other assistance, which 
I see most other sick men more afflicted at than 
they are with their disease ! What ! do they 
themselves show us more felicity and duration 
in their own lives, that may manifest to us some 
apparent effect of their skill 1 

There is not a nation in the world that has 
not been many ages without phy- 
sic ; and the first age, that is to J >n >' sic ""- 

' , . » ' , known to many 

say, the best and most happy, nations, 
knew no such thing; and the 
tenth part of the world knows nothing of it 
yet. Several nation^ are ignorant of it to this 
day, where men live more healthful and longer 
than we do here, and even amongst us the 
common people live well enough without it. 
The Romans were six hundred years before 
they received it; 3 and after having made trial 
of it, banished it from their city, at the instance 
of Cato the Censor, who made it appear how 
easy it was to live without it, having himself 
lived fourscore and five years, and kept his wife 
alive to an extreme old age, not without physic, 
but without a physician; 4 for every thing that 
we find to be healthful to life may be called 
physic. He kept his family in health, as Plu- 
tarch says, if I mistake not, with hares, as 
Pliny reports 5 that the Arcadians cured all 
manner of diseases with the milk of a cow; 
and Herodotus says, 6 " The Libyans generally 
enjoy a rare health, by a custom they have, 
after their children are arrived at four years of 
age, to burn and cauterize the veins of their 
head and temples, by which means they cut off 
all defluxions of rheums for their whole lives." 7 
And the country people of our province make 



Censor. Pliny is so far from authorial!!: it that he expressly 
says, the Romans did not banish the physicians from their 
city till long after the death of Cato. Several modern wri- 
ters have fallen into the same error as Montaigne, as may 
be seen in Bayle's Dictionary, under the article " Porcius," 
in the note H. 

* In the Life of Cato the Censor. 

6 Nat. Hist. xxv. 8. « Lib. iv. c. 187. 

' Montaigne should have said, by which means they pro- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



3S1 



Whether the 
usefulness of 
medicinal 
purges is war 
ranted upon 
good grounds. 



use of nothing, in all sorts of distempers, but 
the strongest wine they can get, mixed with a 
great deal of saffron and spice, and all with the 
same success. 

And to say the truth, of all this diversity and 
confusion of apothecaries' jargon, 
what other end and effect is there 
after all, but to purge the belly 1 
which a thousand ordinary simples 
will do as well ; and I do not know 
whether such evacuations be so 
much to our advantage as they pretend, and 
whether nature does not require a residence of 
her excrements to a certain proportion, as wine 
does of its lees, to keep it alive ; you often see 
healthful men fall into vomitings and fluxes of 
the belly, by unknown accidents, and make a 
great evacuation of excrements, without any 
preceding need, or any following benefit, but 
rather with hurt to their constitution. 'Tis from 
the great Plato ' that I lately learned that, of 
three sorts of motions which are natural to us, 
purging is the worst; and that no man, unless 
he be a fool, ought to take any thing to that 
purpose, but in the extremest necessity. Men 
disturb and irritate the disease by contrary op- 
position; it must be the way of living that must 
gently dissolve and bring it to its maturity 
The violent gripings and contest betwixt the 
drug and the disease is ever to our loss, since 
the combat is fought within ourselves, and that 
the drug is an assistant not to be trusted, being 
by its own nature an enemy to our health ; and, 
but by trouble has no access into our condition. 
Let it alone a little; the Providence that takes 
care of fleas and moles, does also take care for 
men, if they will have the same patience fleas 
and moles have, to leave it to itself: 'tis to 
much purpose that we cry, Get on ! 'Tis the 
way to make us hoarse, but not to hasten it. 
'Tis a proud and uncom passion ate order; our 
fears, our despair, displease and stop it from, 
instead of inviting it to, our relief. It owes 
assistance to the disease as well as to health, 
and will not suffer itself to be corrupted in 
favour of the one, to the prejudice of the other's 
right, for it would then fall into disorder. Let 
us, in God's name, follow it : it leads those that 
follow, and those who will not follow, it drags 
along, with their fury and physic together. 
Order a purge for your brain ; it will there be 
much better employed than upon your stomach. 
One asking a Lacedaemonian what had made 
him live so long, he made answer, " The igno- 
rance of physic." And the Emperor Adrian 
continually exclaimed, as he was dying, that 



the crowd of physicians had killed him. 2 An 
ill wrestler turned physician : " Courage," says 
Diogenes to him, 3 "thou hast done well, for 
now thou wilt throw those who have formerly 
thrown thee." But they have this advantage, 
according to Nicocles, 4 that the sun gives light 
to their success, and the earth covers their 
failures. And, besides, they have a very ad- 
vantageous way of making use of all sorts of 
events ; for what fortune, nature, or any other 
causes (of which the number is infinite), pro- 
duce of good and healthful in us, it is the 
privilege of physic to attribute to itself; all 
the happy success that happens to the patient 
must be derived thence ; the occasions that have 
cured me, and thousands of others who make 
no use of medicine, physicians usurp to them- 
selves and their own skill; and as to all 
mishaps, they either absolutely disown themj 
in laying the fault upon the patient, by such 
frivolous and idle reasons as they can never be 
to seek tor; as, he lay with his arms out of bed, 
or he was disturbed by the rattling of a coach, 



or, somebody had opened the casement, or he 
had lain upon his left side; or had had some 
odd fancies in his head : in sum, a word, a 
dream, or a look, seem to them excuse sufficient 
wherewith to discharge themselves from error; 
or, if they so please, they yet make use of our 
growing worse, and do their business that way, 
which can never fail them ; which is, by buz- 
zing us in the ears, when the disease is more 
inflamed by their medicaments, that it had been 
much worse but for those remedies. He who, 
from an ordinary cold, they have thrown into 
a quotidian fever ague, had, but for them, been 
in a continuous one. They do not much care 
what mischief they do, since it turns to their 
own profit. Truly, they have reason to require 
a very favourable belief from their patients; and 
indeed it ought to be a very easy one, to swal- 
low things so hard to be believed. Plato said 
very well, 6 that physicians were the only men 
that might lie at pleasure, since our health 
depends upon the vanity and falsity of their 
promises. iEsop, a most excellent author, and 
of whom few men discover all the graces, 
pleasantly represents to us the tyrannical au- 
thority physicians usurp over poor creatures, 
weakened and subdued by sickness and fear; 
tor he tells us, 7 that a sick person, being asked 



pose to cut oil' such deiluxions, &<•., for thouuh Herodotus 
says they do it with this view, yet he does nut prea one to 
say that, for this cause, they enjoy such perfect health. " It 
is true," says he, " the Libyans are more healthy than any 
people that 1 know, but that this is the cause of it, I can- 
not affirm positively." 

i In the Timmus. 

» Xiphilin, Epitome. Dion. Life of Adrian. Before 
Adrian, however, I'liny (JVat. Jlist. xxix. 1) mentions a 
tomb with this epitaph: Turba ne medicorum pcriisse. 



s Laertius. in vitu. 

* In p. U52, chap, cxlvi. of the Collection of the Jlfonks 
Antony mid J\lunmus, printed at the end of StoUus. liar- 
lieyrac thinks thai this Nirorlos, who here bautei 
quack, is the famous Icing of Salamina, to whom Socraws 
addressed one of his orations. 

» Juvenal, iii. 236. 

« In the Republic, iii. 

1 In The Sick Man and the Physician. 



3S2 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



by his physician what operation he found of the 
potion he had given him 1 "I have sweated very 
much," says the sick man. "That's good," 
^ays the physician. Another time, having asked 
him how he felt himself after his physic 1 ! "I 
have been very cold, and have had a great 
shivering upon me," said he. " That is good," 
replied the physician. After the third potion, 
he asked him again how he did"! "Why, I 
find myself swelled and puffed up," said he, 
" as if I had a dropsy." " That is very well," 
said the physician. One of his servants coming 
presently after to inquire how he felt himself? 
" Truly, friend," said he, " with being too 
well, I am about to die." 

There was a more just law in Egypt, by 
which the physician for the three first days was 
to take charge of his patient at the patient's 
own peril and fortune; but those three days 
being past, it was to he at his own. For what 
should their patron J^sculapius be struck with 
a thunder-bolt for restoring Hyppolitus from 
death to life; 



Fulmine Plucbigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas;' 
"But Jove, who saw from high with just disdain 
The dead inspired with vital breath again, 
Struck to the centre with his flaming dart 
Th' unhappy founder of the god-like art ;" 

and his followers be pardoned, who send so 
many souls from life to death? A physician 
boasting to Nicocles that his art was of great 
authority: "It is so, indeed," said Nicocles, 
" that can with impunity kill so many people." 2 
As to what remains, had I been of their 
counsel, I would have rendered 

SSaVfor my disci P lme more sacred and 
physic. mysterious; they begun well, but 

they have not ended so. It was 
a good beginning to make gods and demons 
the authors of their science, and to have used 
a peculiar way of speaking and writing ; not- 
withstanding that philosophy concludes it folly 
to persuade a man to his own good in an unin- 
telligible way : Ut si quis medicus imperet, ut 
sumat 

Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassum.a 
"As if a physician should command his pa- 
tient to take an animal trailing with its slime 
over the herbage, without blood or bones, 
and carrying its house upon its back." 3 It 
was a good rule in their art, and which 
accompanies all other vain, fantastic, and super- 
natural arts, that the patients' belief should 
prepossess them with good hope and assurance 
of their effects and operation ; a rule they hold 
to that degree as to maintain that the most 
inexpert and ignorant physician is more proper 
for a patient that has confidence in him, than 
the most learned and experienced, that he is 



' JEneid, vii. 770. 

* Collection of Hit Monks Jlntoiiy and Maximus. 
s " Instead of saying, as everybody else says, a snail,' 
adds Cicero, do Dicin. ii. 64. 



not acquainted with. Nay, even the choice of 
most of their drugs is in some sort mysterious 
and quackish. The left foot of a tortoise, the 
urine of a lizard, the dung of an elephant, the 
liver of a mole, blood drawn from under the 
wing of a white pigeon ; and for us who have 
the stone (so scornfully they use us in our 
miseries), the excrement of rats beaten to 
powder, and such-like apes' tricks, which 
rather carry a face of magical enchantment 
than any solid science. I omit the odd number 
of their pills, the appointment of certain days 
and feasts of the year, the superstition of gather- 
ing their simples at certain hours, and that 
austere, grim countenance and haughty carriage 
which Pliny himself derides. But they have, 
as I said, failed, in that they have not added 
to this fine beginning, the making their meet- 
ings and consultations more religious and secret : 
no profane person ought to be admitted there, 
no more than in the secret ceremonies of iEscu- 
lapius; for by reason of this it falls out that 
their irresolution, the weakness of their argu- 
ments, divinations, and foundations, the sharp- 
ness of their disputes, 4 full of hatred, jealousy, 
and particular interests, coming to be dis- 
covered by every one, a man must be very 
blind not to discern that he runs a very great 
hazard in their hands. Whoever saw one phy- 
sician use another's prescription, without taking 
something away or adding something to it] 
By which they sufficiently betray their art, 
and make it manifest to us that they therein 
more consider their own reputation, and con- 
sequently their profit, than their patients' in- 
terest. He was a much wiser man of their 
tribe, who of old gave it for a rule, that only 
one physician should undertake a sick person ; 
for if he do nothing to purpose, one single 
man's default can bring no great scandal upon 
the profession ; and, on the contrary, the glory 
will be great if he happen to have success; 
whereas, when they are many, they at every 
turn bring a disrepute upon their calling, for- 
asmuch as they often do more hurt than good. 
They ought to be satisfied with the perpetual 
disagreement which is found in the opinions 
of the principal masters and ancient authors of 
this science, which is only known to men well 
read, without discovering to the vulgar the 
controversies and various judgments which they 
still nourish and continue amongst themselves. 
Will you have one example of th* ancient 
controversies in physic? Hero- 
philus 5 lodges the original cause The opposite 
of all diseases in the humours; ^yl\c\an!?il 
Erasistratus, in the blood of the to the cause of 
arteries; Asclepiades, in the in- diseases, a proof 
visible atoms of the pores; Ale- t ajr ^ Sf "their 
meon, in the exuberance or defect science, 
of our bodily strength; Diodes 



« Pliny, Xat. Hist. xxix. I. 

6 Cclsus, Preface to Ike First Book. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



in the equality of the elements of which the 
body is composed, and in the quality of the air 
we suck in ; Strato, in the abundance, crudity, 
and corruption of the nourishment we take; 
and Hippocrates lodges them in the spirits. 
There is a certain friend of theirs, 1 whom they 
know better than I, who declares upon this 
subject, " That the most important science in 
practice amongst us, as that which is entrusted 
with our health and conservation, is by ill luck 
the most uncertain, the most perplexed, and 
agitated with the greatest mutations." There 
is no great danger in being mistaken as to the 
height of the sun, or the fraction of some 
astronomical supputation; but here, where our 
whole being is concerned, 'tis no wisdom to 
abandon ourselves to the mercy of the agitation 
of so many contrary winds. 

Before the Peloponnesian war there was no 

great talk of this science. 2 Hip- 
Physic, when pocrates brought it into repute ; 
br n o'ug„Unt°o m whatever he established Chry- 
credit. sippus overthrew ; after that Era- 

sistratus, Aristotle's grandson, 
overthrew what Chrysippus had written ; after 
these, the empirics started up, who took a quite 
contrary way to the ancients in the manage- 
ment of this art. When the credit of these 
began to decay, Herophilus set another sort of 
practice on foot, which Asclepiades in turn 
stood up against and overthrew. The opinion 
first of Themison, and then of Mnsa ; and after 
that, those of Vectius Valens, a physician famous 
through the intelligence he had with Messa- 
lina, came in vogue ; the empire of physic in 
Nero's time fell to Thessalus, who abolished 
and condemned all that had been held till his 
time; his doctrine was refuted by Crinas of 
Marseilles, who brought all medicinal opera- 
tions under the ephemerides and motions of 
the stars, and reduced eating, sleeping, and 
drinking to hours that were most pleasing to 
Mercury and the moon. His authority was 
soon after supplanted by Charinus, a physician 
of the same city of Marseilles; a man that not 
only controverted all the ancient methods of 
physic, but moreover the use of hot baths, that 
had been generally and so many ages before 
in common use ; he made men bathe in cold 
water even in winter, and plunged his sick 
patients in the natural waters of the stream. 
No Roman till Pliny's time had ever vouch- 
safed to practise physic; that office was only 
pertbrmed by Greeks and foreigners, as 'tis 
now amongst us in French, by those that 
sputter Latin; for, as a great physician says,' 
" We do not readily receive the medicine we 
understand, any more than we do the drugs we 
ourselves gather." If the nations from which 



Pliny, JVar. Hist, x.vxi. 1. 



> Paraccls.is has already been mentioned. Leonard Fio- 



we fetch our guaicum, sarsaparilla, and china 
root, be conversant with medicine, how great a 
value must we imagine, by the same recom- 
mendation of strangeness, rarity, and dear 
purchase, they set upon our cabbage and pars- 
ley 2 For who would dare to contemn things 
so far fetched, and at the hazard of so long 
and dangerous a voyage? 

Since these ancient mutations in physic, there 
have been infinite others down to our own 
times; and, for the most part, such as have 
been entire and universal ; as those, for ex- 
ample, produced by Paracelsus, Fioravanti, 
and Argenterius ; for they, as I am told, not 
only altered recipes, but the whole contex- 
ture and rules of the body of physic, accusing 
all others of ignorance and imposition that 
practised before them. Amongst them all, in 
what a condition the poor patient must be, I 
leave you to judge. 

But if we were yet assured that when they 
mistake themselves, that mistake of theirs would 
do us no harm, though it did us no good, it 
were a reasonable bargain to venture making 
ourselves better, without danger of being made 
worse. 3 iEsop tells a story that one who had 
bought a Morisco slave, believing that his 
black complexion was accidental in him, and 
occasioned by the ill usage of his former master, 
caused him to enter into a course of physic, 
and with great care to be often bathed and 
purged : it happened that the Moor was nothing 
amended in his tawny complexion, but he 
wholly lost his former health. How often do 
we see physicians impute the death of their 
patients to one another] I remember that 
some years ago there was an epidemical disease, 
very dangerous, and for the most part mortal, 
that raged in the towns about us: the storm 
being over, which had swept away an infinite 
number of men, one of the most famous phy- 
sicians of all the country, presently after pub- 
lished a book upon that subject, wherein, upon 
better thoughts, he confesses that the letting of 
blood in that disease was the principal cause of 
so many miscarriages. Moreover, their authors 
hold that there is no physic that has not some- 
thing hurtful in it. And if even those of the 
best operation do in some measure oflend us, 
what must those do that are totally misapplied ! 
For my own part, though there were nothing 
else in the case, I am of opinion that to those 
that loathe the taste of physic it must needs be 
a dangerous and prejudicial endeavour, to force 
it down at so incommodious a time and with sj 
much aversion; and believe that it marv.d- 
lotisly distempers a sick person, at a time when 
lie has so much need of repose. 

And besides this, if we but consider the oc< .- 



ravanti was a physician, alchemist, and charlatan, horn at 
!'.)'. limn, who. after f '• nirislii 11^ in Mv.it i, in.o in It.ch i'.j 
some time, died in I5SS, Jean Arj;eiitier, a man of a luuli.-r 
rhararti r, was horn at tinier in Piedmont, in 1513. and 
tiled at Turin, in 1572. Be distinguished himself more es- 
pecially by his attacks on Galen's i tim i| ks. 



384 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sions upon which they usually 
Physicians very ground the cause of our diseases, 
subject to mis- t hey are so n j ce t hat j thence 
takes, ana their J , , ,:.,, . ., 

pernicious con- conclude a very little error in the 
sequences. dispensation of their drugs, may 

do a great deal of mischief. Now, 
if the mistake of a physician be so dangerous, 
we are but in a scurvy condition ; for it is almost 
impossible but he must often fall into those 
mistakes ; he had need of too many parts, con- 
siderations, and circumstances, rightly to adjust 
his design; he must know the sick person's 
complexion, his temperature, his humours, in- 
clination, actions, nay, his very thoughts and 
imaginations ; he must be assured of the exter- 
nal circumstances, of the nature of the place, 
the quality of the air and season, the situation 
of the planets, and their influences; he must 
know, in the disease, the causes, prognostics, 
affections, and critical days ; in the drugs, the 
weight, the power of working, the country, 
figure, age, and dispensation; and he must 
know how rightly to proportion and mix all 
these together, to beget a just and perfect sym- 
metry ; wherein, if there be the least error, if 
amongst so many springs there be but any one 
out of order, 'tis enough to destroy us. God 
knows of how great difficulty most of these 
things are to be understood. For, for example, 
how shall a physician find out the true sign of 
the disease, every disease being capable of an 
infinite number of indications 1 How many 
doubts and controversies have they amongst 
themselves upon the interpretation of urines! 
Otherwise, whence should the continual debates 
we see amongst them about the knowledge of 
the disease proceed ? How would we excuse 
the error they so often fall into, of taking one 
thing for another 1 In the maladies I have had, 
were there never so little difficulty in the case, 
I never found three of one opinion : which I 
instance, because I love to introduce examples 
wherein I am myself concerned. 

A gentleman at Paris was lately cut for the 
stone, by order of the physicians, in whose 
bladder there was found no more stone than in 
the palm of his hand; and in the same place, 
a bishop, who was my particular good friend, 
was earnestly pressed by the major part of the 
physicians he consulted, to suffer himself to be 
cut, to which also, upon their credit, I used my 
interest to persuade him: when he was dead, 
and opened, it appeared that he had no stone, 
but only a disorder in the kidneys. They are 
least excusable for an error in this disease, by 
reason that it is in some sort palpable ; and 'tis 
by that that I take surgery to be much more 
certain, by reason that it sees and feels what it 
does, and so goes less upon conjecture ; whereas 
the physicians have no speculum matricis, by 
which to discover our brains, lungs, and liver. 

Even the very promises of physic are incre- 
dible in themselves; for, being to provide against 
divers and contrary accidents, that often afflict 
us at one and the same time, and that have 



almost a necessary relation, as the heat of the 
liver and the coldness of the sto- 
mach, they will needs persuade The promises 
us that, of their ingredients, one cians^encraiiy 
will heat the stomach, and the incredible, 
other cool the liver; one has 
its commission to go directly to the reins, nay, 
even to the bladder, without scattering its ope- 
rations by the way, and is to retain its power 
and virtue, through all the stops and meanders, 
to the very place for the service of which it is 
designed, by its own occult property ; another 
will dry the brain ; another moisten the lungs. 
All these things being mixed in one potion, it 
is a kind of madness to imagine or hope that 
these differing virtues should separate them- 
selves from one another in this mixture and 
confusion, to perform so many various errands ; 
I should very much fear that they would either 
lose or change their tickets, and trouble one 
another's quarters. And who can imagine but 
that, in this liquid confusion, these faculties 
must corrupt, confound, and spoil one another 7 
Besides that the making up of this medicine is 
entrusted to the skill and fidelity of another, to 
whose mercy we again abandon our lives ? 

As we have doublet and breeches makers, 
distinct trades, to clothe us, and are so much 
the better fitted, being that each of them 
meddles only with his own business, and has 
less to trouble his head withal than a tailor, 
that undertakes all ; and as in matter of diet 
great persons, for their convenience, and to the 
,end they may be better served, have cooks of 
distinct offices, some for soups and pottages, 
and others for roasting, which one cook, that 
should undertake the whole service, could not 
so well perform ; so for our cures, the Egyp- 
tians had reason to reject this general trade of 
a physician, and to divide the profession ; to 
each peculiar disease, to every part of the 
body, a particular operator ; for that part was 
more properly and with less confusion provided 
for, being they especially regarded only that. 
Ours are not aware that he who provides for 
all provides for nothing; and that the entire 
government of this microcosm is more than 
they are able to undertake. Whilst they were 
afraid of stopping a looseness, lest they should 
put him into a fever, they killed me a friend 
that was worth more than the whole pack of 
them put together. 1 They counterpoise their 
own divinations with the present evils, and 
because they will not cure the brain to the pre- 
judice of the stomach, they offend both with 
their discordant and tumultuary drugs. 

As to the variety and weakness of the reasons 
of this art, it is more manifest in 
this than in any other. Ape- X.ain.y™? 
ritive medicines are proper for a the reasons on 



son that opening and dilating the grounded, 
he' 



i The author here aeain refers 
who died of a dysentery in 15b3. 



passages, they help forward the 



Stephen de la Boe'tie, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



385 



slimy matter whereof gravel and the stone are 
engendered, and convey that downward which 
begins 'o harden and gather in the reins: ape- 
ritive things are dangerous for a man subject to 
the stone, by reason that opening and dilating 
the passage, they help forward toward the reins 
the matter proper to create the stone, which, 
by their own propension that way, being apt to 
seize it, 'tis not to be imagined but that a great 
deal of what has been so conveyed thither must 
remain behind; moreover if the medicine hap- 
pen to meet any thing too large to be carried 
through all those narrow passages it must pass 
to be expelled, that obstruction, whatever it is, 
being stirred by these aperitive things, and 
thrown into those narrow passages, coming to 
stop them, will occasion a most certain and 
most painful death. They have the like con- 
sistency in the advices they give us for the regi- 
men of life : it is good to make water often, tor 
we experimentally see that, in letting it lie long 
in the bladder, we give it time to settle the 
sediment, which will concrete into a stone : it 
is not good to make water often, for the heavy 
excrements it carries along with it will not be 
voided without violence, as we see, by experi- 
ence, that a torrent that runs with force washes 
the ground it rolls over, much clearer than the 
course of a slow and tardy stream. Likewise 
it is good to have often to do with women, for 
that opens the passages, and helps to evacuate 
gravel: it is not good to have often to do with 
women, because it heats, tires, and weakens the 
reins. It is good to bathe frequently in hot 
waters, forasmuch as that refreshes and mollifies 
the place where the gravel and stone lie; and 
it is also ill, by reason that this application of 
external heat helps the reins to bake, harden, 
and petrify the matter so disposed. For those 
who are at the bath, it is most healthful to eat 
little at night, to the end that the waters they 
are to drink the next morning may have the 
better operation upon an empty stomach : on 
the contrary, it is better to eat little at dinner, 
that it hinder not the operation of the waters, 
which is not yet perfect, and not to oppress the 
stomach so soon after the other labour, but leave 
the office of digestion to the night, which will 
much better perform it than the day, where the 
body and soul are in perpetual motion and 
action. Thus do they juggle and cant in all 
their discourses at our expense, and cannot give 
one proposition against which I cannot erect a 
contrary of equal force. Let them, then, no 
longer exclaim against those who in tins trouble 
of sickness suffer themselves to be gently guided 
by their own appetite and the advice of nature, 
and commit themselves to the common fortune. 
I have seen in my travels, almost all the 

™. ,. , famous baths of Christendom, and 

Jin- ii-ciulncss /■ , , 

of buths. for some years past have begun to 

make use of them myself; for I 
look upon bathing as generally wholesome, and 
believe that we suffer no little inconvenience in 
our health, by having left off the custom that 



was generally observed in former times, almost 
by all nations, and is yet in many, of bathing 
every day ; and I cannot imagine but that we 
are much the worse by having our limbs crusted 
and our pores stopped with dirt. And as to the 
drinking of them, fortune has, in the first place, 
rendered them not at all unacceptable to my 
taste; and, secondly, they are natural and 
simple, which at least carry no danger with 
them, though they do us no good ; of which, 
the infinite crowd of people of all sorts of com- 
plexions that repair thither, I take to be a suf- 
ficient guarantee : and although 1 have not 
there observed any extraordinary and mira- 
culous effects; but, on the contrary, having 
more narrowly than ordinary inquired into it, 
I have found all the reports of such opera- 
tions that have been spread abroad in those 
places, ill grounded and false, and those that 
believe them (as people are willing to be gulled 
in what they desire) deceived in them ; yet I 
have seldom known any that have been made 
worse by those waters, and a man cannot 
honestly deny but that they beget a better 
appetite, help digestion, and do in some sort 
revive us, if we do not go too late, and in too 
weak a condition, which I would dissuade 
every one from doing; they have not the virtue 
to raise men from desperate and inveterate dis- 
eases, but they may help some light indisposition 
or prevent some threatening alteration. He 
who does not bring along with him so much 
cheerfulness as to enjoy the pleasure of the 
company he will there meet, and of the walks 
and exercises to which the beauty of the places 
in which baths for the most part are situated 
invites us, will doubtless lose the best and 
surest part of their effect For this reason I 
have hitherto chosen to go to those of the 
most pleasant situation, where there was the 
most convenience of lodging, provision, and 
company ; as the baths of Banieres in France ; 
those of Ploinbieres in the frontiers of Germany 
and Lorrain ; those of Baden in Switzerland ; 
those of Lucca in Tuscany ; and especially those 
of Delia Villa, which I have the most, and at 
several seasons, frequented. 

Every nation has particular opinions touching 
their use, and several rules and 
methods in using them, and all Every nation 
of them, according to what I "i'ciMar use'of 
have seen, almost of like effect, baths. 
Drinking them is not at all 
received in Germany: for all diseases they 
bathe only, and will lie dabbling in the water 
almost from sun to sun. In Italy, where they 
drink nine days, they bathe at least thirty, and 
commonly drink the water mixed with some 
other drugs, to make it work the better: we 
are here ordered to walk to digest it; there 
they are kept in bed after taking it till it be 
wrought off, their stomachs and feet have 
continually hot cloths applied to them all the 
while: and as the Germans have a particular 
practice, generally to use cupping and scarifies- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



tion in the bath, so the Italians have .their 
doccie, which are certain little streams of this 
hot water brought through pipes, with which 
they bathe an hour in the morning and as much 
in the afternoon, for a month together, either 
the head, stomach, or any other part where 
the malady lies. There are infinite other va- 
rieties of customs in every country, or rather 
there is hardly any manner of resemblance to 
one another. By which you may see that this 
part of physic, to which alone I have sub- 
mitted, though the least depending upon art 
of all others, has yet a great share of the 
confusion and uncertainty everywhere else 
manifest in the profession. 

The poets say whatever they please with 
greater emphasis and grace ; witness these two 
epigrams: 

Alcon hestsrno signum Jovis attigit : ille 
Quainvis marmoreus, vim patitur ntedici. 

Ecce houie, jussus iraiisferri ex tede vetusta, 
Effiirtur, quamvis sit deus atque lapis.' 

Alcon 2 did yesterday Jove's statue touch. 
Which, although marble, suffer'd by 't so much 
That now to-day 'tis ordered that it should 
tie taken from th' old temple where it stood; 
Which, as was need, without delay was done, 
Although he was a god, and made of stone." 

And the other, 



nobiscum est, hilaris ninvil ; et idem 
ntes mane est mortuus Andragoras. 
ubita> mortis causain, Faustinc, requiris? 
iderat Hermocratem.a 



in somnis medii 



Andragoras batb'd, supp'd, and went well to bed 
Last iii'/ht, but in the morning was found dead; 
Would'st know, Faustinus, what was his disease? 
He dreaming saw the quack, Hermocrates. 

Upon which I will relate two stories: — 

The Baron of Caupene in Chalosse and I 

have betwixt us the advowson of 
Two pleasant i c c .. ^ i 

stories a-ainst a benefice of great extent, at the 
the practice of foot of our mountains, called 
phySnT h«°ntan. , * is with the in- 

habitants of this nook as 'tis said 
of those of the vale of Angrougne: they lived 
a life apart, their fashions, clothes, and manners 
distinct from other people ; were ruled and 
governed by certain particular laws and customs 
received from father to son, to which they sub- 
mitted, without other constraint than the reve- 
rence to custom. This little state had continued 
from all antiquity in so happy a condition that 
no neighbouring judge was ever put to the 
trouble of enquiring into their doings, no advo- 
cate ever retained" to give them counsel, nor 
stranger ever called in" to compose their differ- 
ences, nor was ever any of them seen to beg. 
They avoided all alliances and traffic with the 
other world, that they might not corrupt the 
purity of their own government; till, as they 
say, one of them, in the memory of their fathers, 
having a mind spurred on with noble ambition, 
contrived, in order to bring his name into credit 



and reputation, to make one of his sons some- 
thing more than ordinary; and having put him to 
learn to write, made him at last a village notary. 
This fellow, being thus puffed up, began to 
disdain their ancient customs, and to put into 
the people's ears the pomp of the other parts of 
the nation : the first prank he played was to 
advise a friend of his, whom somebody had 
offended by sa wing off the horns of one of his 
goats, to make his complaint to the king's 
judges thereabout; and so he went on in this 
practice, till he spoiled all. In the tail of this 
corruption, they say, there happened another, 
and of worse consequence, by means of a phy- 
sician, who took it into his head to marry one 
of their daughters, and to live amongst them. 
This man first of all began to teach them the 
name of fevers, rheums, and imposthumes, the 
seat of the heart, liver, and intestines, a science 
till then utterly unknown to them : and instead 
of garlic, with which they were wont to cure 
all manner of diseases, how painful or extreme 
soever, he taught them, though it were but for 
a cough, or any little cold, to take strange 
mixtures, and began to make a trade not only 
of their healths, but of their lives. They swear 
that till then they never perceived the evening 
air to be offensive to the head, that to drink 
when they were hot was hurtful, or that the 
winds of autumn were more unwholesome than 
those of the spring: that since this use of 
physic they find themselves oppressed with a 
legion of unaccustomed diseases, and that they 
perceive a general decay in their wonted vigour, 
and their lives cut shorter by the half. This 
is the first of my stories. 

The other is, that before I was afflicted with 
the stone, hearing that the blood of a he-goat 
was with many in very great esteem, and looked 
upon as a celestial manna., rained down upon 
these latter ages for the good and preserva- 
tion of the lives of men, and having heard it 
spoken of by men of understanding for an 
admirable drug, and of infallible operation : I, 
who have ever thought myself subject to all 
the accidents that can befal other men, had a 
mind, in my perfect health, to furnish myself 
with this admirable medicine, and therefore 
gave order to have a goat fed at home, ac- 
cording to the receipt; for he must be taken 
in the hottest month of all summer, and must 
only have aperitive herbs given to eat, and 
white wine to drink. I came home by chance 
the very day he was to be killed; and one 
came and told me that the cook had found 
two or three great balls in his paunch, that 
rattled against one another amongst what he 
had eaten : I was curious to have all his en- 
trails brought before me, where, having caused 
the skin that enclosed them to be cut, there 
tumbled out three great lumps, as light as 
sponges, so that they appeared to be hollow ; 



Ausonins, Epitr- Ixxiv. 
1 A celebrated physician. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



387 



but as to the rest, hard and firm without, spot- 
ted and mixed all over with various colours; 
one was perfectly round, and of the bigness of 
an ordinary bowl; and the other two some- 
thing less, of an imperfect roundness, as seeming 
not to be arrived at their full growth. I find, 
by inquiry of people accustomed to open these 
animals, that it is a rare and unusual accident. 
'Tis likely these are stones of the same nature 
with ours; and if so it must needs be a very 
vain hope in those who have the stone, to extract 
their cure from the blood of a beast who was 
himself to die of the same disease. For to say 
that the blood does not participate of this con- 
tagion, and does not alter its wonted virtue, it 
is rather to be believed that nothing is engen- 
dered in a body but by the conspiracy and 
communion of all the parts; the whole mass 
works together, though one part contributes 
more than another, according to the diversity 
of operations ; wherefore it is very likely that 
there was some petrifying quality in all the 
parts of this goat. It was not so much for fear 
of the future, and for fear of myself, that I was 
curious of this experiment, but because it falls 
out in mine, as it does in many other families, 
that the women store up such little trumpery 
drugs for the service of the people, using the 
same receipt in fifty several diseases, such a re- 
ceipt as they will not take themselves, and yet 
triumph in their successes. 

For the rest, I honour physicians, not, 
according to the precept, 1 for ne- 

ulfof e™ r ' cessit y ( for to t,iis p assa s e ma y 

and why. be opposed another of the prophet, 

reproving King Asa for having 
recourse to a physician 2 ), but for themselves, 
having known many very good men of that 
profession, and most worthy to be beloved. I 
do not attack them; 'tis their art I inveigh 
against, and do not much blame them for mak- 
ing their advantage of our folly, for most men 
do the same. Many callings, both of greater 
and less dignity than theirs, have no other foun- 
dation or support than public abuse. When I 
am sick I send for them, if they be near, only 
to have their company, and fee them as others 
do. I give them leave to command me to keep 
myself warm, because I naturally love to do it; 
to appoint leeks or lettuce for my broth, and 
to order me white wine or claret, and so all 
other things at their own pleasure, which are 
indifferent to my palate and custom. 1 know 
very well that I do nothing for them in su 
doing, because sharpness and ill-pleasing tastes 
are incidents of the very essence of physic. 
Lycurgus ordered wine for the sick Spartans; 
why] Because they abominated the drinking 
of it when they were well: as a gentleman, a 
neighbour of mine, takes it for a rare medi- 
cine in his fever, because that naturally he 



mortally hates the taste. How 

many do we see amonjrst them Physicians 

/. J , ., . i • . i - h-i'Ioiii use me- 

of my humour, that despise taking dicinai drags 
of physic themselves, are men of themselves, 
liberal diet, and live a quite con- 
trary sort of life to what they prescribe others ? 
What is this, but flatly to abuse our simplicity 1 
For their own lives and healths are no less dear 
to them than ours are to us, and consequently 
they would accommodate their effects to their 
own rules, if they did not themselves know how 
false they are. 

'Tis the fear of death and pain, an impatience 
of the disease, and a violent and indiscreet de- 
sire of a present cure, that so blinds us ; 'tis pure 
cowardice that makes our belief so pliable and 
easy to be imposed upon. And yet most men 
do not so much believe as they acquiesce and 
permit, for I hear them find fault and complain 
as well as we; but they resolve at last, "What 
should I do then?" As if impatience were of 
itself a better remedy than patience. Is there 
any one of those who have suffered themselves 
to be persuaded into this miserable subjection, 
that does not equally surrender himself to all 
sorts of impostures; who does not give up him- 
self to the mercy of whoever has the impudence 
to promise him a cure? The Ba- 
bylonians carried their sick into Tne si ? l Il 1 , er -, 

./ ... , ., . • • sonsoi Babylon 

the public place, the physician exposed in the 
was the people ; every one that market-place, 
passed by being, in humanity and 
civility, obliged to inquire of their condition, 
and give some advice according to his own 
experience. 3 We do little better, there being 
no so silly a woman whose charms and quack- 
eries we do not make use of, and according to 
my humour, if I were to take physic, I would 
sooner choose to take theirs than any other, 
because at least, if it does no good, it will do 
no harm. What Homer 4 and Plato said of the 
Egyptians, that they were all physicians, may 
be said of all nations; there is no person that 
does not boast of some rare recipe, and who will 
not venture it upon his neighbour, if he will 
permit him. I was the other day in company, 
where some one of my fraternity 6 told us of a 
new sort of pills, made up of a hundred and odd 
ingredients. It made us very merry, and was 
a singular consolation, for what rock could 
withstand so great a battery 1 And yet I hear, 
by those who made trial of it, that the least 
atom of gravel will not stir for it. 

I cannot take my hand from Oj»« wtoii the 
the paper before I have added a found their 
word or two more concerning the pretended 
assurance they give us of the in- ,b n e Jjrt U ! e f f 
fallibility of their drugs, and the their drugs. 
experiments they have made. 
The greatest part, I think above two-thirds, 
of the medicinal virtues, consist in the quint- 



' llonora mnlicum propter neecssitatcm.—Eccl. xxxviii. 1. 
'J JW<- in inf.rmitatc sua qutmiril. JJomhium, srd mngis in 
icdicorum arte coiifaua est.— Paralipomeu, ii. lli. 13, 



i Herod, i. 107. Rtralio, xvi. 

i OiIijssci/, iv. 231. .. • 

■ Meaning that were troubled « ittnhe stone. 



388 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



essence or occult property of simples, of which 
we can have no other instruction than use ; for 
quintessence is no other than a quality of which 
we cannot, by our reason, find out the cause. 
In such proofs, those they pretend to have ac- 
quired by the inspiration of some demon, I am 
content to receive (for I meddle not with 
miracles) ; as also the proofs which are drawn 
from thing's that, upon some other account, often 
fall into use amongst us; as if in wool, where- 
with we are wont to clothe ourselves, there have 
accidentally some occult desiccative property 
been found out of curing kibed heels, or as if 
in the radish we eat for food there have been 
found out some aperitive operation. Galen 
reports that a man happened to be cured of a 
leprosy by drinking wine out of a vessel into 
which a viper had crept by chance. In this 
example we find the means and a very likely 
guide and conduct to this experience, as we 
also do in those the physicians say they have 
been directed to by the example of some beasts: 
but in most of their other experiments, wherein 
they declare themselves to have been conducted 
by fortune, and to have had no other guide than 
chance, I find the progress of this information 
incredible. I take a man looking round about 
him upon the infinite number of things, plants, 
animals, and metals, and I do not know where 
he would begin his trial ; and though his first 
fancy should fix him upon an elk's horn, where- 
in he must give a very gentle and easy belief, 
he will yet find himself perplexed in his second 
operation ; there are so many maladies, and so 
many circumstances laid before him, that before 
he can arrive at the certainty of the point to 
which the perfection of his experience should 
arrive, human sense will be at the end of its 
lesson; and before he can, amongst this infinity 
of things, find out what this horn is; amongst 
so many diseases, what is epilepsy; the many 
complexions in a melancholic person, the many 
seasons in winter, the many nations in the 
French, the many ages in age, the many celes- 
tial mutations in the conjunction of Venus and 
Saturn, and the many parts in man's body, 
nay, in a finger: being in all this directed 
neither by argument, conjectures, example, nor 
divine inspirations, but merely by the sole mo- 
tion of fortune ; it must be by a perfectly arti- 
ficial, regular, and methodical fortune. And 
after the cure is performed, how can he assure 
himself that it was not because the disease was 
arrived at its period ? or an effect of chance ? 
or the operation of something the patient had 
eaten, drunk, or touched that day? or by virtue 
of his grandmother's prayers 1 And, moreover, 
had this experiment been perfect, how many 
times was it reiterated, and this long beadroll 
of fortunes and encounters strung anew from 
chance, to conclude a certain rule'! And when 
the rule is concluded, by whom, I pray you? 
Of so many millions, there are but three men 



' Margaret de Grammont, widow of Jean dp Durfort, 
tii,'n( in ile JJuras, from whose brother, James, is descended 
%; family of the Pukes of Lorges. 



who take upon them to record their experiments. 
And must chance needs just meet one of these? 
What if another, and a hundred others, have 
made contrary experiments? We might, per- 
haps, have some light in this, were all the 
judgments and arguments of men known to us: 
but that three witnesses, three doctors, should 
lord it over all mankind, is against all reason: 
it were fit that human nature should have 
deputed and culled them out, and that they 
were declared our controllers by express letters 
patent. 

To Madame de Dubas. 1 

"Madam, — The last time you came to see 
me you found me at work upon this chapter, 
and as these trifles may some time or other 
happen to fall into your ladyship's hands, 1 
would have them bear witness of the great 
honour which the author will feel in any favour 
you shall please to show them. You will here 
find the same air and manner you have observed 
in his conversation. And though I could have 
borrowed some better and more favourable dress 
than my own, I would not have done it, for I 
require nothing more of these writings but to 
present me to your memory such as I naturally 
am. The same conditions and faculties your 
ladyship has been pleased to frequent and 
receive with much more honour and courtesy 
than they deserve, I will put together, but 
without alteration, in one solid body, that may 
perhaps continue some years, or some days, 
after I am gone; where you may find them 
again when you shall please to refresh your 
memory, without putting you to any greater 
trouble; neither are they worth it: I desire 
that you should continue the favour of your 
friendship to me by the same qualities by which 
it was acquired. I am not ambitious that any 
one should love and esteem me more dead than 
living. The humour of Tiberius 2 is ridiculous, 
but yet common, who was more solicitous to 
extend his renown to posterity, than to render 
himself acceptable to men of his own time. If 
I was one of those to whom the world could 
owe commendation, I would acquit the one half 
to have the other in hand, that 
their praises might come quick {S^ent' 6 ' 
and crowding about me, more esteem to that 
thick than long, more full than ^ h u ' 3 spost ' 
durable; and let them cease, in 
God's name, with my knowledge, and when 
the sweet sound can no longer pierce my ears. 
It would be an idle humour to go about, now 
that I am going to forsake the commerce of 
men, to offer myself to them by a new recom- 
mendation. I make no account of the goods 
I could not employ in the service of my life. 
And such as I am, I will be it elsewhere than 
on paper : my art and industry have been ever 
directed to render me good for something; and* 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



my studies to teach me to do, and not to write. 
I have made it my whole business to frame my 
life; this has been rny trade and my work: I 
am less a writer of books than any thing else. 
I have coveted understanding for the service of 
my present and real conveniences, and not to 
lay up a stock for my posterity. He that has 
any thing of value in him, let him make it 
appear in his manners, in his ordinary dis- 
courses, in his courtships and his quarrels, in 
play, in bed, at table, in the management of 
his affairs, in his domestic economy ; those that 
I see make good books in ill breeches should 
first have mended their breeches, if they would 
have been ruled by me. Ask a Spartan whe- 
ther he had rather be a good orator or a good 
soldier"! And if I was asked the same question, 
I would rather choose to be a good cook, had 
I not one already to serve me. Good God ! 
madam, how should I hate the reputation of 
being a pretty fellow at writing, and an ass 
and a sot in every thing else. Yet I had rather 
be a fool in any thing than to have made so ill 
a choice wherein to employ my talent. And I 
am so far from expecting to gain any new repu- 
tation by these follies, that I shall think I come 
off pretty well, if I lose nothing by them of 
that little I had before; for besides that this 
mute and dead painting will take from my 
natural being, it has no resemblance to my 
better condition, but is much lapsed from my 
former vigour and cheerfulness, and looks faded 
and withered. I am towards the bottom of the 
barrel, which begins to taste of the lees. 

"And for the rest, madam, I should not have 
dared to make so bold with the mysteries of 
physic, considering the esteem that you and so 
many others have of it, had I not had encou- 
ragement from their own authors. I believe 
they have only two ancient Latin writers, Pliny 
and Celsus : if these ever fall into your hands, 
you will find that they speak much more rudely 
of their art than I do ; I but pinch it, they cut 
its throat. Pliny, 1 amongst other things, twits 
them with this, that when they are at the end 
of the rope, that is, when they have done the 
utmost of what they are able to do, they have a 
pretty device to save themselves, of recom- 
mending their patients, whom they teased and 
tormented with drugs and diets to no purpose, 
some to vows and miracles, and others to hot 
baths. (Be not angry, madam; he speaks not 
of the baths in these parts which are under the 
protection of your house, and are altogether 
Gramontin). They have, besides, another way 
of saving their credit, of ridding their hands of 
us, and securing themselves from the reproaches 
we might cast "in their teeth of our little amend- 
ment, when they have had us so long in their 
hands, that they have not one more invention left 
wherewith to amuse us; which is, to send us to 
the better air of some other country. This, 
madam, is enough ; you will give me leave to 



return to my former discourse, from which I so 
far digressed, to have a little chat with you. 

It was, I think, Pericles, who being asked 
how he did ! " You may judge," 
says he, "by these," showing In what a con- 
some little amulets he had tied te'.T eve7he 
about his neck and arms. 2 By put himself 
which he would infer that he i ^ l ^^ B 
must needs be very sick when he ciana.' 
was reduced to having recourse 
to such idle and vain fopperies, and to suffering 
himself to be so furnished. I do not say I 
may not one day be so much a fool as to commit 
my life and health to the mercy and govern- 
ment of physicians. I may fall into such frenzy. 
I cannot answer for my future constancy: but 
then, if any one ask me how I do? I may also 
answer as Pericles did, "You may judge by 
this," showing my hand laden with six drams 
of opiate. It will be a very evident sign 
of a violent sickness; and my judgment will be 
very much out of order: if once fear and im- 
patience get such an advantage over me, it may 
very well be concluded that there is a dreadful 
fever in my mind. 

I have taken the pains to plead this cause, 
which I little enough understand, a little to 
back and support the natural aversion to drugs 
and the practice of physic, I have derived from 
my ancestors : to the end it may not be a mere 
stupid and temerarious aversion, but have a 
little more form; and also that they who shall 
see me so obstinate in my resolution against all 
exhortation and menaces that shall be given 
me, when my infirmity shall press hardest upon 
me, may not think 'tis mere /obstinacy in me: 
or any one so ill-natured as to judge it to be 
any motive of glory; for it would be a strange 
ambition to seek to gain honour by an action 
my gardener or my groom can perform as well 
as I. Certainly I have not a heart so tumorous 
and windy that I should exchange so solid 
a pleasure as health for an airy and imaginary 
pleasure. Glory, even that of the four sons of 
Aymon, is too dear bought to a man of my 
humour, if it cost him three swinging fits of the 
stone. Give me health, in God's iaine ! Such 
as love physic may also have great and con- 
vincing considerations; I do not hate opinions 
contrary to my own: I am so far from being 
angry to see a disagreement betwixt mine and 
other men's judgments, and from rendering 
myself unfit for the society of men, by being of 
another sense and party than mine, that on the 
contrary (the most general way that nature lias 
followed being variety, and more in souls than 
bodies, forasmuch as they are of a more supple 
substance, and more susceptible of forms), I 
find it much more rare to see our humours and 
designs jump and agree. And there never were 
in the world two opinions alike, no more than 
two hairs or two grains: the most universal 
quality is diversity. 



83< 



1 Pliny, xxix. 1. 



l'lularch, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



THE THIRD BOOK. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF PROFIT AND HONESTY. 

No man is free from saying silly things; but 
the misfortune is when we endeavour to give 
them an air of importance : 

Nsb iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.i 

"The man, in troth, with much ado, 
Has proved that one and one make two." 

This no way regards me: mine escape me 
with as much indifference as they are little 
worth: and so much the better: I would im- 
mediately part with them for what they cost 
me, and neither buy nor sell them but according 
to their weight ; I write as I speak in common 
conversation ; and that this is true, I here give 
you an example. 

To whom ought not perfidy to be hateful, when 

even Tiberius himself refused it 
re^cted'bv in an affair of the greatest 

Tiberius. portance to him'? Advice was 

sent him from Germany that, if 
he thought fit, they would rid him of Arminius 
by poison : 2 Arminius, the greatest and most 
powerful enemy the Romans had to deal with, 
who had destroyed their legions under the con- 
duct of Varus, and was the only obstacle to the 
enlargement of their dominions in that country. 
But Tiberius made answer, " That the Romans 
were used to take vengeance on their enemies 
by open and honourable means, with their 
swords in their hands, and not by fraud 1 and 
deceit." Here utility and policy gave place to 
honesty. You will tell me that he was an im- 
pudent deceiver himself, and spoke contrary to 
his sentiments : I believe he did : it is no great 
miracle in men of his profession. But the 
acknowledgment due to virtue is not the less 
valid for being found in the mouth of a bad 
man; inasmuch as truth wrings it from him, 
and though he will not receive it in his heart, 
he at least wears it as a useful disguise. 

Our outward and inward frame is full of 
imperfection; but there is nothing useless in 
nature, not even inutility itself: nothing hav- 
ing slipped into this universe that does not 
possess some proper place in it. Our being is 
cemented with sickly qualities: ambition, jea- 
lousy, envy, revenge, superstition, and despair, 
have so natural- a possession in us, that the 
image is discerned in beasts ; even that unna- 
tural vice cruelty itself; for, though ever so 
compassionate, we feel within I know not what 
tart, sweet, malicious pleasure in seeing others 
suffer: children themselves feel it: 



Suave mari magno, turbantibus ffiquora ventis, 
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem :» 



whoever should divest man of the seeds of 
these qualities would destroy the fundamental 
conditions of human life. So in 



le, but vicious too : vices have 
there a place, and help to make up the seam in 
our piecing, as poisons are useful for the pre- 
servation of health. If they become excusable 
because they are of use to us, and that the 
common necessity covers their true qualities, 
we are to resign this part to the most robust 
and least fearful of the people, who sacrifice 
their honour and conscience, as others of old 
sacrificed their lives for the good of their coun- 
try ; we who are weaker take upon us the parts 
that are both more easy and less hazardous. 
The public good requires that men should 
betray, and lie, and murder; but let us leave 
this commission to those that are more pliable 
and obedient. 

Certes, I have often been vexed to see judges 
impudently making use of fraud and false hopes 
of pardon and favour to cozen a poor criminal 
into a confession of the fact alleged against 
him. It would become justice, and Plato him- 
self, who countenances this manner of proceed- 
ing, to furnish me with other means more 
worthy of my approbation : this is a malicious 
justice, and I look upon it as no less violated by 
itself, than by others. I replied to one, not long 
since, that I who should hardly be drawn in to 
betray my prince for any private man, should be 
very much ashamed to betray any private man 
for my prince : and I do not only hate being a 
deceiver myself, but that any one should de- 
ceive me or others by my means; I will neither 
afford matter nor occasion to any such thing. 

In the little I have had to negotiate betwixt 
our princes, 4 in the divisions and subdivisions by 
which we are at this time torn to 
pieces, I have been very careful Montai f" 1 | r a 
that they should neither be de- conse'enced 
ceived in me, nor deceive others negotiator, 
by me. People of that sort of 
trade are very reserved, and pretend to be the 
most moderate imaginable, and to chime in as 
much as possible with the opinion of those with 
whom they have to do; but, for my part, I 
show myself in my true opinion, and in a form 
as much my own as I can : a novice and raw 
negotiator, I had rather fail in the affair I am 
about, than be wanting to myself. And yet 



i Terent. Heuut. iii. 5, 8. 
» Tacitus. Snnal. ii. 88. 
3 Luoret. ii. 1. 



« Between the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. 
of France, and the Duke of Guise, Henry of Lorraine. See 
De Thou, de Vila, Sua. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



391 



I have hitherto had the good luck (for fortune 
has doubtless the best share in it), that little has 
passed from hand to hand with less suspicion, 
or with more favour and secresy. I have a free 
and open way that easily insinuates itself, and 
obtains belief with those with whom I am to 
deal, at the first meeting. Sincerity, and pure 
truth, in what age soever, find their opportunity 
and advantage; and besides, the liberty and 
freedom of a man, who treats without any in- 
terest of his own, is never hateful or suspected ; 
and he may very well make use of the answer 
of Hyperides to the Athenians, who complained 
of his harsh way of speaking to them: t Gen- 
tlemen, do not consider whether or no I am 
free-spoken, but whether I am so without a bribe, 
and without any advantage to my own affairs." 1 
My freedom of speech has also easily acquit- 
ted me from all suspicion of dissembling; my 
vehemency leaving nothing unsaid, how home 
and bitter soever (so that I could not have said 
worse behind their backs), and carrying along 
with it a manifest show of simplicity and indif- 
ference. I pretend to no other fruit by acting 
than to act, and add to it no long windings-up, 
nor proposals; every action plays its own game; 
win if it can. 

As to the rest, I am not biassed by any pas- 
sion, either of love or hatred towards the great, 
nor have my will fettered either by particular 
injury or obligation. I look upon our kings 
with an affection simply loyal and respectful, 
neither prompted on, nor restrained by, any 
private interest, and I love myself for it. 
Neither does the general or just cause attract 
me otherwise than with moderation, and with- 
out animosity. I am not subject to all-in-all, 
thorough-going engagements. Anger and hatred 
are beyond the duty of justice ; and are passions 
only useful to those who do not keep them- 
selves strictly to their duty by simple reason: 
Utnlur molu animi qui uti ratione non potest. 
"He only employs his passion that can make 
no use of his reason." All lawful and equitable 
intentions are moderate and equable of them- 
selves; if otherwise, they degenerate into sedi- 
tious and unlawful : this is it which makes me 
walk every where witli my head erect, my face 
and heart open. To confess the truth, and I 
am not afraid to confess it, I should easily, in 
case of need, light up one candle to St. Michael, 
and another to his dragon, like the old woman ; 
I will follow the right cause even to the fire; 
but without the fire if I can. Let Montaigne be 
overwhelmed in the public ruin if need be ; but 
if there be no need, I should think myself 
obliged to fortune that saves him; and I will 
make use of all the length of line my duty 
allows for his preservation. Was it not Atticus 



» Plutarch, On the Difference between a Flatterer and a 
Friend. 
•J Cicero, Tusr. Quecs. iv. 25. 
' Ncpos, in rilii. 

* Livy, xxxii. 21. The words in the text are somewhat 
different. 



who, being of the just but losing side, preserved 
himself by his moderation in that universal 
shipwreck of the world, amongst 'so many 
changes and revolutions? 3 In private men, 
such as he, it is much easier ; and, in such sort 
of business, T find a man may justly be ambi- 
tious not to be meddling. 

For a man, indeed, to be wavering and 
irresolute, to keep his affections 
unmoved and without inclination, 11( !it ni !j Imnour- 
in the troubles of his country, ahie nor honest 
and a public division, I neither |J a cFwi'war 61 
think handsome nor honest: — 
Ea non media, sed nulla via est, velut eventvm 
expectant him, quo fortunse consilia sua appli- 
cent.* "That is not a middle way, but no 
way, to expect events and refer their resolutions 
to fortune." This may be allowed in our 
neighbours' affairs ; and Gelo, tyrant of Syra- 
cuse, suspended his inclination in this way, 
betwixt the Greeks and barbarians, keeping an 
ambassador, residing with presents at Delphos, 
to lie and watch to see which way fortune 
would incline, and then take immediate oppor- 
tunity to fall in with the victors. 6 It would be 
a kind of treason to proceed after this manner 
in our own domestic affairs, wherein we must 
of necessity be of the one side or the other ; 
though I hold it more excusable for a man to 
sit still, when he has no office or command to 
call him out to action, except in foreign expe- 
ditions; to which, however, according to our 
laws, no man is pressed ajrainst his will : and 
yet I don't excuse myself upon these terms. 
Even those who wholly engage themselves in 
such a war may behave themselves with so 
much moderation and temper that the storm 
may fly over their heads without doing them 
any harm. Had we not reason to expect such 
an issue in the person of the Sieur de Morvil- 
liers late Bishop of Orleans] 6 And I know 
several who, though they behave themselves 
with the greatest courage and vigour in the 
present war, whose manners are yet so gentle, 
obliging, and just, that they will cfertainly 
stand firm, whatever event heaven is preparing 
for us. I am of opinion that it properly 
belongs to kings only to quarrel with kings ; 
and laugh at those bully-rooks that, out of 
wantonness of courage, put themselves forward 
in so disproportioned disputes: for a man has 
never the more particular quarrel with a prince 
for marching openly and boldly against him, 
for his own honour and according to his duty: 
if the latter does not love such a person, he does 
better, he has an esteem for him ; and the cause 
of defending the laws, and the ancient govern- 
ment of a kingdom, has this always especially 
annexed to it, that even those who, for their 



6 Herod, vii. 103. 

Jean de Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans and Keeper of 
the Seals of France, horn at Hlois in l.1(X">. died at Tours in 
lfi?T. Mr tool; an active part in the trealy oiCanilnny and 
tin- I 'iMiin-il of Trent, lie was a war in friend of the Guise, 
or Anti-reform party, but was never yuilty of persecution. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



own private interest, invade them, excuse, if 
they do not honour the defenders. 

But we ought not, as the fashion is at pre- 
sent, to honour with the name of 
guised under duty, that peevishness and inward 
the name of discontent which spring from 
virtues. private interest and passion ; nor 

call treacherous and malicious conduct courage. 
People give the name of zeal to their propen- 
sity to mischief and violence, though it is not 
the cause, but their interest, that inflames them ; 
they kindle and begin a war, not because it is 
just, but because it is war. 

Nothing hinders a man from behaving him- 
self discreetly, without any breach of his loyalty, 
amongst the adverse party; carry yourself 
then, if not with the same equal affection (for 
that is capable of different measures), at least 
with an affection moderate, well tempered, and 
such as shall not so engage you to one party 
that it may claim all you are able to do for it, 
and content yourself also with a moderate pro- 
portion of their favour, and swim in troubled 
waters, without fishing in them. 

The other way of offering a man's self, and 
the utmost service he is able to do, both to one 
party and the other, has yet in it less of pru- 
dence than conscience. Does not he to whom 
you betray another, by whom you were as 
welcomed as by himself, know that you will at 
another time do as much for him 1 He holds 
you for a villain ; and in the mean time hears 
what you will say, gathers intelligence from 
you, and works his own ends out of your dis- 
loyalty; for double-dealing men are useful in 
bringing in, but we must have a care they 
carry out as little as possible. 

I say nothing to one party which I may not 
upon occasion say to the other, with perhaps a 
little alteration of accent; and report nothing 
but things either indifferent or known, or what 
is of common consequence. I cannot suffer 
myself, for any consideration, to tell them a 
lie. What is entrusted to my secresy I reli- 
giously conceal ; but I take as few trusts of that 
nature upon me as I can ; the secrets of princes 
are a troublesome burden to such as are not 
interested in them. I very willingly capitulate 
that they trust me with little, but that they 
confidently rely upon what I tell them. I 
have ever known more than I desired. One 
open way of speaking opens another open way 
of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like 
wine and love. Philippides, in my opinion, 
answered King Lysimachus very discreetly, 
who asking him what part of his estate he 
should bestow upon him, — "What you will," 
said he, " provided it be none of your secrets." ' 
I see every one mutters, and is displeased, if 
the bottom of the affair be concealed from him 
wherein he is employed, or that there be any 
reservation in the case ; for my part, I am 
content to know no more of the business than 



Plutarch, on Curiosity. 



what they desire I should employ myself in, 
nor desire that my knowledge should exceed or 
constrain my word. If I must serve for an in- 
strument of deceit, let it be at least with a safe 
conscience ; I would not be reputed a servant 
so affectionate or so loyal, as to be fit to 
betray any one ; he who is unfaithful to himself 
is excusably so to his master. But there are 
princes who do not accept men by halves, and 
despise limited and conditional services. I 
cannot help it ; I truly tell them how far I can 
go ; for a slave I would not be, but upon very 
good reason; and not even then. And they 
also are to blame to require from a freeman the 
same subjection and obligation to their service, 
that they do from one whom they have made 
and bought, or whose fortune particularly 
and expressly depends upon theirs. The laws 
have delivered me from a great anxiety ; they 
have chosen a master for me ; all other supe- 
riority and obligation ought to be relative to 
that, and cut off from everything else. Yet is 
not this to say that, if my affection should 
otherwise sway and incline me, my hand- would 
presently obey it: the will and desire are a 
law to themselves; but actions must receive 
commission from the public appointment. 

All this proceeding of mine is a little disso- 
nant from the ordinary forms; it would produce 
no great effects, nor be of any long duration ; 
innocence itself could not, in this age of ours, 
either negociate without dissimulation, or traffic 
without lying; and public employments are 
by no means to my palate ; what my profession 
requires I perform after the most private manner 
that I can. Being young, I was engaged up 
to the ears in business, and it succeeded well ; 
but I disengaged myself as soon as I could. I 
have often since avoided meddling in it, seldom 
accepted, and never asked it; keeping my back 
still turned to ambition, but, if not like rowers, 
who advance backward, yet so nevertheless 
that I am less obliged to my resolution than 
to my good fortune, that I was not wholly 
embarked in it. Tor there are ways, less dis- 
pleasing to my taste, and more suitable to my 
ability, by which, if she had formerly called 
me to the public service, and my own advance- 
ment towards the world's opinion, I know I 
should, in spite of all my own arguments to the 
contrary, have pursued them. Such as com- 
monly say, in opposition to what I profess, that 
what I call freedom, simplicity, and plainness, 
in my manners, is art and subtlety, and rather 
prudence than goodness, industry than nature, 
good sense than good luck, do me more honour 
than disgrace ; but assuredly they make my 
subtlety too subtle ; and whoever has followed 
me close, and pried narrowly into me, I will 
give him the victory if he does not confess that 
there is no rule in their school that could 
answer to this natural motion, and maintain an 
appearance of liberty and license so equal and 
inflexible, through so many various and crooked 
paths, and through which all their wit and 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



393 



endeavours could never have led them. The 
way of truth is one, and simple ; that of par- 
ticular profit, and the commodity of affairs 
with which a man was entrusted, is double, 
unequal, and casual. I have seen these coun- 
terfeit and arttfcial liberties practised, but for 
the most part without success. They relish of 
iEsop's ass, who, in emulation of the dog, 
sportively clapped his two fore-feet upon his 
master's shoulders; but as many caresses as 
the dog had for such an expression of kindness, 
twice so many blows with a cudgel had the 
poor ass for his compliment : Id maxime quem- 
que decet quod est cujusque suum maxime. 1 
" That best becomes every man that he is best 
at." I will not deprive deceit of its due ; that 
would be to understand the world but very ill; 
I know it has often been of great use, and that 
it maintains and supplies the greatest part of 
men's affairs. There are vices that are lawful, 
as there are many actions either good, or at least 
excusable, that are not lawful in themselves. 
That justice which in itself is natural and 
universal, is otherwise and more 

IteZchn,™ nobl y 0rdered than that other 

perfect than justice, which is peculiar, na- 
iiarticuiarand tional, and wrested to the ends 

lialjiHKll HIS- C Tr • ■ 

tice. or governments: Ven juris ger- 

manseqne justitix solidam et ex- 
pressam effigiem nullum tenemvs, umbra et 
imaginibus utimur ,- 2 " We retain no solid and 
express effigies of true right and justice; we 
have only the shadow and notion of it;" inso- 
much that the sage Dandamis, 3 hearing the 
lives of Socrates, Pythagoras, and Diogenes 
cited, judged them to be great men every way, 
excepting that they were too much subjected to 
the reverence of the laws; which, to second 
and authorize, true virtue must abate very much 
of its original vigour ; and many vicious actions 
are introduced, not only by their permission, 
but advice: Ex senalusconsultis plebisque 
scitis scelera exercentur. 4 " Vicious actions 
are committed by the consent of the magistrates 
and the common laws." I follow the common 
phrase that distinguishes betwixt profitable and 
honest things ; so as to call some natural actions 
that are not only profitable and necessary, dis- 
honest and foul. 

But let us proceed in our examples of trea- 
chery. Two pretenders to the kingdom of 
Thrace 5 were fallen into dispute about their 
title; the emperor 6 hindered them from pro- 
ceeding to blows; but one of them, under 
colour of bringing things to a friendly issue by 
an interview, having invited his competitor to 
an entertainment in his own house, took and 
killed him. Justice required that the Romans 



i Cicero, dc OJJic. i. 31. 

• Id. ib. iii. 17. 

» He was an Indian sage who lived in the time of Alex- 
ander. \\ hai .M,,i,tai-nr here says of him is reported hv 
Iluinrch. I.ur „f AU-, „ndcr. In Strabo, xv., this Indian 
philosopher is called Mandauis. 

4 Seneca, Ep. 85. 



should have satisfaction for this offence; but 
there was a difficulty in obtaining it by ordi- 
nary ways. What, therefore, they could not 
do by due forms of law, without a war, and 
without danger, they resolved to do by trea- 
chery ; what they could not honestly do, they 
did profitably; for which end one Pomponius 
Flaccus was found to be a fit instrument. This 
man, by dissembled words and assurances, 
having drawn the other into his snare, instead 
of the honour and favour he had promised him, 
sent him bound hand and foot to Rome. Here 
one traitor betrayed another, contrary to com- 
mon custom; for they are full of mistrust, and 
'tis hard to overreach them in their own art : 
witness the sad experience we have lately had. 7 

Let who will be Pomponius Flaccus, and 
there are enough that would be ; for my part, 
both my word and my faith are, like all the 
rest, parts of this common body; their best 
effect is the public service ; this 1 take for pre- 
supposed. But as, should one command me to 
take charge of the palace and the records there, 
I should make answer that I understood it not ; 
or the command of a conductor of pioneers, I 
would say that I was called to a more honour- 
able employment; so, likewise, he that would 
employ me to lie, betray, and forswear myself, 
though not to assassinate, or to poison, for some 
notable service, I should say, "If I have rob- 
bed or stolen any thing from any man, send me 
rather to the galleys." For it is lawful for a 
man of honour to say as the Lacedemonians 
did, having been defeated by Antipater when 
just upon the point of concluding an agreement : 
" You may impose as heavy and ruinous taxes 
upon us as you please ; but to command us to 
do shameful and dishonest things, you will lose 
your time, for it is to no purpose." 8 Every 
one ought to take the same oath to himself that 
the kings of Egypt made their judges solemnly 
swear, "That they would not do any thing 
contrary to their consciences, though ever so 
much commanded to it by the kings them- 
selves." 9 In such commissions there is an evi- 
dent mark of ignominy and condemnation, and 
he who gives it does at the same time accuse 
you ; and gives it, if you understand it right, 
for a burden and a punishment. As much as 
the public affairs are bettered by your exploit, 
so much are your own the worse ; and the bet- 
ter you behave yourself in it, 'tis so much the 
worse for yourself; and it will be no new thing, 
nor perhaps without some colour of justice, if 
the same person ruin you who set you at work. 

If treachery can be in any case excusable, it 
must be only so when it is practised to chastise 
and betray treachery. There are examples 



T,l,r 



Ann 



,05. 



7 Montaigne refers t 
between Catherine ile 
who were deceiving 61 

« Plutarch. How to distinguish a Flatterer. 

» Id. Apothegms of the Kings. 



ned reconciliation, in 1588, 
mid Henry, duke of Guise, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



\ enough of treacheries, not only 

Wherein trea- rejected, but chastised and pun- 

chery is alone • , J , , ., r. <* f 

to be excused, ished by those in favour or. whom 
they were undertaken. Who is 
ignorant of Fabricius's sentence against Pyr- 
rhus's physician ? 

But this we also find recorded, that some 
persons have commanded a thing, who after- 
wards have severely revenged the 
treachery 8 pun- execution of it upon him they had 
ished bv those employed, rejecting the reputa- 
who instigated tion of so un b r idled an authority, 
and disowning so abandoned and 
so base an obedience. Jaropeles, duke of 
Russia, tatnpered with a gentleman of Hun- 
gary to betray Boleslaus, king of Poland, 
either by killing him, or by giving the Russians 
opportunity to do him some notable mischief. 
This gallant goes presently in hand with it; 
was more assiduous in the service of that king 
than before ; so that he obtained the honour to 
be of his council, and one of the chiefest in his 
trust. With these advantages, and taking an 
opportunity of his master's absence, he betrayed 
Visilicia, 1 a great and rich city, to the Russians, 
which was entirely sacked and burnt, and not 
only all the inhabitants of both sexes, young 
and old, put to the sword, but moreover a great 
number of neighbouring gentry that he had 
drawn thither to that wicked end. Jaropelus's 
revenge being thus satisfied, and his anger 
appeased, which was not however without pre- 
tence (for Boleslaus had highly offended him, 
and after the same manner), and sated with the 
effect of this treachery, coming to consider the 
foul and naked ugliness of it, and to regard it 
with a sound judgment and clear from passion, 
looked upon what had been done with so much 
horror and remorse, that he caused the eyes to 
be bored out, and the tongue and privy parts to 
be cut off, of him that had performed it. 2 

Antigonus persuaded the Argyraspidian sol- 
diers to betray Eumenes, their general, his 
adversary, into his hands; but after he had 
caused him so delivered to be slain, he would 
himself be the commissioner of the divine justice 
for the punishment of so detestable a crime, 
and committed them into the hands of the 
governor of the province, with express com- 
mand by all means to destroy, and bring them 
all to an evil end, so that, of all that great 
number of men, not so much as one ever re 
turned again into Macedonia. 3 The more 
effectually he had been served by them, the 
greater wickedness he looked upon it to be, and 
the more deserving a severe punishment. 

The slave that betrayed the place where his 
master P. Sulpicius lay concealed, was, accord- 
ing to the promise of Sylla's proscription, 
manumitted for his pains; but, according to 
the promise of the public justice, he was, when 



Vislicza^Q town in the palatine of Sandomir. 
Martin (Jroiner, De Jiebus Polon. V. 
1 i'lutarch, Life of Eumenes. 



a freed-man, thrown headlong from the Tar- 
peian rock. 

And our King Clovis, 4 instead of the armour 
of gold he had promised them, caused three of 
Canacre's 5 servants to be hanged after they had 
betrayed their master to him,j^iough he had 
debauched them to it. 

They hanged them with the purse of their 
reward about their necks : having satisfied 
their second and special faith, they satisfy the 
general and first. 

Mahomet the Second, being resolved to rid 
himself of his brother, out of state jealousy, 
according to the practice of the Ottoman 
family, 'employed one of his officers in the 
execution, who, pouring a quantity of water 
too fast into him, choked him. This being 
done, to expiate the murder, he delivered the 
murderer into the hands of the mother of him 
he had so caused to be put to death (for they 
were only brothers by the father's side), who, 
in his presence, ripped up the murderer's bosom, 
and with her own hands rifled his breast for his 
heart, tore it out, and threw it to the dogs. 
And, even to the vilest dispositions, it is the 
sweetest thing imaginable, having once got their 
ends in a vicious action, immediately to tag to 
it, with all imaginable security, some show of 
virtue and justice, by way of compensation and 
conscientious remorse. To this may be added, 
that they look upon the ministers of such horrid, 
crimes as people that reproach them with them ; 
and think by their deaths to raze out the me- 
mory and testimony of such proceedings. 

Or if perhaps you are rewarded, not to frus- 
trate the public necessity of that extreme and 
desperate remedy, he that does it cannot, for all 
that, if he be not such himself, but look upon 
you as a cursed and execrable man ; and con- 
clude you a greater traitor than he does him 
against whom you are so; for he tries the vice 
of your disposition by your own hands, where 
he cannot possibly be deceived, you having no 
object of preceding hatred to move you to sucli 
an act: but he employs you as condemned 
malefactors are employed in executions of jus- 
tice, an office as necessary as discreditable. 
Besides the baseness of such commissions, there 
is moreover a prostitution of conscience. As 
the daughter of Sejanus could not 
be put to death by the law of *$£"J££ 
Rome, 6 because she was a virgin, death at Rome, 
she was, to make it lawful, first 
ravished by the hangman, and then strangled ; 
not only his hand, but his soul, is slave to the 
public convenience. 

When Amurath the First, the more grievously 
to punish his subjects who had taken part with 
the parricidal rebellion of his son against 
him, ordained that the nearest kindred should 
assist in the execution, I find it very noble in 



4 Val. Max. vi. 5, 7. 

5 Or rather Cararic. Gregory of Tours, ii. 41. 

6 Tacitus, Annul, v. 9. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



395 



some of them to have rather chosen to be un- 
justly thought guilty of the parricide of another, 
than to serve justice by a parricide of their own : 
where I have seen, at the taking of some little 
fort by assault in my time, some rascals who, to 
save their own lives, would consent to hang 
their friends and companions, I have looked 
upon them to be in a worse condition than 
those that were hanged. 'Tig said that Witold, 
prince of Lithuania, introduced a law into his 

r..„,i„„i „„„ country, that when a criminal 

I nminals con- J> . 

demncd to cxe- was condemned to death, he should 

cute them- execute the sentence on himself; 

selves. for he thougnt it s trari g e tnat a 

third person, innocent of the fault, should be 
made guilty of a homicide. 1 

A prince that, by some urgent circumstance, 
or some impetuous and unforeseen accident that 
very much concerns his state, is compelled to 
forfeit his word, or break his faith, or otherwise 
forced from his ordinary duty, ought to attri- 
bute his necessity to a lash of the'divine rod : 
vice it is not, for he has given up his own reason 
to a more universal and more powerful reason ; 
but, certainly, 'tis a misfortune; so that if any 
one should ask me what remedy'! "None," 
say I, "if he were really racked betwixt these 
two extremes ; sed videat, ne quceratur latebra 
perjurio; 2 'Though let him guard against 
seeking a pretext for perjury;' he must do 
it; but if he did it without regret, if it did 
not grieve him to do it, 'tis a sign his con- 
science is in a scurvy condition." If there 
be a person to be found of so tender a con- 
science as to think no cure whatever worth 
so important a remedy, I shall like him never 
the worse : he could not more excusably, or 
more decently, perish. We cannot do all we 
would : so that we must often, as the last 
anchorage, commit the protection of our vessel 
to the conduct of heaven. To what more just 
necessity does he reserve himself"! What is less 
possible for him to do, than what he cannot do 
but at the expense of his faith and honour! 
things that perhaps ought to be dearer to him 
than his own safety, or even the safety of his 
people. Though he should, with folded arms, 
only call God to his assistance, may he not 
hope that the divine bounty will not refuse the 
favour of an extraordinary arm to just and pure 
hands ? These are dangerous examples, rare and 
sickly exceptions to our natural rules; we must 
yield to them, but with great moderation and 
circumspection : no private advantage is of such 
importance that we should, upon that account, 
strain our consciences to such a degree; the 
public may, when very manifest, and of very 
great concern. 

Timoleon made an expiation for his strange 
exploit, by the tears he shed, calling to mind 
that it was with a fraternal hand that he had 
slain the tyrant; and it justly pricked his con- 



1 Cromer, de Rcb. Pol. xvi. 

2 Cicero, icOffh 

3 Diod. Sicul. j 



Plutarch, on the other hand, says, 



science that he had been necessitated to purchase 
the public utility at so great a price as the 
violation of his own goodness. Even the Senate 
itself, by his means delivered from slavery, 
durst not positively determine of so high a fact, 
and divided into two so important and contrary 
aspects; but the Syracusans having oppor- 
tunely, at the same time, 3 sent to the Corin- 
thians to solicit their protection, and to require 
of them a captain fit to re-establish their city 
in its former dignity, and to cleanse Sicily of 
several little tyrants by whom it was oppressed, 
they deputed Timoleon for that service, with 
this evasive declaration: "That, according as 
he should behave himself, well or ill, in his em- 
ployment, their sentence should incline either 
to favour the deliverer of his country, or to dis- 
favour the murderer of his brother." This 
fantastic conclusion carries along with it some 
excuse, by reason of the danger of the example, 
and the importance of so strange an action ; and 
they did well to discharge their own judgment 
of it, and refer it to other considerations and 
contingencies. But Timoleon's conduct and 
behaviour in this expedition soon made his 
cause more clear; so worthily and virtuously 
did he carry himself upon all occasions. And 
the good fortune that accompanied him in the 
difficulties he had to overcome in this noble 
employment seemed to be strewed in bis way 
by the gods, as favourably conspiring for his 
justification. 

This man's aim was excusable, if any can be 
so: but the profit of the augmentation of the 
public revenue, that served the Roman Senate 
for a pretence to the foul conclusion I am going 
to relate, is not sufficient to warrant any such 
injustice. 

Certain cities had for money redeemed them- 
selves and their liberties out of the hands of 
L. Sylla, and that, too, by order and consent 
of the Senate; but the affair coming again in 
question, the Senate condemned them to be 
taxable as they were before, and that the money 
they had disbursed for their redemption should 
be confiscated. 4 Civil wars often produce such 
vile examples, that we punish private men for 
confiding in us when we were public ministers; 
and the self-same magistrate makes another 
man pay the penalty of his change, that cannot 
help it; the pedagogue whips his scholar for his 
docility; and the guide beats the blind man 
that he leads; a horrid image of justice. 

There are rules in philosophy that are both 
false and weak. The example that is proposed 
to us, preferring private utility 
before faith given, receives not Private utility 
weight enough by the circum- tl"r<-d before 
stance they put to it. Robbers faith given, 
have seized you, and after having 
made you swear to pay them a certain sum of 
money, dismiss you. 'Tis not well to say that 



{Life of Timoleon) it was twenty years aftcrwt 
dues not dear up tlie point at all. 
« Cicero, de OJfic. iii. S3. 



Nepos 



386 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



an honest man may be quit from his oath with- 
out payment, being out of their hands. 'Tis no 
such thing : what fear has once made me will- 
ing to do, I am bound to do when I am no 
more in fear; and though that fear only pre- 
vailed with my tongue, without forcing my will, 
yet am I bound to keep my word. For my 
part, when my tongue has inconsiderately said 
something that I did not think, I have made a 
conscience of not disowning it. Otherwise, by 
degrees we shall abolish all the right another 
pretends to from our promise and word : Quasi 
vero forti viro vis possit adhiberi. 1 "As 
though a man truly valiant could be compelled." 
'Tis only lawful, upon the account of private 
interest, to excuse breach of promise, when we 
have promised something that is unlawful and 
wicked in itself; for the right of virtue ought 
to supersede the right of any obligation of ours. 
I have formerly placed Epaminondas in the 
first rank of excellent men, and do not recal it. 
How far did he stretch the consideration of his 
own particular duty] who never killed a man 
that he had overcome; who, though for the 
inestimable benefit of restoring the liberty of his 
country, made conscience of killing a tyrant, or 
his accomplices, without due form of justice ; 2 
and who concluded him to be a wicked man, 
how good a citizen soever otherwise, who 
amongst his enemies spared not his friend and 
former guest or host in battle? This was a 
K>ul of a rich composition : he conjoined good- 
ness and humanity, nay, even the tenderest 
and most refined in the whole school of philo- 
sophy, to the rudest and most violent of all 
human actions. That great courage, so high, 
so constant, so obstinate against poverty, pain, 
and death, was it nature or art that had softened 
it to so extreme a degree of sweetness and com- 
passion"! Terrible in arms, covered with the 
blood of foes, behold him, on the hotly-con- 
tested plain, overwhelming and destroying a 
nation invincible to all others but to him alone, 
yet, in the fury of an engagement, turning 
aside from encountering his host and friend. 
Truly, he was most fit to command in war who 
could restrain it, with the curb of a benign 
nature, in the height and heat of his fury, a 
fury enflamed and foaming with blood and 
slaughter. 'Tis almost a miracle to be able to 
mix any image of justice with such actions; 
and it was only possible for such a steadfastness 
of mind as that of Epaminondas to mix with it 
the sweetness and easiness of the gentlest man- 
ner and purest innocence: and whereas one 3 
told the Mamertines " that statutes were of no 
resistance against armed men ;" and another 4 
told the tribune of the people "that the time 
of justice and that of war were distinct things ;" 



i Cicero, de Offic. iii. 30. 

2 Plutarch, On l.ie Damon of Socrates. 

3 Pompey. Plutarch in vita. 

4 Caisar. Id. in vita. 

6 Marias. Id. in vita. 
The Laccdatmonians. 



and a third 5 said " that the noise of arms deaf- 
ened the voice of the law:" this man in all 
this rattle was not deaf to that even of civility 
and courtesy. Did he not borrow from his 
enemies 6 the custom of sacrificing to the muses 
when he went to war, that they might, by their 
sweetness and gaiety, soften martial and unre- 
lenting fury ! Let us not fear, by the example 
of so great a master, to believe that there is 
something unlawful, even against an enemy; 
and that the common concern ought not to 
require all things of all, against private interest : 
Munente memoria, etiam in dissidia publicorum 
fcederum, privati juris; 1 "The memory of 
private rights is not extinguished even amongst 
public dissensions." 

Et nulla potentia vires 
Prastandi, ne quid peccet amicus, habet; e ' 

" No power can sanction treachery to a friend ;" 

and that all things are not lawful to an honest 
man, for the service of his prince, the laws, or 
the general quarrel : Non eniin. patria prastat 

omnibus qjjiciis et ipsi conducit pios habere 

cives in parentes? " Our country does not ab- 
sorb all our duties : it is conducive to its own 
interest to have its citizens duteous and af- 
fectionate towards their relations." 'Tis an 
instruction proper for the time wherein we live ; 
we need not harden our courages with these 
arms of steel ; 'tis enough that our shoulders are 
inured to them. 'Tis enough to dip our pens 
in ink, without dipping them in blood : if it be 
grandeur of courage, and the effect of a sin- 
gular and uncommon virtue, to contemn friend- 
ship, private obligations, a man's word, and 
relationship, for the common good and obedience 
to the magistrate, 'tis certainly sufficient to 
excuse us, that 'tis a grandeur that had no 
place in the grandeur of Epaminondas's cou- 
rage. 

I abominate those mad exhortations of this 
other disturbed soul : 10 

- - - Dam tela micant, non vos pietatis imago 
Ulla, nee adversa conspecti fronte parentes 
Commoveant ; vultus gladio turbate verendos. 

" When swords are drawn, let no remains of love, 
Friendship, or kindred, your compassion move ; 
But boldly wound the venerable face 
Of your own father if oppos'd in place." 

Let us deprive wicked, bloody, and treacher- 
ous natures of such a pretence of reason. Let 
us set aside this insane and enormous justice, 
and stick to more humane imitations. How 
much can time and example do! In an en- 
counter, in the civil war against Cinna, one of 
Pompey's soldiers having unawares killed his 
brother, who was of the opposite party, 



' Livv, xxv. 18. 

e Ovid, Dc Ponlo. i. 7. 37. 

a Cicero, de Off. iii. 23. 

io Julius Cffisar, who, when in an open war against his 
country.with a design to subvert its liberty, cries out, •'Dum 
tela micant, &c. Lucan, vii. 320. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



immediately, through shame and sorrow, killed 
himself: ' and some years after, in another civil 
war among the same people, one demanded a 
reward from his captain for having killed his 
brother. 2 

A man brings but a very bad proof of the 
The utility of honour and beauty of an action, 
an action does by pleading the usefulness of it ; 
not render it an 'j SU ch as sa y that every one is 
honourable. oMi?ed to j ^ and ^ j t fa 

honest to do it, if it is useful, draw but a very 
false conclusion: 

Omnia non pariter rerum sunt omnibus apta.a 
"All things are not alike for all men fit." 

Take the most necessary and profitable thing 
for human society ; it is marriage : and yet the 
council of the saints find the contrary much 
better, excluding therefrom the most venerable 
profession of men ; as we design those horses 
for stallions of which we make the least 
account. 



CHAPTER II. 

OF REPENTANCE. 

Others form man ; I only report him ; and 
represent a particular one ill made enough ; and 
whom, if I had him to model anew, I should 
certainly make something very different from 
what he is: but that's past recalling. Now, 
though the features of my picture alter and 

change, 'tis still like. The world 
Tea w°cont! b ' eterna Uy turns round, all things 
nual changes. therein are incessantly moving ; 

the earth, the rocks of Caucasus, 
and the pyramids of Egypt, both by the public 
motion and their own ; even constancy itself is 
no other but a slower and a more languishing 
motion. I cannot fix my object, 'tis always 
tottering and reeling by a natural drunkenness: 
I take it as it is at the instant I consider it : I 
do not paint its being, I paint its passage ; not 
a passage from one age to another, or, as the 
people say, from seven to seven years, but from 
day to day, from minute to minute: I must 
accommodate my history to the hour; I may 
presently change, not only by fortune, but also 
by intention. 'Tis an observation of various 
and changeable accidents, and irresolute imagi- 
nations, and, as it falls out, sometimes contrary. 
Whether it be that I am then another myself, 
or that I take subjects by other circumstances 
and considerations, so it is that I may perhaps 
contradict truth; but, as Demades 4 said, never 
myself. Could my soul once take footing, I 
would not essay, but resolve ; but it is always 
learning and making trial. 



' Tacitus, Hist. iii. 51. 



3i 



I propose a life mean, and without lustre, but 
'tis all one ; all moral philosophy 
is applied as well to a private life wh / nnd in 
as to one of the greatest employ- Moutaigne"^- 
ment. Every man carries the dertakee to 
entire form of human condition. bi "r': ik "j . l " 1 "- 

. . , ... . self in this 

Authors have hitherto cornrnuni- UO rk. 
cated themselves to the people by 
some particular and foreign mark ; I, the first 
of any, by my universal being; as Michael de 
Montaigne, not as a grammarian, a poet, or a 
lawyer. If the world find fault that I speak 
too much of myself, I find fault that they do 
not so much as think of themselves. But why, 
being so private in my way of life, should I seek 
to make myself publicly known? And why 
should I introduce into the world, where art 
and mode have so much credit and authority, 
crude and simple effects of nature, and of a 
weak nature to boot ? Is it not to build a wall 
without stone or brick, or some such thing, to 
write books without learning? The fancies of 
music are carried on by art, mine by chance. 
I have this, at least, according to rule, that 
never any man treated of a subject he better 
understood and knew, than I what I have 
undertaken, in which I am the most under- 
standing man alive. Secondly, that never any 
man penetrated farther into his matter, nor 
better and more distinctly sifted the parts and 
consequences of it, nor ever more exactly and 
fully arrived at the end he proposed to himself. 
To finish it, I need bring nothing but fidelity 
to the work ; and that is there the most pure 
and sincere that is anywhere to be found. 
I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as 
much as I dare, and I dare a little the more as 
I grow older ; for it would seem that custom 
allows to age more liberty of prating, and more 
indiscretion of talking of a man's self. That 
cannot fall out here which I often see elsewhere, 
that the work and the artificer contradict one 
another: has a man of so sober conversation 
written so foolish a treatise? or do so learned 
writings proceed from a man of so weak con- 
versation ? He who talks in an ordinary and 
writes in an otherwise than ordinary way, 'tis 
to say that his capacity is borrowed, and not 
his own. A learned man is not learned in all 
things ; but a sufficient man is sufficient through- 
out, even to ignorance itself: here my book and 
I go hand and hand together. Elsewhere men 
may recommend or condemn a work without 
involving the workman; here they cannot: 
who touches the one, attacks the other. He 
that shall judge it without knowing him, will 
more wrong himself than me; who does know 
him, will give me all the satisfaction I desire. 
I shall be happy beyond my desert, if 1 can 
obtain only thus much from the public appro- 
bation, as to make men of understanding 
perceive that I was capable of making my 



:>Propert. in. !>. 7. 

* Dentades, however (Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes), says 
this, not of truth, but 01 the interest of Hie commonwealth. 



398 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



advantage of knowledge, had I had it, and 
that I deserved to be assisted by a better 
memory. 

Be pleased here to excuse what I often repeat, 
that I very seldom repent, and that my con- 
science is satisfied with itself, not like the con- 
science of an angel, or that of a horse, but like 
the conscience of a man ; always adding this 
clause, not one of ceremony, but a true and 
real submissive one: "That I speak, enquiring 
and ignorant, purely and simply referring my- 
self to the common and accepted beliefs for the 
resolution." I do not teach, I only repeat. 
There is no vice that is really such which 

does not offend, and which a 
Sw<nS?nd. f und u judgment does not accuse ; 
vice. for there is in it so manifest a 

deformity and inconvenience that 
perhaps they are in the right who say that it is 
chiefly begot by stupidity and ignorance; so 
hard it is to imagine that a man can know 
without abhorring it. Malice sucks up the 
greatest part of her own venom, and poisons 
herself. 1 Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, 
repentance in the soul, which is always scratch- 
ing and lacerating itself; for reason effaces all 
other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that of 
repentance, which is so much the more grievous 
by reason it springs within, as the cold and 
heat of fevers are more sharp than those that 
only strike upon the outward skin. I hold for 
vices (but every one according to its propor- 
tion) not only those which reason and nature 
condemn, but those also which the opinion of 
men, though false and erroneous, has made 
such, if authorized by law and custom. 

There is likewise no virtue which does not 

rejoice a well-descended nature - 



there 



kind of I know not 



connected with what congratulation in well-doing 
science. C0 "" that 8' ives us atl mward satisfac- 
tion, and a certain generous ex- 
altation that accompanies a good conscience ; 
a soul daringly vicious may perhaps arm itself 
with security ; but it cannot supply itself with 
this complacency and satisfaction. It is no 
small satisfaction to a man to see himself pre- 
served from the contagion of so depraved an 
age, and to say to himself, "Whoever could 
penetrate into my soul would not there find 
me guilty either of the affliction or the ruin of 
any one ; or of revenge, or envy, or any offence 
against the public laws, or of innovation, or 
trouble, or failure of my word ; and though 
the libertinage of the time permits and teaches 
it to every one, yet have I not plundered any 
Frenchman's goods, or taken his money, and 
have lived in war as well as in peace, upon what 
is my own; neither have I set any man to 
work without paying him his hire." These 
testimonies of a good conscience please, and 



this natural rejoicing is very beneficial to us, 
and the only reward that we can never fail of. 

To ground the recompense of virtuous actions 
upon the approbation of others is 
too uncertain and unsafe a founda- Everyman 
tion, especially in so corrupt and "".fgment^pon 
ignorant an age as this ; the good himself, 
opinion of the vulgar is injurious ; 
upon whom do you rely to show you what is 
commendable? God defend me from being 
an honest man, according to the description I 
daily see every one make in honour of him- 
self: Quss fuerant vitia mores sunt. 2 " What 
before were vices are now become manners." 
Some of my friends have sometimes schooled 
and tutored me with great sincerity and plain- 
ness, either of their own accord, or by my en- 
treaty, as an office which in a well-disposed 
soul, surpasses all other acts of friendship not 
only in utility, but kindness; I have always 
received them with the most open arms of 
courtesy and acknowledgment; but, to say the 
truth, I have often found so much false mea- 
sure, both in their reproaches and praises, that 
I had not done much amiss rather to have 
erred than to have done well, according to 
their method. We chiefly, who live private 
lives, not exposed to any other view than our 
own, ought to have settled a pattern within 
ourselves, by which to try our actions; and 
according to that, sometimes to encourage, and 
sometimes to correct ourselves. I have my 
own laws and judicature to judge of myself, 
and apply myself more to these than any other 
rules. 1 do indeed restrain my actions accord- 
ing to others, but judge them not by any other 
rule than my own. You yourself only know 
if you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and 
devout ; others see you not, and only guess at 
you by uncertain conjectures; they do not so 
much see your nature as your art; rely not 
therefore upon their opinions, but stick to your 
own : Tuo tibi judicio est utendum - - virtutis 
et vitiorum grave ipsius conscientise pondus est ; 
qua sublata, jacent omnia. 3 "Thou must 
spend thy own judgment upon thyself; great 
is the weight of thy own conscience in the 
discovery of thy own virtues and vices; that 
being taken away, all things are lost." 

But the saying that repentance immediately 
follows sin seems not to have respect to sin in 
its high estate, which is lodged in us as in its 
own proper habitation; 4 we may disown and 
retract the vices that surprise us, and to which 
we are hurried by passions; but those which, 
by a long habit, are rooted in a strong and 
vigorous will, are not subject to contradiction. 
Repentance is no other than a „ ru , 
recanting of the will, and an ™il m 
opposition to our fancies, which 
lead us which way they please. It makes 



» Seneca, Ep. 
a td. ib. 39. 



3 Cicero, Thisc. Quas. i. 25 
* Id. de Nat. Deor. iii. 35. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The excellence 
of a private 
life which is 
regular. 



this parson disown his former virtue and 
continence : 

Qua: mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fuit ? 
Vel cur his auimis incolumes 11011 redeunt gcme?i 

" Why, when a boy, was not my mind, 

Or why does not youth's rosy hue 
Return, my beauty to renew?" 

'Tis an exact and exquisite life that contains 
itself in due order in private. 
Every one may take a part in 
the farce,and assume the character 
of an honest man, upon the stage; 
but within, and in his own bosom, 
where all things are lawful to us, all things 
concealed, — to be regular, that is the point. 
The next degree is to be so in one's house, in 
one's ordinary actions, for which one is ac- 
countable to none, and where there is no study 
or artifice; and therefore Bias, in setting 
forth the excellent state of a private family, 
says, " Of which the master is the same within, 
by his own virtue and temper, that he is abroad, 
for fear of the laws and report of men;" 2 and 
it was a worthy saying of Julius Drusus, 3 to 
the masons who offered him, for three thousand 
crowns, to put his house in such a posture that 
his neighbours should no longer have the op- 
portunity of seaing into it as before; "I will 
give you," said he, "six thousand to make it 
so that everybody may see into every room." 4 
'Tis honourably recorded of Agesilaus, 5 that 
he used in his journeys always to take up his 
lodgings in the temples, to the end that the 
people, and the gods themselves, might pry 
into his most private actions. Such a one has 
been a miracle to the world, in whom neither 
his wife nor his servant have ever seen any 
thing so much as remarkable ; few men have 
been admired by their own do- 
No man a pro- meslics. 6 No one has been a 
pnel mi ina own , . , . , . 

country. prophet, not merely in his own 

house, but in his own country, 
says the experience of histories. 'Tis the same 
in things of no consequence ; and in this insig- 
nificant example the image of a greater is to be 
seen. In my country of Gascony they look 
upon it as very droll to see me in print. The 
farther off I am read from my own home, the 
better I am esteemed; I am fain to purchase 
printers in Guienne, elsewhere they purchase 
me. Upon this it is that they lay their founda- 
tion who conceal themselves while present and 
living, to obtain a name when they are absent 
and dead. 



I had rather have a great deal less in hand, 
and do not go into the world upon any other 
account than my present share ; when I leave 
it, I'll cry quit. The people re-conduct Mr. 
Such-a-one, with public wonder and applause, 
to his very door; he puts off his pageantry with 
his robe, and falls so much the lower by how 
much he was higher exalted. In himself within 
all is tumult and disorder. And though all 
should be regular there, it requires a quick and 
well chosen judgment to perceive it in these low 
and private actions. To which may be added 
that order is a heavy melancholic virtue. To 
enter a breach, conduct an embassy, and govern 
a people, are actions of eclat; to reprehend, 
laugh, sell, pay, hate, and genteelly and justly 
converse with a man's own family and with 
himself; not to relent, not to give a man's self 
the lie, is more rare and hard, and less remark- 
able. By which means retired lives, whatever 
is said to the contrary, undergo offices of as 
great or greater difficulty than others do; and 
private men, says Aristotle, 7 serve virtue more 
painfully and assiduously than those in autho- 
rity ; we prepare ourselves for eminent occasions, 
more out of glory than conscience. The shortest 
way to arrive at glory should be to do that for 
conscience which we do for glory; and the 
virtue of Alexander appears to me with much 
less vigour, in his great theatre, than that of 
Socrates in his mean and obscure employment. 
I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of 
Alexander; but Alexander in that of Socrates 
I cannot. Who shall ask the one, what he can 
do, he will answer, " Subdue the world ;" who 
shall put the same question to the other, he will 
say, " Carry on human life conformably to his na- 
tural condition ;" a much more general, weighty, 
and legitimate knowledge than the other. 

The virtue of the soul does not consist in 
flying high, but walking orderly ; its grandeur 
does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in me- 
diocrity. As they who judge and try us within 
make no great account of the lustre of public 
actions, and see they are only streaks and rays 
of clear water springing from a slimy and muddy 
bottom; so likewise they who judge of us by 
this gallant outward appearance, in like manner 
conclude of our internal constitution; and'can- 
not couple common faculties, such as their own, 
with the other faculties that astonish them, and 
are so far out of their sight. Therefore it is that 
we give such savage forms to demons; and who 
does not give Tamerlane great eye-brows, wide 
nostrils, a dreadful face, and a prodigious 



1 Horace here represents Usurious, who he savs, will 
repent when he comes to he an old man, that he had not 
made an ill use of liis beauty while he had it. llor. ode 
iv. 10. 7. 

» Plutarch, Banquet of the Wise Men. 

» Or rather Marcus Livius Drusus, the famous tribune of 
the people, who died anno (ili'2 at Rome, after having, bv his 
ambition, fomented a dangerous war in Italy, of which' Flo- 
rus treats, lib. iii. 17. As to what Montaigne savs here of 
Livius Drusus, he took it from Plutarch. Instructions to 
those irho man/if;,. Xtnlc Jiffuirs. where this Drusus is 
called Julius Drusus, a tribune of the people. If Montaigne 



had consulted Patercnlus on this article, he might have per- 
ceived this small mistake of Plutarch. 

* It is Plutarch that makes him speak thus ; but, accord- 
ing to Patercnlus. Dr isus being about to build a house, a. d 
having an offer made bun In the architect to contrive it 
Sfter such a model that none' of his neighbours might look 
into it, Drusus said. Ifjou know how. make me BIlcTl a 
house rather, that what I do in it may be seen by every 
body." 

6 Plutarch, Life of jSgatilavs. 

" No man is a hero to his valet -dechambre," said 
Marshal Catinat. 

1 Ethics, X. 7. 



400 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



stature, according to the imagination he has 
conceived in us by the report of his name] 
Had any one formerly brought me to Erasmus, 
I should hardly have believed but that all was 
adage and apophthegm he spoke to his man or 
his hostess. We much more aptly imagine an 
artisan upon his close-stool, or upon his wife, 
than a great president, venerable by his port 
and sufficiency: we fancy that they will not 
•abase themselves so much from their high tri- 
"bunals as to live. As vicious souls are often 
incited by some strange impulse to do well, so 
are virtuous souls to do ill ; they are therefore 
to be judged by their settled state, when they are 
at home, if ever they be so, or at least when 
they are most near repose, and in their native 
station. 

Natural inclinations are much assisted and 

fortified by education, but they 

nations fortified seldom alter and overcome their 

by education, institution : a thousand natures in 

ana n extrrp a a n tld d ™Y time haVe e , SCa P ed t0Wards 

virtue or vice, through a quite 
contrary discipline: w 

Sic ubi desuetae silvis in carcere clausse 
Mansuevere ferre, et vultus posuere minaces, 
Atque hominem didicere pati, si torrida parvus 
Venit in ora cruor, redeunt rabiesque furorque, 
AdmoniUeque tument gustato sanguine fauces; 
Fervet, et a trepido vix abstinet ira magistral 

" So beasts of prey, imprison'd in a cage, 
Grow tame, abandoning their native rage 
And threat'niiij, looks, and do themselves inure 
The government of mankind to endure. 
But if again a little blood they taste, 
Their savage fury seizes them in haste ; 
They thirst for more, grow fierce, and wildly stare, 
As if their trembling keepers they would tear :" 

these original qualities are not to be rooted 
out, though they may be covered and con- 
cealed. The Latin tongue is, as it were, natural 
to me ; I understand it better than French, but 
I have not used to speak it, nor hardly to write 
it, these forty years; and yet, upon an extreme 
and sudden emotion, which I have fallen into 
twice or thrice in my life, and once on seeing 
my father in perfect health, fall upon me in a 
swoon, I have always uttered my first outcries 
and ejaculation in Latin: nature starting up 
and forcibly expressing itself, in spite of so long 
a discontinuation; and this example is said of 
many others. 

They who in my time have attempted to cor- 
rect the manners of the world by 
The reforma- new opinions, have indeed re- 
tions of man- c , r . ■ , . ., 

kind only relate formed seeming vices, but the 
to externals. real and essential vices they leave 
as they were, if they do not aug- 
ment them : and augmentation is therein to be 
feared; we defer all other well-doing of less 
cost and greater merit, upon the account of 
these external and arbitrary reforms, and there- 
by expiate at an easy rate for the other natural, 
con-substantial, and intestine vices. Look a 



little into our experience : there is no man, if 
he listens to himself, who does not in himself 
discover a particular and governing form of his 
own, that justles his education, and wrestles 
with the tempest of passions that are contrary 
to him. For my part, I seldom find myself 
agitated with surprises; I almost always find 
myself in my place, as heavy and unwieldy 
bodies do: if I am not at home, I am always 
near at hand. My debauches do not transport 
me far, there is nothing strange or extreme in 
the case: and yet I have sound and vigorous 
raptures and delights. 

The true condemnation, and which touches 
the common practice of men, is, 
that their very retreat from vice of men!corn- nC * 
is full of filth and corruption; moniyvery 
the idea of their reformation blot- ™™W" 
ted ; their repentance sick and faulty, very near 
as much as their sin. Some, either from having 
been linked to vice by a natural propensity, or 
long practice, cannot see the deformity of it : 
others (of which constitution I am) do indeed 
weigh vice, but they counter-balance it, with 
the pleasure or some other reason, and suffer 
and lend themselves to it for a certain price, 
but viciously and basely still. Yet there might 
perhaps be imagined so vast a disproportion of 
measure, where, with justice, the pleasure might 
excuse the sin, as we say of profit ;*not only if 
accidental, and out of sin, as in thefts ; but in 
the very exercise of it ; as in the enjoyment of 
women, wherein the temptation is violent, and, 
'tis said, not to be overcome. Being the other 
day at an estate in Armagnac, belonging to a 
kinsman of mine, I there saw a country fellow, 
that was by every one nicknamed " The Thief," 
who thus related the story of his own life : that 
being born a beggar, and finding that he should 
not be able to get his living by the labour of 
his hands, he resolved to turn thief; and by his 
strength of body had exercised this trade all the 
time of his youth in great security ; for he got 
in his harvest or vintage upon other men's 
grounds, but a great way off, and in so great 
quantities, that it wasr not to be imagined one 
man could have carried away so much in one 
night upon his shoulders; and, moreover, was 
so careful equally to divide and distribute the 
mischief he did, that the loss was of less import- 
ance to each individual. He is now grown old 
and rich, for a man of his condition, thanks be 
to his trade, which he openly confesses to every 
one. And to make his peace with God, he says 
he is daily, by good offices, making satisfaction 
to the successors of those he robbed ; and if he 
do not finish (for to do it all at once he is not 
able), he will then leave it in charge to his heirs 
to perform the rest, proportionably to the wrong 
he himself only knows he has done to every 
one. By this description, whether true or false, 
this man looks upon theft as a dishonest action, 
and hates it, but less than poverty; he repents 
simply, but for as much as is thus recompensed, 
he repents not. This is not that habit that 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



401 



Montaigne's 
judgment was 
the common 
guide of his 
actions. 



incorporates us into vice, and conforms even 
our understanding itself to it; nor is it that 
impetuous whirlwind that, by sudden gusts, 
troubles and blinds our souls, and for the time 
precipitates us, judgment and all, into the power 
of vice. 

What I do I do thoroughly, by custom, and 
proceed all of a piece; I have 
seldom any movement that steals 
away, or hides itself from my 
reason, and that is not conducted 
by the consent of all my faculties, 
without division or intestine sedi- 
tion ; my judgment, therefore, has either all the 
blame or all the praise of it ; and the blame it 
once has it ever keeps; for almost from its birth 
it has always had the same inclination, the same 
course, and the same force; and as to universal 
opinions, I fixed myself, from my childhood, in 
the place where I resolved to stick. There are 
eome sins that are impetuous, prompt, and 
•sudden; let us set them aside; but in these 
other sins so often repeated, deliberated, and 
contrived, whether sins of complexion or sins of 
profession and vocation, I cannot conceive that 
they can have so long been settled in the same 
resolution, unless the reason and conscience of 
him who has them be constant to have them 
so, and the repentance he boasts to be inspired 
with on a sudden is very hard for me to ima- 
gine. I follow not the opinion of the Pytha- 
gorean sect, "that men take up a new soul 
when they repair to the images of the gods, to 
receive oracles," unless they mean that it is 
new, and lent for the time, our own showing so 
small signs of purification and cleanness, fit for 
such an office. 

They act quite contrary to the precepts of the 
stoics who strictly command us to correct the 
imperfections which we know ourselves guilty 
of, but forbid us to alter the repose of our souls: 
these make us believe that they have great grief 
and remorse within, but of amendment, correc- 
tion, or interruption, they make nothing appear. 
It certainly cannot be a perfect cure, if the evil 
humours are not wholly discharged; if repent- 
Devotion easy anCG WGre ncavier ^ n tne scale, it 
to counterfeit, would weigh down sin. I find 
no quality so easy for a man to 
counterfeit as devotion, though his life and man- 
ners are not conformable to it: the essence of it 
is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy 
and showy. 

For my own part, I may desire in general to 
be other than 1 am; I may condemn and dis- 
like my whole frame, and beg of God for an 
entire reformation, and that he will please to 
pardon my natural infirmity; but methinks I 
ought not to call this repentance, any mor than 
my not being satisfied that 1 am not an angel 
or Cato. My actions are conformable to what 
I am, and to my condition ; I can do no better: 
and repentance is not properly concerned in 
things that are not in our power ; sorrow is. 
I imagine an infinite number of natures more 
34* 



elevated and regular than mine; and yet I do 
not, for all that, improve my faculties ; neither 
my mind nor my arm becomes more vigorous 
for conceiving that of another to be so. If to 
imagine and wish a nobler way of acting than 
that we have should produce a 
repentance of our own, we must Repentance, 

., r . ~ ... whence pro- 

then repent us or our most inno- duced. 
cent actions, forasmuch, as we may 
well suppose that in a more excellent nature 
they would have been carried on with greater 
dignity and perfection; and would that ours 
were so. When I reflect upon the behaviour of 
my youth, and compare it with that of my old 
age, I find that I have acquitted myself with 
order in both, according to my capacity; this 
is all that my resistance can do. I do not flat- 
ter myself; in the same circumstances I should 
always be the same : it is not a spot, but rather 
a universal blot, with which I am stained. 
I know no lukewarm, superficial, ceremonious 
repentance: it must sting me to the quick, it 
must pierce into my bowels as deep, and seize 
me as universally, as God sees into me, before 
I can call it repentance. 

As to employment, many good opportunities 
have escaped me for want of management ; and 
yet my deliberations were sound enough, ac- 
cording to the occurrences presented to me; 'tis 
their way to choose always the easiest and the 
safest course. I find that in my former delibe- 
rations, I have proceeded with discretion, ac- 
cording to my own rule, and according to the 
state of the subject proposed, and should do the 
same for a thousand years to come on the like 
occasions; I do not consider what it is now, 
but what it was then, when I deliberated on it : 
the force of all counsel consists in the time; oc- 
casions and things eternally shift and change. 
I have in my life committed some great and 
important errors, not for want of good under- 
standing, but for want of good luck. There are 
secret and not to be foreseen parts in matters we 
handle, especially in the nature of men; mute 
conditions that make no show, unknown some- 
times even to the possessors themselves, that 
spring and start up by accidental occasions: if 
my prudence could not penetrate into or fore- 
see them, I blame it not ; 'tis commissioned no 
farther than its own limits: if the event be too 
hard for me, and take the, side I have refused, 
there is no remedy, I do not blame myself, I 
accuse my fortune, and not my work ; this 
cannot be called repentance. 

Phocion, having given the Athenians an 
advice that was not followed, 
and the affair nevertheless sue- f°! lns,!l jf . , 

,. .... iihlfiii'iidenl ol 

ceeding contrary to his opinion, events. 
some one said to him, "Well, 
Phocion, art thou content that matters go so 
well !" "I am very well pleased," replied he, 
"that this has happened so well; but I do not 
repent that I counselled the other." 1 When 



Plutarch, Jlpothtgnu. 

2a. 



402 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



any of my friends address themselves to me for 
advice, I give it candidly and clearly, without 
sticking-, as almost all other men do, at the 
hazard of the thing-, that it may fall out con- 
trary to my opinion, by which means I may be 
reproached for my counsel; I am very indif- 
ferent as to that, for the fault will be theirs in 
having consulted me ; I could not refuse them 
my advice. 

I, for my own part, can rarely blame any one 
but myself for my oversights and misfortunes: 
for, indeed, 1 seldom consult the advice of 
another, if not as a mere ceremony, or ex- 
cepting where I stand in need of information 
as to matter of fact. But in things wherein I 
stand in need of nothing but judgment, other 
men's reasons may serve to fortify my own, but 
have little power to dissuade me: I hear them 
all with civility and patience; but, to my 
knowledge, I never made use of any but my 
own. With me they are but flies and atoms, 
that confound and distract my will: I lay no 
great stress upon my own opinions, but I lay as 
little upon those of others, and fortune rewards 
me accordingly. If I receive but little advice, I 
also give but little. I seldom consult others, and 
am seldom attended to ; and know no concern, 
either public or private, that has been mended or 
bettered by my advice. Even they whom for- 
tune had in some sort tied to my direction, 
have more willingly suffered themselves to be 
governed by any other counsels than mine. 
And, as a man who is as jealous of my repose 
as of my authority, I am better pleased that it 
should be so: leaving me there, they act ac- 
cording to my profession, which is to settle and 
wholly contain myself within myself. I take 
a pleasure in being uninterested in other 
men's affairs, and disengaged from being their 
guarantee, and responsible for what they~do. 

In all affairs that are past, be it how it will, 
I have very little regret; for this imagination 
puts me out of my pain, that they ought to fall 
out so; they are in the great revolution of the 
world, and in the chain of stoical causes. Your 
fancy cannot, by wish and imagination, remove 
one tittle that the great current of things will 
not reverse, both the past and the future. 

As to the rest, I abominate that accidental 
repentance which old age brings along with it. 
He 1 who said of old that he was obliged to his 
age for having weaned him from pleasure, was 
of an opinion very different from mine; I can 
never think myself beholden to impotency for 
any good it can ever do me : Nee tarn, aversa 
unquarr^ videhitur ab opere suo providenlia, ut 
debilitas intf-r optima invenla sit. 2 "Nor can 
providence ever be seen so averse to her own 
work, that debility should be ranked amongst 
the best things." Our appetites are rare in old 
age; a profound satiety seizes us after the act; 



I see nothing of conscience in this ; heaviness 
and weakness imprint in us a drowsy and 
rheumatic virtue. We must not suffer ourselves 
to be so wholly carried away by natural alter- 
ations as to suffer them to adulterate our judg- 
ment. Youth and pleasure have not formerly 
so far prevailed upon me that I did not well 
enough discern the face of vice in pleasure; 
neither does that distaste, that years have 
brought me, so far prevail with me now that 
I cannot discern pleasure in vice; now that I 
am no more in my flourishing age, I judge as 
well of these things as if I were. I, who nar- 
rowly and strictly examine it, find my reason 
the very same that it was in my most licentious, 
age, though perhaps a little weaker, and more 
decayed by being grown old: and I find that 
the pleasure she refuses me, upon the account 
of my bodily health, she would no more refuse 
now, in consideration of the health of my soul, 
than at any time heretofore. I do not repute 
her more valiant for being hors de combat: my 
temptations are so broken and mortified that 
they are not worth her opposition; holding but 
out my hands I repel them. Should one pre- 
sent her the old concupiscence, I fear she would 
have less power to resist it than heretofore; 
I do not discern that reason in herself judges any 
thing otherwise now than she formerly did, nor 
that she has acquired any new light: where- 
fore, if there be convalescence, 'tis from defect. 
Miserable kind of remedy, to owe a man's 
health to his disease ! 'Tis not our misfortune 
that can perform this office, but the good for- 
tune of our judgment. I am not to be made to 
do any thing by persecutions and afflictions, 
but to curse them ; that is for people that are 
not to be roused but by a whip. My reason is 
much more active in prosperity, and much more 
distracted, and harder put to it to digest pains 
than pleasures; I see best in a clear sky. 
Health admonishes me more cheerfully, and 
consequently to a better purpose than sickness. 
I did all that in me lay to reform and regulate 
myself from pleasures at all times, when I had 
health and vigour to' enjoy them. I should be 
troubled and ashamed that the misery and mis- 
fortune of my age should be preferred before 
my good, healthful, sprightly, and vigorous 
years ; and that men should esteem me, not for 
what I have been, but by that miserable part of 
myself where I have, as it were, ceased to be. 

In my opinion 'tis " the happy living," and 
'not, as Antisthenes said, 3 " the 
happy dying," in which human ^emlm- 
felicity consists. I have not made consists, 
it my business to make a mon- 
strous addition of a philosopher's tail to the 
head and body of a mere man; nor would I 
have this wretched remainder give the lie to the 
pleasant, sound, and long part of my life; I 



This was Sophocles; who being asked i f fie still enjoyed from the wild anil furious tyranny of love." Cic. dc Sencct. 
i pleasures of love, made answer— "The -rods have done cap. 14. 
Iter for me ; and glad I am that I have lived to escape i * Quint. Inst. Orat. v. 12. 3 Laertius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



403 



will present myself uniformly throughout. 
Were I to live my life over again, I should live 
it just as I have done. 1 neither complain of 
the past, nor do I fear the future ; and, if I am 
not much deceived, I am the same within that 
1 am without. 

'Tis one main obligation I have to fortune, 
that the course of my bodily state has been 
carried on according to the natural seasons: 
I have seen the leaves, the blossoms, and the 
fruit, and now see the tree withered ; happily, 
however, because naturally. I bear the infirmi- 
ties I have the belter, because they came not 
till I had reason to expect them ; and also be- 
cause they make me with greater pleasure 
remember that long felicity of my past life. Tn 
like manner, my wisdom perhaps may have 
been the same in both stages of life ; but it was 
more active, and of a better grace whilst young, 
flourishing, sprightly, and ingenuous, than 
when broken, peevish, and uneasy, as it is at 
present. I renounce, then, these casual and 
painful reformations. God must teach our 
hearts ; our consciences must amend of them- 
selves, by the force of our reason, and not by 
the decay of our appetites ; pleasure is in itself 
neither pale nor discoloured, because discerned 
by dim and decayed eyes. 

We ought to love temperance for itself, and 
in obedience to God who lias commanded it, and 
chastity ; but what I am forced to by catarrhs, 
or owe to the stone, is neither chastity nor 
temperance. A man cannot boast that he de- 
spises and resists pleasure, if lie cannot see it, 
if he knows not what it is, its graces, its force, 
its most alluring beauties; I know both the 
one and the other, and may therefore the better 
say it. But, methinks, our souls in old age are 
subject to more troublesome maladies and im- 
perfections than in youth ; I said the same 
when young, when I was reproached with the 
want of a beard ; and I say so now, when my 
grey hairs give me some authority. We call 
the difficulty of our humours, and the disrelish 
of present things, wisdom ; but, in truth, we 
do not so much forsake vices as we change 
them, and, in my opinion, for worse ; besides a 
foolish and feeble pride, an impertinent prating, 
froward and unsociable humours, superstition, 
and a ridiculous desire of riches when we have 
lost the use of them, I find therein more envy, in- 
justice, and malice ; age imprints more wrinkles 
in the mind than it does on the face ; and souls 
are never, or very rarely seen, that, in growing 
old, do not smell sour and musty. Man moves 
altogether, both towards his perfection and 

decay. In observing the wisdom 
wisdom of * °* Socrates, and many circum- 
oldmen. stances of his condemnation, I 

should dare to believe that he 



himself, by collusion, in some measure purposely 
contrihuted to it ; fearing by a longer life, he 
having then reached his seventieth year, to see 
his lolly mind and universal knowledge cramped 
and stupified by old age. 1 What strange me- 
tamorphoses do I see age make every day in 
many of my acquaintances! It is a powerful 
distemper, which naturally and imperceptibly 
steals in upon us: and therefore a vast provi- 
sion of study and great precaution are absolutely 
necessary to avoid the imperfections it loads us 
with, or at least to weaken their progress. Not- 
withstanding all my retrenchments and redoubts, 
I find age gaining upon me inch by inch; I 
make as -stout a defence as I can, but I am 
entirely ignorant whither it will drive me at 
last. At all events, I am satisfied that when 
I fall, the world may know whence I fell. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THREE COMMERCES. 

We must not rivet ourselves so close to our 
humours and complexions; our chiefest suffi- 
ciency is to know how to apply ourselves to 
divers customs. 'Tis to be, but not to live, to 
keep a man's self tied and bound by necessity 
to one only course ; those are the bravest souls 
that have in them the most variety, and that 
are most flexible and pliant. Of which here 
is an honourable testimony of the elder Cato : 
Huic versatile ingenium sic. pariter ad omnia 
fuil, ul nalum ad id unum diceres quodcumque 
agerel? "This man's parts were so conver- 
tible to all uses, that a man would think he was 
born only for what he was about." Might I have 
the liberty to dress myself after my own mode, 
there is no fashion so graceful to which I would 
be so fixed as not to be able to disengage myself 
from it; life is an unequal, irregular, and mul- 
tiform motion. 'Tis not to be a friend to a 
man's self, much less his own master; 'tis to 
be his slave, so incessantly to be led by the nose 
by one's own inclinations, that a man cannot 
turn aside or wring his neck out 
of the collar. I speak it now in ^* °"^"^ ot 
this part of my life, wherein I always" to be 
find I cannot disengage myself followed, 
from the importunity of my soul, 
by reason that it cannot commonly amuse itself 
but on things wherein it is perplexed, nor em- 
ploy itself but entirely, and with all its force ; 
the lightest subject that can be offered, it makes 
infinitely greater, and stretches it to that de- 
gree as therein to employ its utmost power : 
wherefore its idleness is to me a very painful 



cd on Montaipne's deration that, at his age, death would be better for him than 
for Xenophon tells life. This is the subject of the enure prelucc to •• JJeteiice 
jnded himself with made by Socrates before his Judges." 
only from a consi- | a Li\% xxxii. 



404 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



labour, and very prejudicial to my health. 
Most men's minds require foreign matter to 
exercise and enliven them ; mine rather needs it 
to quiet and repose itself: vilia otii negotia 
discutienda sunt ; ' " the vices of sloth are to 
be shaken off by business ;" for its chiefest and 
most painful study is to study itself. Books 
are to it a sort of employment that debauches 
it from its study ; upon the first thoughts that 
possess it, it begins to bustle and make trial of 
its vigour in every way ; exercises its power of 
handling, sometimes making trial of its force, 
and then fortifying, moderating, and ranging 
itself in the way of grace and order. It has 
of its own wherewith to rouse its faculties: 
nature has given to it, as to all others, matter 
enough of its own to make advantage of, and 
subjects proper enough, where it may either 
invent or judge. 

Meditation is a powerful and full study to 

such as can effectually employ 

^•I'nn^nt themselves; I had rather fashion 

an important . ' . . , . m . 

employment. my sou i than iurmsh it. I here 
is no weaker or stronger occupa- 
tion than that of entertaining a man's own 
thoughts according as the soul is ; the great- 
est men make it their whole business, quibus 
vivere est cogilare: 2 "to whom to live is to 
think:" nature has also favoured it with this 
privilege, that there is nothing we can do so 
long, nor any action to which we more fre- 
quently, and with greater facility, addict our- 
selves. 'Tis the business of the gods, says 
Aristotle, 3 whence both their beatitude and 
ours proceed. 

The principal use of reading to me is that, 
by various objects, it rouses my reason ; it 
employs my judgment, not my memory. Few 
entertainments then detain me without force or 
violence ; it is true that the beauty and neat- 
ness of a work, takes as much, or more, with 
me than the weight and depth of the subject ; 
and forasmuch as I slumber in all other com- 
munication, and give but a negligent attention, 
it often falls out that in such mean and pitiful 
discourses I either make strange and ridiculous 
answers, unbecoming a child, or, more indis- 
creetly and rudely, maintain an obstinate 
silence. I have a pensive way, that withdraws 
me into myself, and added to that a stupid and 
childish ignorance of many very ordinary things ; 
by which two qualities it is come to pass that 
men may truly report five or six as ridiculous 
tales of me as of any other whatever. 

But to proceed in my subject: this difficult 
complexion of mine renders me 

inattentive To* U " fit for common matters, and 
frivolous con- ver 7 mc e in my conversation with 
versation. men, whom I must cull and pick 

out for my purpose. We live and 
negociate with the people: if their conversation 



be troublesome to us, if we disdain to apply 
ourselves to mean and vulgar understandings 
(and the mean and vulgar are often as regular 
as those of the finest thread ; and all wisdom is 
folly, that does not accommodate itself to the 
common ignorance) we must no more inter- 
meddle either with other men's affairs or our 
own ; and all business, both public and private, 
must be managed apart from such people. The 
least forced and most natural motions of the 
soul are the most beautiful ; the best employ- 
ments, those that are least constrained. Great 
God ! how good an office does wisdom perform 
to those whose desires it limits to their power! 
That is the most useful knowledge. " Accord- 
ing to what a man can," was the sentence 
which Socrates was so much in love withal, 4 
a motto of great substance. We should mode- 
rate and adapt our desires to the nearest and 
easiest to be acquired things. Is it not a foolish 
humour of mine to separate myself from a 
thousand to whom my fortune has attached me, 
and without whom I cannot live, to cleave to 
one or two that are out of my commerce, or 
rather to a fantastic desire of a thing I cannot 
obtain? My soft, indolent manners, enemies 
of all sourness in conversation, may easily 
enough have secured me from the envy and 
animosities of men ; I do not say to be beloved, 
but never any man gave less occasion to be 
hated ; but the coldness of my conversation 
has reasonably enough deprived me of the good- 
will of many, who are to be excused if they 
interpret it in another and worse sense. 

I am very capable of contracting and pre- 
serving uncommon and exquisite 
friendships; and the more so, Montaigne 
because I greedily seize upon such K?Si- 
acquaintance as fit my liking: sitefriend- 
I throw myself with such violence ships, but not 

^1 iL ^ t u ii c i t qualified to cul- 

upon them that I hardly fail to tivate common 
stick, and generally make an friendships, 
impression where I aim, of which 
I have made often happy proof. In common 
friendships I am cold and shy ; for my motion 
is not natural if not with full sail: besides, my 
fortune having trained me up from my youth 
in, and given me a relish of, one sole and per- 
fect friendship, it has in truth given me a kind 
of disgust to others, and^ too much imprinted 
in my mind that it is a beast of company, as 
the ancient 5 said, but not of the herd. Besides 
that, I have a natural difficulty in communi- 
cating myself by halves and with that reserved, 
and servile, and jealous prudence dictated to 
us in the conversation of numerous and imper- 
fect friendships: and we are principally en- 
joined to these in this age of ours, when we 
cannot talk of the world but either with danger 
or falsehood. 
Yet do I very well discern that he who has 



i Senec. Ep. 56. 

2 Cicero, Tusc. Quas. v. ; 

3 Ethics, x. 8. 



4 Xenophon, Mem. of Socrates, i. 3. 3. 
6 Plutarch, on, the Plurality of Friends. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



405 



the conveniences (I mean the es- 
isTo know'how sent ' a l conveniences) of life for 
to treat ail his end, as I have, ought to fly 

manners of per- this difficulty and refinement of 
familiarity. humour, as much as the plague. 

I should commend a mind of 
various stages, that knows both how to extend 
and to slacken itself; that finds itself at ease 
in all conditions of fortune ; that can discourse 
with a neighbour about building, hunting, or 
any little contest betwixt him and another ; 
and that can chat with a carpenter or a gar- 
dener with pleasure. I envy those who can 
make themselves familiar with the meanest of 
their followers, and converse among their own 
attendants ; and I dislike the advice of Plato, 1 
that men should always speak in a magisterial 
tone to their domestics, whether men or women, 
without ever being facetious and familiar. For 
besides my former reason, it is inhuman and 

unjust, to set so great a value 
mnKi'iagc'to u P on tms pitiful prerogative of 
servants fortune ; and the governments, 

reproved. wherein less disparity is permitted 

betwixt masters and servants, seem to me the 
most equitable. Others study how to raise and 
elevate their minds ; I, how to humble mine and 
to bring it low ; 'tis only vicious in extension : 

Narras et genus iEaci, 
Et pugnata sacro hella sub Ilio : 

Quo Cliium pretio ca<lum 
Mercemur, quis aquam temperet ignibus, 

Quo prabeute dommn, et quota, 
Pelignis caream frigoribus, taces.a 



But when a cliccrfu] lire shall blaze, 

,Or how a C'hian cask will sell, 
Who treats to-night, or merits praise 

For tempering th' bath, you spare to tell." 

Thus, as the Lacedemonians' valour stood in 
need of moderation, and of the sweet and har- 
monious sound of flutes to soften it in battle, lest 
it should precipitate itself into temerity and fury, 
whereas all other nations commonly make use 
of harsh and shrill sounds, and of loud and im- 
petuous voices, to incite and heat the soldiers' 
courage to the last degree : so, methinks, that 
contrary to the usual method, in the practice of 
our minds, we have for the most part more need 
of lead than wings; of temperance and com- 
posedness than ardour and agitation. But above 
all things, 'tis, in my opinion, egregiously to 
play the fool, to put on the gravity of a man of 
understanding amongst those that know no- 
thing: to speak in print, favellar in punta di 
forchetta. You must descend to those with 
whom you converse, and sometimes affect 
ignorance: lay aside strength and subtlety in 
common conversation ; 'tis enough there to pre- 



serve order ; as to the rest, flag as low as the 
earth, if they desire it. 

The learned often stumble at this stone ; they 
will be always showing off and parading their 
books. They have in these days so filled the 
cabinets and the ears of the ladies 
with them, that if they have lost Whether wo- 
the substance, they at least retain ' be'ieamld! W 
the words: so that in discourse 
upon all sorts of subjects, how mean and com- 
mon soever, they speak and write after a new 
and learned way, 

Hoc sermone pavent, hoc iram. gaudia. curas 
Hoc cuncta effundant animi secreta ; quid ultra ? 
Concumbunl docte ; s 

" All now is Greek : in Greek their souls they pour, 
In Greek their fears, hopes, joys ; what would you more? 
In Greek they clasp their lovers;" 

and quote Plato and Aquinas in things which 
the first they meet could determine as well. The 
learning that cannot penetrate their souls, hangs 
still upon the tongue. If the ladies will be per- 
suaded by me, they will content themselves with 
setting out their proper and natural wealth ; 
they conceal and cover their beauties under 
others that are none of theirs : 'tis a great folly 
to put out their own light, to shine by a bor- 
rowed one : they are interred and buried under 
art, de capsula totae.* It is because they do not 
sufficiently know themselves; the world has 
nothing fairer ; 'tis for them to honour the arts, 
and to paint painting. What need they but to 
live beloved and honoured - ! They have and 
know but too much for that ; they need do no 
more, but rouse and heat a little the faculties 
they have of their own. When I see them 
tampering with rhetoric, law, logic, and the 
like drugs, so improper and unnecessary for 
their business, I begin to suspect that the men 
who advise them to such things, do it that they 
may govern them upon that account: for what 
other excuse can I contrive? It is enough that 
they can, without our instruction, govern the 
graces of their eyes to gaiety, severity, and 
sweetness, and season a denial either with 
anger, suspense, or favour, and that they need 
not another to interpret what we speak for their 
service: with this knowledge they command 
the switch, and rule both the teachers and the 
schools. But if, nevertheless, they think it too 
much to give place to us in any thing what- 
ever, and will out of curiosity have their share 
in books, poetry is a diversion 
proper for them; 'tis a wanton fowomen 
and subtle, a dissembling and 
prating art, all pleasure and all show, like 
themselves. They may also extract several 
advantages from history. In philosophy, out 
of the moral part of it, they may select such 



J This is an expression of Seneca, which he applies to the 
petits mail res of his I hue: " N'osti com pin res ju vones barba 
et coma nitidos, de capsula tOtOB." — Epist. 95. He tells us 



elsewhere of one of these fops who, being carried by his 
sbn.s hum the bath in a chair, I bought til to ask them whe- 
ther or no he was seated • as if it was a thin;: beneath his 
honour to know what he did himself without asking.— 
Seneca, dc Brrvit. Vita, cap. 12. I have not yet heard that 
any of our pelits maitres have come up to this Roman fop. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



What ; 



instructions as will teach them 
philosophy is to judge of our humours and con- 
proper for ditions, to defend themselves from 
women. 0(]r treacheries, to regulate the 
ardour of their own desires, to manage their 
liberty, lengthen the pleasures of life, and 
mildly to bear the inconstancy of a servant, 
the rudeness of a husband, and the assaults of 
years, wrinkles, and the like. This is the 
utmost of what I would allow them in the 
sciences. 

There are some particular natures that are 
_ private and retired ; my natural 

The jrood use r • r • 

of retirement. * orm ls proper for communication, 
and apt to lay me open; I am 
all without and in sight, born for society and 
friendship. The solitude that I love myself, and 
recommend to others, is chiefly no other than 
to withdraw my thoughts "and affections into 
myself; to restrain and check, not my steps, 
by my own cares and desires ; resigning all 
extrinsic solicitude, and mortally avoiding servi- 
tude and obligations; and not so much the 
crowd of men as the crowd of business. Local 
solitude, to say the truth, rather gives me more 
room, and sets me more at large : I more wil- 
lingly throw myself upon affairs of state and 
the world when I am alone : at the Louvre, 
and in the bustle of the court, I fold myself 
within my own skin; the crowd thrusts me 
upon myself, and I never entertain myself so 
wantonly, so unrestrainedly, or so particu- 
larly, as in places of respect and ceremonious 
prudence ; our follies do not make me laugh, 
but our wisdom. I am naturally no enemy to 
a court-life, I have therein passed a good part 
of my own, and am of a humour to be cheerful 
in great companies, provided it be by intervals, 
and at my own time ; but this softness of judg- 
ment whereof I speak ties me by force to soli- 
tude. Even in my own house, in the middle of 
a numerous family, and a house sufficiently 
frequented, I see people enough, but rarely such 
with whom I delight to converse; and T there 
reserve, both for myself and others, an unusual 
liberty ; there is there no ceremony, no ushering 
or waiting upon people to their coach, and such 
other troublesome forms as our courtesy enjoins : 
O servile and tiresome custom ! Every one there 
governs himself according to his own method ; 
let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, 
meditating and shut up in myself, without any 
offence to my guests. 

The men whose society and familiarity I covet, 

are those they call honest, sensible 

Character of men, and t he imap-e of these makes 

the men whose V v i ., ° . Ti • k 

familiarity is me disrelish the rest. It IS, if 
worth seeking, rightly taken, the most uncom- 
mon of our forms, yet a form 
chiefly owing to nature. The end of this com- 
merce is simply privacy, frcquentation, and 
conference, the exercise of souls, without other 



subjei 

me ; let there be neither weight nor depth, 'tis 
all one, there is yet grace and pertinency ; all 
there is tinctured with a mature and constant 
judgment, and mixed with freedom, gaiety, 
goodness, and friendship. 'Tis not only in talk- 
ing of the affairs of kings and states, that our 
minds discover their force and beauty, but every 
jot as much in private affairs : I understand my 
men even by their silence and smiles ; and better 
discover them perhaps at table than in the 
council : Hippomachus 1 said, very well, that he 
could know the good wrestlers by only seeing 
them walk in the street. If learning will please 
to take a share in our talk, it shall not be re- 
jected, not magisterial, imperious, and importu- 
nate, as it commonly is, but suffragan and docile 
itself; we there only seek to amuse ourselves, 
and to pass away our time agreeably ; when we 
have a mind to be instructed and preached to, 
we will go seek it in its throne ; let it abase 
itself to us for once, if it so please ; for, useful 
and profitable as it is, I take it that, even irr the 
greatest need, we may do well enough without 
it, and perform our business though we have not 
its assistance. A man well born and practised 
in the conversation of men will, by the strength 
of his own genius, render himself agreeable to 
all. Art is nothing but the observation and 
register of what such noble minds produce. 

The conversation also of beautiful and 
well-bred women is also for me an agreeable 
commerce : Nam nos quoque oculus eruditos 
habemus* " For we too have eyes that can 
see." If the soul has not therein so much to 
enjoy as in the first, the bodily senses, which 
participate so much the more of this, bring it 
to a proportion near to, though, in my opinion, 
not equal to the other. But 'tis a commerce 
wherein a man must stand a little upon his 
guard, especially those of an excitable consti- 
tution, as I am. I burned myself that way in 
my youth, and suffered all the torments that 
poets say are inflicted on those who precipitate 
themselves into love without order or judgment ; 
it is true that this lash of the whip has since 
been a good monitor to me ; 



'• The Grecian ship that could Caphareus flee 
Will always steer from the Euboic sea." 

'Tis folly to fix all a man's thoughts upon it, 
and madness to engage in it with a furious and 
indiscreet affection. But, on the other hand, 
to engage in it without love and without in- 
clination, like comedians, to play a common 
part, without putting anything to it of his own 
but words, is indeed to provide for his safety, 
but withal after as base and cowardly a manner 
as he who should abandon his honour, profit, 
or pleasure, for fear of danger; for it is most 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



407 



certain that from such a practice they who set 
it on foot can expect no fruit that can please 
and satisfy a noble soul. A man must have 
in good earnest desired that which he, in good 
earnest, expects to have a pleasure in enjoying; 
I say, though fortune should unjustly favour 
their dissimulation, which often happens, be- 
cause there is none of the sex, let her be as 
ugly as the devil, who does not think herself 
well worthy to be beloved, and that does not 
recommend herself either by her youth, her fine 
hair, or her graceful motion (for women totally 
ugly there are none, any more than women 
perfectly beautiful); and the Brachman virgins, 
who have no other recommendation, the people 
being assembled by the common crier to that 
effect, come out into the market-place to expose 
their matrimonial parts to public view, to try 
if these at least will not suffice to get them hus- 
bands ; consequently there is not one who does 
not easily suffer herself to be persuaded by the 
first vow that is made to serve her. Now from 
this common treachery of men, that must fall 
out, which we already experimentally see, either 
that women rally together and separate them- 
selves by themselves to avoid us; or else form 
their discipline by the example we give them, 
play their part in the farce as we do ours, and 
give themselves up to the sport, without pas- 
sion, care, or love : Neque nffectui suo, aut 
alieno, obnoxise ; 1 " Unswayed by passion, 
whether their own or another's;" believing, 
according to the persuasion of Lysias in Plato, 2 
that they may with more utility and conve- 
nience surrender themselves up to us the less 
we love them ; where it will fall out, as in 
comedies, that the people will have as much 
pleasure, or more, than the comedians. For 
my part, I no more acknowledge Venus without 
Cupid than a mother without issue: they are 
things that mutually lend and owe their essence 
to one another. This cheat rebounds back 
upon him who is guilty of it; it does not cost 
him much, indeed, but he also gets little or 
nothing by it. They who have made Venus a 
goddess have taken notice that her principal 
beauty was incorporeal and spiritual ; but the 
Venus which these people hunt after is not so 
much as human, nor indeed brutal. The very 
beasts will not accept one so gross and so 
earthly; we see that imagination and desire 
often heat and incite them before the body does ; 
we see, in both the one sex and the other, 
that they have in the herd a choice and par- 
ticular election in their affections, and that they 
have amongst themselves a long commerce of 
good will ; even those to whom old age denies 
the practice of their desire, do yet tremble, 
neigh, and show ecstasies of love ; we see 
them before the act full of hope and ardour; 



and when the body has played its part, yet 
please themselves with the sweet remembrance 
of the pleasure past; some that swell with 
pride after they have performed, and others 
who, tired and sated, do yet by various joyous 
sounds express a triumphing joy. The man 
that has nothing to do, but only to discharge 
his body of a natural necessity, need not trouble 
others with such curious preparations; it is not 
meat for a gross and coarse appetite. 

As one who does not desire that men should 
think me better than I am, I will here freely 
discover the errors of my youth. 
Not only for the danger of im- Montaigne's 

J ,,.,,• -i .. t taste in his 

pairing my health (and yet 1 amours, 
could not be so careful but that 
I had two light mischances), but moreover, 
upon the account of contempt, I have seldom 
given myself up to common and mercenary 
embraces : I having tried to heighten the plea- 
sure by the difficulty, by desire, and a certain 
kind of glory ; and was of Tiberius's mind, 
who in his amours was as much taken with 
modesty and birth as any other quality; 3 and 
of the courtesan Flora's humour, who never 
prostituted herself to less than a dictator, a 
consul, or a censor, and solaced herself in the 
dignity of her lovers. 4 Doubtless pearls and 
brocade, titles and attendants, add something 
to it. 

As to the rest, T had a great esteem for wit, 
provided the person was without 
bodily exception ; for, to confess beauties prefer- 
the truth, if the one or the other able in amours 
of these two perfections must of J,°^Jj ose of the 
necessity be wanting, I should 
rather have quitted that of the understanding, 
that has its use in better things; but in the 
matter of love, a matter principally relating to 
the senses of seeing and touching, something 
may be done without the graces of the mind ; 
without the graces of the body, nothing. Beauty 
is the true prerogative of women; and so pe- 
culiarly their own, that ours, though naturally 
requiring another sort of feature, is never in its 
lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused 
and mixed with theirs. 'Tis said that such 
youths as are preferred by the grand signior 
upon the account of beauty, which are an in- 
finite number, are at the farthest dismissed at 
two and twenty years of age. Reason, pru- 
dence, and offices of friendship, are better found 
amongst men, and therefore it is that they 
govern the affairs of the world. 

These two commerces are fortuitous, and 
depending upon others : the one 
is troublesome by its raritv, the Of reading, or 

., -., , J ' .1 . the third sort 

other withers by age; so that ofconvoiBaOon. 
they could never have been suf- 
ficient for the business of my life. That of 



' Tacitus, Jlnnal. xii. 45. 

a In the Phadra. 

a Tacitus. J3nv.nl. vi. 1. 

4 Montaigne got this from Anton, de Guevara. It is also 
borrowed by Biantome, who in his Firs des Fannies Oa- 
lantes, torn, i., Bays that the courtesan Flora was of a good 



family and lineage ; and that whereas Lais was a common 
prostitute to all mankind, flora only obliged the great, in- 
somuch that she had this inscription over her door : " Ve 
kings, princes, diclalors, consuls, pontiffs, questors. ambas- 
sadors, and other great men, enter, and welcome, but no 
others." 



408 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



books, which is the third, is much more cer- 
tain, and much more our own; it yields all 
other advantages to the other two; but has 
the constancy and facility of its services for its 
own share. It goes side by side with me in 
my whole course, and everywhere is assisting 
to me ; it comforts me in my age and solitude ; 
it eases me of a troublesome weight of idleness, 
and delivers me at all hours from company that 
I dislike ; and' it blunts the point of griefs if 
they are not extreme, and have not got an 
entire possession of my soul. To divert myself 
from a troublesome fancy 'tis but to run to my 
books; they presently fix me to them, and 
drive the other out of my thoughts; and do 
not mutiny, at seeing I have only recourse to 
them for want of other more real, natural, and 
lively conveniences; they always receive me 
with the same kindness. " He may well go 
a-foot," say they, " who leads his horse in 
his hand ;" and our James, King of Naples and 
Sicily, who, handsome, young, and healthy, 
caused himself to be carried up and down on a 
hand-barrow, reclining on a pitiful feather pil- 
low, and clad in a robe of coarse grey cloth, 
with a cap of the same, but attended never- 
theless by a royal train of litters, led horses of 
all sorts, gentlemen and officers, therein showed 
but a weak and unsteady austerity ; the sick 
man is not to be pitied who has his cure in his 
sleeve. In the experience and practice of this 
sentence, which is a very true one, all the 
benefit I reap from books consists; and yet I 
make as little use of it almost as those who 
know it not ; I enjoy it as a miser does his 
money, in knowing that I may enjoy it when 
I please ; my mind is satisfied with this right 
of possession. I never travel without books, 
either in peace or war; and yet sometimes I 
pass over several days, and sometimes months, 
without looking at them; I will read by and 
by, say I to myself, or to-morrow, or when I 
please, and time meanwhile steals away without 
any inconvenience ; for it is not to be imagined 
to what degree I please myself, and rest con- 
tent in this consideration, that I have them by 
me, to divert myself with them when I am so 
disposed, and call to mind what an ease and 
assistance they are to my life. 'Tis the best 
viaticum I have yet found out for this human 
journey, and I very much pity those men of 
understanding who are unprovided with it. I 
rather accept of any sort of diversion, how 
light soever, in the feeling that this can never 
fail me. 

When at home, I a little more frequent my 
library, from whence I at once survey all the 

whole concerns of my family. As 
The situation I enter it, I thence see under me 
Ubrar°y nta,gne ' ™Y garden, court, and base-court, 

and into all the parts of the build- 
ing. There I turn over now one book, and 
then another, of various subjects, without me- 
thod or design. One while I meditate ; another 
I record, and dictate as I walk to and fro, such 



whimsies as these with which I here present 
you. 'Tis in the third story of a tower, of 
which the ground-room is my chapel, the second 
story an apartment with a withdrawing-room 
and closet, where I often lie to be more retired ; 
above it is this great wardrobe, which formerly 
was the most useless part of the house. In that 
room I pass away most of the days of my life, 
and most of the hours of the day ; in the night 
I am never there. There is within it a cabinet 
handsome and neat enough, with a very conve- 
nient fire-place for the winter, and windows 
that afford a great deal of light, and very 
pleasant prospects ; and were I not afraid, less 
of the expense than of the trouble, that frights 
me from all business, I could very easily adjoin 
on either side, and on the same floor, a gallery 
of an hundred paces long, and twelve broad, 
having sound walls already raised for some 
other design, to the requisite height. Every 
place of retirement requires a walk ; my 
thoughts sleep if I sit still ; my fancy does not 
go by itself, my legs must move it; and all 
those who study without a book are in the 
same condition. The figure of my study is 
round, and has no more bare wall than what is 
taken up by my table and chair; so that the 
remaining parts of the circle present me a view 
of all my books at once, set upon five rows of 
shelves round about me. It has three noble 
and wide prospects, and is sixteen paces in 
diameter. I am not so continually there in 
winter ; for my house is built upon an eminence, 
as its name imports, and no part of it is so much 
exposed to the wind and weather as that, which 
pleases me the better for being of troublesome 
access and a little remote, as well upon the 
account of exercise, as being also there more 
retired from the crowd. 'Tis there that I am 
in my kingdom, and there I endeavour to make 
myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester 
this one corner from all society, whether conju- 
gal, filial, or social ; elsewhere I have but verbal 
authority only, and of a confused essence. That 
man, in my opinion, is very miserable, who has 
not at home where to be by himself, where to 
entertain himself alone, or to conceal himself 
from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues her 
votaries by keeping them always in show, like 
the statue in a market-place : Magna servitus 
est magna fortuna: 1 "A great fortune is a 
great slavery:" they have not so much as a 
retreat for the necessities of nature. I have 
thought nothing so severe in the austerity of 
life that our religions affect, as what I have 
observed in some of their orders; namely, to 
have a perpetual society of place by rule, and 
numerous assistants among them, in every 
action whatever ; and think it much more 
supportable to be always alone, than never to 
be so. 

If any one shall tell me that it is to degrade 
the muses to make use of them only for sport, 



1 Seneca, Consul, ad. Polyb. c. 26. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



409 



and to pass away the time, I shall tell him that 
he does not know the value of that sport and 
pastime so well as I do: I can hardly forbear 
to add further, that all other end is ridiculous. 
I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence 
be it spoken, only live for myself; to that all 
my designs tend, and in that terminate. I 
Btudied when young for ostentation; since, to 
make myself wise ; and now for my diversion ; 
never for gain. A vain and prodigal humour 
that I had after this sort of furniture, not only 
for supplying my own need, but moreover for 
ornament and outward show, I have long ago 
quite abandoned. 1 

Books have many charming qualities to such 

' . .as know how to choose them ; 

JnL ,n Xc"ed but every good has its ill; 'tis a 

to the pleasure pleasure that is not pure and un- 

which books mixe( j any mqre than otherg . it 

has its inconveniences, and great 
ones too ; the mind, indeed, is exercised by it, 
but the body, the care of which I have not 
forgotten, remains in the mean time without 
action, grows heavy and melancholy. I know 
no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to 
be avoided in this my declining age. 

These are my three favourite and particular 
occupations; I speak not of those which I owe 
to the world by civil obligation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF DIVERSION. 2 

I was formerly employed to console a lady 
under a real affliction ; for most 
■mM,n„^r n ' S of their mournings are merely 
commonly are. artificial and a matter of cere- 
mony. 

Uberibus semper lacrymis. sempcrque paratis 
In statione sua, atque expeclantibus illam, 
Quo jubeat manare modo.s 

" And bids 
Th' impassioned showers fall copious from her lids. 
For at their posts like marsliall'd troops they stand, 
Prepar'd to flow, to pour, at her command." 

A man goes the wrong way to work when 
he opposes this passion ; for opposition does but 
irritate and make them more obstinate in sor- 
row ; the evil is exasperated by being contended 
with. We see, in common discourse, that the 
same thing that I have let fall from me with 
indifference, if a man controverts what I have 
said, I insist upon it earnestly, and with the 
best arguments I can find; and much more a 
thing wherein I have a real interest. And 
besides, in so doing, you enter rudely upon 
your operation ; whereas the first addresses of 
a physician to his patient should be gracious, 



i Or turning aside. 



gay, and pleasing; never did any ill-looking, 
morose physician do any thing to 
the purpose. On the contrary, How *; o " S0la " 
then, a man should at the first be practised. 
approaches favour their grief, 
and express some approbation of their sorrow. 
By this intelligence you obtain credit to pro- 
ceed farther, and after an easy and insensible 
manner fall into discourses more solid and pro- 
per for their cure. I, whose aim it was princi- 
pally to gull those present, who had their eyes 
fixed upon me, desired only to plaster up the 
disease. And indeed I have found out by 
experience that I have an unlucky hand at 
persuading ; my arguments are either too sharp 
or too flat, and either press too roughly, or not 
home enough. After I had some time applied 
myself to her grief, I did not attempt to cure 
her by strong and lively reasons, either because 
1 wanted them, or because I thought to do my 
business better another way ; neither did I insist 
upon a choice of any of those methods of conso- 
lation which philosophy describes ; "that what 
we pity is no evil," according to Cleanthes; 3 
" that it is a light evil," according to the Peripa- 
tetics ; " that to bemoan one's-self is an action 
neither commendable nor just," according to 
Chrysippus ; nor this of Epicurus, more suitable 
to my way, of shifting the thoughts from afflict- 
ing things to those that are pleasing; nor 
making a bundle of all these together, to dis- 
pense upon occasion, according to Cicero; but 
gently bending my discourse, and by little and 
little digressing, sometimes to subjects nearer, 
and sometimes more remote from the purpose, 
she was more intent on what I said, and I in- 
sensibly led her from her sorrow, and kept her 
calm and in good humour whilst I continued 
there. I herein made use of diversion. They 
who succeeded me in the same service did not 
for all that find any amendment in her, for I 
had not applied the axe to the root. 

Perhaps I have touched elsewhere upon some 
sort of public diversions: and the 
practice of military ones, which T be n ) Hh01 } of 

ri • i i a ,. ■ i r-> . divertni" the 

Pericles made use 4 of in the Pelo- enemy, employ. 
ponnesian war, with a thousand v d successfully 
others in different places, to with- negations.™ 
draw the adverse forces from their 
own countries, is too frequent in history. It 
was an ingenious evasion, by which 5 the Sieur 
d'Himbercourt saved himself and others in the 
city of Liege, into which the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, who kept it besieged, had sent him, to 
execute the articles of their promised surrender. 
The people, being assembled at night to consider 
the matter, began to mutiny against the past 
agreement, and to that degree that several of 
them resolved to fall upon the commissioners, 
whom they had in their power. Ho feeling the 
first blast of this first storm of the people, who 



Plutarch, in vitd. 

Mem. of Philip de Comincs, book ii. c. 3. 



410 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



were coming to rush into his lodgings, on the 
sudden sent out to them two of the inhabitants 
of the city (of whom he had some with him), 
'with new and milder terms, to be proposed in 
their council, which he had forged on the spot 
for his occasion. These two diverted the first 
tempest, carrying back the enraged rabble to 
the town-hall, to hear and consider of what they 
had to say. The deliberation was short: a 
second storm arose, as impetuous as the other ; 
whereupon he dispatched four new mediators of 
the same quality to meet them, protesting that 
they had now better conditions to present them 
with, and such as would give them absolute sa- 
tisfaction ; by which means the tumult was once 
more appeased, and the people again turned 
back to the conclave. In fine, by thus ordering 
these amusements, one after another, diverting 
their fury, and dissipating it in frivolous con- 
sultations, he laid it at last asleep till the day 
appeared, which Was his principal end. 

This other story is also in the same category : 
Atalanta, a virgin of excelling beauty and of 
wonderful disposition of body, to disengage her- 
self from the crowd of a thousand suitors, who 
sought her in marriage, made this proposition, 
"that she would accept of him for a husband 
who should equal her in running, upon condi- 
tion that they who failed should lose their 
lives." 1 There were enough who thought the 
prize worth the hazard, and who suffered the 
penalty of the bloody contract. Hippomenes, 
being to try his fortune after the rest, makes his 
address to the Goddess of Love, imploring her 
assistance, who, granting his request, gave him 
three golden apples, and instructed him how to 
use them. The ground they ran upon being an 
even plain, as Hippomenes perceived his mis- 
tress to press hard upon him, he, as it were by 
chance, let fall one of these apples ; the maid, 
taken with the beauty of it, failed not to step 
out of her way to take it up : 

Obstupuit virgo, nitidique cupidine pomi 
Deciinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.a 

"Th' astonished maiden saw the shining gold, 
And stopped her course to seize it as it rolled ;" 

He did the same, When he saw his time, by the 
second and third, till, by so diverting her, and 
making her lose so much ground, he won the 
race. When physicians cannot purge a ca 
tarrh, they divert and turn it into some other 
less dangerous part. And I find also that this 
is the most ordinary practice for the diseases of 
the mind ; Abducendus eliam nonnunquam ani- 
mus est ad alia studia, sollicitudines, curas, 
negotia;locideniquemutalione,tanquamaigroti 
non convalescentes saspe curandas est ,- 3 "The 
mind is sometimes to be diverted to other studies, 
thoughts, cares, and business, and lastly, by 
change of place; as sick persons that do not 
else recover are cured by change of air." 'Tis to 



little effect directly to justle a man's infirmities, 
we neither make him sustain nor repel the 
attack ; but only to decline and evade it. 

This other lesson is too high and too difficult : 
'tis for men of the first class purely to insist 
upon the thing, to consider and judge of it: it 
belongs to a Socrates only to entertain death 
with an indifferent countenance, to grow ac- 
quainted with it, and to sport with it ; he seeks 
no consolation out of the thing itself, dying 
appears to him a natural and indifferent pro- 
ceeding ; 'tis there that he fixes his sight and 
resolution, without looking elsewhere. The 
disciples of Hegesias starved themselves to 
death, 4 inflamed with a desire of dying, by his 
fine lectures, and this was so frequent a thing 
that King Ptolemy ordered he should be for- 
bidden to entertain his followers with such 
homicidal doctrines; such people do not con- 
sider death itself, neither do they judge of it; 
it is not there that they fix their thoughts; they 
run forwards, and aim at a new being. 

The poor wretches that we see brought to the 
place of execution, full of ardent 
devotion, and therein, as much as 0W j n g e t o n a 1S 
in them lies, employing all their firmness of soul 
senses, their ears in hearing the areVo^sTtcTdie 
instructions that are given them, on a scaffold 
their eyes and hands lifted up to- e^ wav t0 
wards heaven, their voices in loud devotion. ' S ° 
prayers, with a vehement and 
continual emotion, do doubtless things very 
commendable and proper for such a necessity : 
we ought to commend them for their devotion, 
but not properly for their constancy ; they shun 
the encounter, they divert their thoughts from 
the consideration of death, as children are amused 
with some toy or other, when the surgeon is 
going to give them a prick with his lancet. I 
have seen some who, casting sometimes their 
eyes upon the dreadful instruments of death 
round about, have fainted, and furiously turned 
their thoughts elsewhere : sucli as are to pass a 
formidable precipice are advised either to shut 
their eyes or look another way. 

Subrius Flavius being, by Nero's command, 
to be put to death, and by the hand of Niger, 
both of them captains, when they led him to 
the place appointed for his execution, seeing the 
hole that Niger had caused to be hollowed to 
put him into, badly made: "Neither is this," 
said he, turning to the soldiers who guarded 
him, "according to military discipline." And 
to Niger, who exhorted him to keep his head 
firm : " Do but thou strike as firmly," said he : 
and he very well foresaw what would follow, 
when he said so; for Niger's arm so trembled 
that he had several blows at his head before he 
could cut it ofT. 5 This man seems to have had 
his thoughts rightly fixed upon the subject. 

He that dies in a battle, with his sword in 
his hand, does not then think of death; he 



i Ovid, Met, x. 571. 

2 Id. ib. 

8 Uicero, 600, Tusc. Qa 



i Cicero, Tusc. Qu<es. i. 3 
i Tacitus, Annal. xv. 67. 



Val. Max. viii. 9, Ext. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



411 



neither feels nor considers it ; the 
Whether men ardour of the fio-ht diverts his 
thmk much of ., , . . ° . ., 

death in battle thoughts another way. A gentle- 
or a duel. man of my acquaintance, falling 

as he was lighting a duel at single 
rapier, and feeling himself nailed to the earth 
by nine or ten thrusts of his enemy, after he was 
on the ground, the seconds called to him to 
think of his conscience ; but he has since told 
me that, though he heard what they said, it 
nothing moved him, and that he never thought 
of any thing but how to disengage and revenge 
himself: he afterwards killed his man in that 
very duel. He who brought L. Silvanus the 
sentence of death did him a very great kindness, 
in that, having received his answer, "that he 
was well prepared to die, but not by scoundrel 
hands," he ran upon him with his soldiers, to 
force him; and as he, naked as he was, obsti- 
nately defended himself with his fists and feet, 
he made him lose his life in the dispute ; by that 
means dissipating and diverting, in a sudden 
and furious rage, the painful idea of a lingering 
death, to which he was designed. 

We always think of something else; either 

the hope of a better life comforts 
™fsSi"„s and fPP° rt ? us ' u r the hope of 
which hinder our children s worth, or the future 
us from think- glory of our name, or the leavinp; 
uei.h re * behind the evils of this life, or 

the vengeance that threatens those 
who are the causes of our death, administers 
consolation to us : 

Speroequidem niediis, si quid pia numina possunt, 
Supplicia huusuriiiii acnpuIN, et nomine Dido 

Saipe vocaturum 

Audiain; et litec manes veniet milii fama sub imos.i 

" And if the soils have any power at all, 
Thrown on a rock thou shalt on Dido call : 
At least my shade thy punishment shall know, 
And fame shall spread the pleasing news below." 

Xenophon was sacrificing with a crown upon 
his head, when one came to bring him news of 
the death of his son Gryllus, slain in the battle 
of Mantinea; at the first surprise of the news 
he threw his crown to the ground ; but under- 
standing, by the sequel of the narrative, that 
his son died in a most brave and valiant man- 
ner, he took it up and replaced it upon his 
head. 2 Even Epicurus at his death comforts 
himself with reflections of the usefulness and 
eternity of his writings: 3 omnes clnri et nobili- 
lati labor es fiunt ' tolerabiles :* "all labours 
that are illustrious and renowned are support- 
able :" and the same wound, the same fatigue, 
is not, says Xenophon, so intolerable to a 
general of an army as to a common soldier: 5 
Epaminondas died much more cheerful, having 
been informed that the victory remained to 



1 JF.ni-U, iv. 382. 

- Val. Max. iv. 10. Ext.2. Diod. I.aertius, in vitu. Mlitxn, 
Hist. Var, iii. 3. 
8 In his Ltlttr to Hermachus. Cicero, de Finib. ii. 30. 

■> Cicero, Tusc. Qums. ii. 2-1. o Id, jj. 



him: hxc sunt solatia, hxc f omenta surn- 
morum dolorum :* "these are lenitives, and 
fomentations to the greatest pains:" and other 
such circumstances amuse, divert, and turn our 
thoughts from the consideration of the thing in 
itself. Even the arguments of philosophy are 
always diverting, and putting by the matter, 
so as scarce ro rub upon the sore: the greatest 
man of the first philosophical school, and super- 
intendent over all the rest, the great Zeno, 
against death, forms this syllogism: " No evil 
is honourable; but death is honourable: there- 
fore death is not evil:" 7 against drunkenness 
this: "No one commits his secrets to a drunk- 
ard, but every one commits his secrets to a wise 
man: therefore a wise man is no drunkard." 3 
Is this to hit the mark] I love to see that 
these great and leading souls cannot rid them- 
selves of our company ; as perfect men as they 
may be, they are yet but men. 

Revenge is a sweet passion, of great and 
natural impression ; I discern this 
well enough, though I have no The way to _ 

~° • ° ~ • „ -,-, dissipate a vio- 

manner of experience of it. r rom lellt \ ow / ]us 
which, not long ago, to divert a for revenge, 
young prince, I did not tell him 
that if a man struck him on one cheek he must 
turn the other to him, to fulfil the duties of 
charity ; nor did I go about to represent the 
tragical events which poetry attributes to that 
passion: I left those strings untouched, and 
occupied myself with making him relish the 
beauty of a contrary image; by representing to 
him what honour, esteem, and good-will he 
would acquire by clemency and good-nature, I 
diverted him to that ambition. Thus a man is 
to deal in such cases. 

If your passion of love be too violent, disperse 
it, say they ; and they say well ; for I have 
oft tried it with advantage : break it into several 
desires, of which let one be regent, if you will, 
over the rest; but, lest it should tyrannise and 
domineer over you, weaken and protract, in 
dividing and diverting it: 

Cum morosa vago singuliict inguine vena; 9 
Conjicito humorein collectum in corpora quaeque;M> 

and look to't in time, lest it prove too trouble- 
some to deal with, when it has once seized you ; 

Si non prima novis contiirbes vulnera plagis, 

Volgivagaque vagus venule ante receulia cures." 



I once was wounded with a vehement dis- 
pleasure, according to my complexion ; and 
withal, more just than vehement; I might per- 
haps have lost myself in it, if I had merely 
trusted to my own strength. Having need of 



" Cicero, Tim. Quits, ii. 23. 

i Seneca, Epist. Si. 

t id. ib. B3. 

i Para, vi.73. 

io Lueret. iv. 1062. 

" Id. ib. 



412 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 






a powerful diversion to disengage me, I made 
it my business, by art and study, to fall in love, 
in which I was assisted by my youth : love 
relieved and rescued me from the evil wherein 
friendship had engaged me. 'Tis in everything 
else the same ; a violent imagination hath seized 
me ; I find it a nearer way to change than to 
subdue it; I depute, if not one contrary, yet 
another at least in its place : variation always 
relieves, dissolves, and dissipates. If I am not 
able to contend with it, I escape from it; and 
in avoiding it, slip out of the way and cheat 
it: shifting place, business, and company, I 
secure myself in the crowd of other thoughts 
and fancies, where it loses my trace, and I 
escape. 

After the same manner does nature proceed, 
by the benefit of inconstancy; 



passions. 



as the sovereign physician of our 
passions, principally gains its ef- 
fect by this means : by supplying our imagina- 
tions with other and new affairs, it unties and 
dissolves the first apprehension, how strong 
soever. A wise man sees his friend little less 
dying at the end of five and twenty years, than 
in the first year; and, according to Epicurus, 
not less at all; for he did not attribute any 
alleviation of afflictions either to our foresight, 
or to the antiquity of the evils themselves: but 
so many other thoughts traverse the first, that 
it languishes and tires at last. 

Alcibiades, to divert the inclination of com- 
mon rumours, cut off the ears and tail of his 
beautiful dog, and turned him out into the 
public place, to the end that, giving the people 
this occasion to prate, they might let his other 
actions alone. 1 I have also seen, for this same 
end of diverting the opinions and conjectures 
of the people, and to stop their mouths, some 
women conceal their real affections by others 
that were only counterfeit; but I have likewise 
seen one who, in counterfeiting, has suffered 
herself to be caught indeed, and has quitted the 
true and original affection for the feigned; by 
which I have learned that they who find their 
affections well placed are fools to consent to 
this disguise : the favourable and public recep- 
tion being only reserved for this apposted ser- 
vant, a man may conclude him a fellow of very 
little address, if he does not in the end put him- 
self into your place, and you into his ; this is 
properly to cut out and make up a shoe for 
another to draw on. 

A little tiling will turn and divert us, because 
a little thing holds us. We do 
not much consider subjects in 
gross and in themselves; but 
there are little and superficial cir- 
cumstances that strike us, the 
husks that fall off from those 



A small matter 
cither engages 
or disengages 
the mind. 



vain, 
subjects, 



1 Plutarch, in vita. 

2Liiciet. v. 80J . 

8 In Ilis Consolation to his Wife. 



Folliculos ut nunc teretes restate cicada? 
Linquunt : 2 

" Such as the hollow husks or shells we find 
In summer grasshoppers do leave behind." 

Even Plutarch himself laments his daughter 
for the little apish tricks of her infancy. 3 The 
remembrance of a farewell, of a particular 
action or grace, of a last recommendation, 
afflicts us. The sight of Ceesar's robe troubled 
all Rome, which was more than his death had 
done. Even the sound of names ringing in 
our ears, as " My poor master !" or " My 
valued friend!" "Alas! my dear father!" or 
"My sweet daughter!" makes us melancholy 
and sad. When these repetitions torment me, 
and that I examine them a little nearer, I find 
them but a grammatical and verbal complaint; 
I am wounded with the word and tone ; as the 
exclamations of preachers very often work more 
upon their auditory than their reasons, and as 
the mournful eyes and voice of a beast killed 
for our service ; without my weighing or pene- 
trating at the same time into the true and real 
essence of my subject : 

His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit: 4 
•' With these incitements grief itself provokes:" 

these are the foundations of our mourning. 

The obstinacy of the stone has sometimes 
thrown me into so long a suppression of urine, 
for three or four days together, and so near 
death, that it had been folly to have hoped to 
evade it ; and it was much rather to have been 
desired, considering the miseries I endure in 
those cruel fits. Oh, how great a master in the 
art of hangmanship was that worthy emperor, 5 
who caused criminals to be tied in such a man- 
ner that they might die for want of making 
water! Finding myself in this condition, I 
considered by how many light causes and ob- 
jects imagination nourished in me the regret 
of life; and of what atoms the weight and 
difficulty of this dislodging was composed in 
my soul ; and to how many idle and frivolous 
thoughts we give way in so great an affair : a 
dog, a horse, a book, a glass, and what not, 
were considered in my loss; in others, their 
ambitious hopes, their money, their knowledge, 
not less foolish considerations in my opinion 
than mine. I look upon death carelessly, when 
I look upon it universally as the end of life. 
I insult over it in gross; but in retail it domi- 
neers over me; the tears of a footman, the 
disposing of my clothes, the touch of a friendly 
hand, an ordinary phrase of consolation, dis- 
courages and melts me. Thus do the complaints 
in poetry infect our souls with grief; and the 
sorrows of Dido and Ariadne touch with compas- 
sion even those that don't believe in them, in 
Virgil and Catullus. It is an example of an 
obstinate and obdurate nature to be sensible of 



6 Tiberius. Suetonius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



413 



no emotion; as 'tis reported for a miracle of 
Polemon; but then he did not so much as alter 
his countenance at the biting of a mad dog, that 
tore away the calf of his own leg. 1 And no wis- 
dom proceeds so far as to conceive so lively and 
entire a cause of sorrow by judgment, that it 
suffers no increase by presence, where the eyes 
and ears have their share ; parts that are not to 
be moved but by vain accidents. 

Is it reason that even the arts themselves 
should make an advantage of our natural 

imbecility and weakness 1 ? The 
The orator and orator, says rhetoric, in the farce 
t.imh"j"to' a tiie °f" his pleading, shall be moved 
quick by acting with the sound of his own voice 
InoLXin ' fie- and fe 'g n ed emotions, and suffer 
tion. himself to be imposed upon by the 

passion he represents; he will 
imprint in himself a true and real grief by 
means of the part he plays, to transmit it to the 
judges, who are yet less concerned than he : 
as they do who are hired at funerals to assist 
in the ceremony of sorrow, who sell their tears 
and mourning by weight and measure. For 
although they act in a borrowed form, never- 
theless by habituating themselves, and settling 
their countenances to the occasion, 'tis most 
certain they are often really affected with a true 
and real sorrow. I was one, among several 
other of his friends, who conveyed the body of 
Monsieur de Grammont 2 to Soissons, from the 
siege of la Fere, where he was slain ; I observed 
that in all places we passed through we filled 
the people with tears and lamentations, by the 
mere solemn pomp of our convoy, for there the 
name of the deceased was not so much as known. 
Quintilian reports 3 to have seen players so 
deeply engaged in a mourning part, that they 
could not give over weeping when they came 
home ; and of himself, that having undertaken 
to stir up that passion in another, he himself 
espoused it to that degree as to find himself 
surprised not only into tears, but even with 
paleness, and the port of a man really over- 
whelmed with grief. 

In a place near our mountains the women 
play Priest Martin; 4 for as they 
tU^Hta* a »gment the regret of the de- 
ing one's grief, ceased husband, by the remem- 
brance of the good and agreeable 
qualities he was master of, they also at the 
same time make a register of and publish his 
imperfections; as if of themselves to enter into 
some compensation and so divert themselves 
from compassion to disdain ; and yet with 
much better grace than we do, who, when we 
lose an old acquaintance, strive to give him 
new and false praises, and to make him quite 
another thing when we have lost sight of him 



1 Laertiug, in vita. 

a Philibert, Count of Grammont and Guiche, husband of 
Ln Belle Girisandr., already referred to. lie was killed ... 
15H0. ai the siege of lu Fere, undertaken on the pari of the 
League by the Marshal de MnlignoD. 

a Intlit. Orat. vi. 2. 
35* 



than he seemed to be when we had him ; as if 
regret was an instructive thing, or as if tears 
enlightened our understanding by washing it. 
For my part I renounce all favourable testi- 
monies men would hereafter give of me, not 
because I shall be worthy of them, but because 
I shall be dead. 

Whoever shall ask a man, " What interest 
have you in this siege V "The interest of 
example," he will say, "and of 
common obedience to my prince: Vain objects of 
I pretend to no profit by it: and "l",^ uTuiou'i' 

for glory, I know how small a reality, strike 

part can reflect upon such a pri- «* h d u e m e ™ ine 
vate man as I am : I have here mind. 
neither passion nor quarrel in it." 
And yet you shall see him the next day, quite 
another man, chafing and red with fury, ranged 
in battle for the assault: 'tis the glittering of so 
much steel, the fire and noise of our cannons 
and drums, that have infused this new rancour 
and fury into his veins. A frivolous cause, you 
will say: how a cause 1 There needs none to 
agitate the soul : a mere whimsy, without body 
and without subject, will rule and sway it. 
Let me set about building castles in the air, my 
imagination suggests to me conveniences and 
pleasures with which my soul is really tickled 
and pleased. How often do we torment our 
mind with anger or sorrow by such shadows, 
and engage ourselves in fantastic passions that 
alter both the soul and body '.' What astonished, 
fleering, and confused grimaces does this raving 
put our faces into! What sallies and agita- 
tion, both of members and voices, does it 
occasion! Does it not seem that this individual 
man has false visions from a crowd of other 
men with whom he has to do, or that he is pos- 
sessed with some internal demon that persecutes 
him ] Enquire of yourself, where is the object 
of this mutation 1 Is there any thing but us 
in nature that nullity sustains, over which nul- 
lity has power 1 Cambyses, for having dreamt 
that his brother should be one day king of 
Persia, put him to death : a brother whom he 
tenderly loved, in whom he had always con- 
fided. 5 Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, 
killed himself out of a fancy of ill omen, from 
I know not what howling of his dogs; 6 and 
King Midas did as much upon account of some 
foolish dream he had. 7 'Tis to prize life at its 
just value to abandon it for a dream. Hear 
how our soul triumphs over the body, and the 
weakness that exposes it to every injury and 
alteration, truly, she has just reason to laugh 
at it! 

O prima infelix fingenti terra Prometheo 

Ille parum cauti pectoris egit opus. 
Corpora dispouens, mentein non vidit in arte ; 

Recta annul primuui debuit esse via. 8 



* A proverb, founded on the story of a priest, named 
Martin, who himself acted as both parson und clerk. 
» Herod, iii. 30. 
Plutarch, On Superstition. 
> Id. i», 
8 Propertius, iii. 5, 7. 



414 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



' O, 'twas for man a most unhappy day, 
When rash Prometheus form'd him out of clay ! 
In his, attempt the heedless architect 
Did indiscreetly the main thing neglect. 
In framing bodies he had not the art 
To form the mind, the first and noblest part." 



CHAPTER V. 

UPON SOME VERSES OF VIRGIL. 

In proportion as useful thoughts are full and 
solid, so are they also more cumbersome and 
heavy : vice, death, poverty, disease, are grave 
and grievous subjects. A man must have his 
soul instructed in the means to sustain and to 
contend with evil, and in the rules of living and 
believing well ; he must likewise often rouse it 
up, and exercise it in this noble study. But in 
a vulgar soul, it must be by intervals, and with 
moderation; it will otherwise grow besotted, 
if continually intent. 

When I was young, I had need of frequent 
self-solicitations and admonitions to keep me to 
my duty ; gaiety and health, it is said, do not 
so well agree with those grave and serious me- 
ditations; I am at present in another condition; 
the indispositions of age do but too much adver- 
tise and preach to me. From the excess of 
sprightliness I am fallen into that of gravity, 
which is more troublesome : and for that reason 
I now purposely suffer myself to run into some 
little liberties, and sometimes unbend my mind 
with youthful and foolish thoughts, in which to 
divert itself. I am grown now but too full, too 
heavy, and too ripe : my years read every day 
new lectures to me of coldness and temperance. 
This body of mine avoids disorder, and dreads 
if; 'tis now my body's time to guide my mind 
towards reformation ; it governs in its turn, and 
more rudely and imperiously than the other ; it 
lets me not an hour alone, sleeping or waking; 
but is always preaching to me death, patience, 
and repentance. I now defend myself from 
temperance, as I formerly did from voluptuous- 
ness: it draws me too much back, even to 
stupidity. Now I will be master of myself to 
all intents and purposes : wisdom has its excess, 
and has no less need of moderation than folly. 
Therefore, lest I should wither, dry up, and 
overcharge myself with prudence, in the inter- 
vals and truces which my infirmities allow me, 

Mens intenta suis ne siet usque malis.i 



I gently decline it, and turn away my eyes from 
the stormy and frowning sky I have before 
me, which, thanks be to God, I consider with- 
out fear, but not without meditation and debate, 



i Ovid, Trist. i 4. The text has nefoi 
2 Petronius, Satiric c. i. 28. 
s Mart. x. 23. 
• Laws, ii. 



and amuse myself in the remembrance of my 
past youth : 

Animus quod perdidit oplat, 
Atque in praterita se totus imagine versat.a 



Let infancy look forward and age backward ; 
is not this the signification of Janus's double 
face? Let years haul me back if they will, 
but it shall be backward ! As long as my eyes 
can discern the pleasant season expired, I shall 
now and then turn them that way : though it 
escapes from my blood and my veins, I shall 
not however root the image of it out of my 
memory ; 

Hoc est, 

Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui. 3 



Plato ordains 4 that old men should be present 
at the exercises, dances, and sports 
of young people, that they may Old men should 
rejoice, in others, for the activity b , e P resent at 

J i » . <• i , i • i • J the past] ino= 

and beauty of body which is no and exercises 
more in themselves, and recall to of youth 
memory the grace and comeliness 
of that flourishing age ; and wills that in these 
recreations, the hunour of the prize should be 
given to that young man who has most diverted 
the company. I formerly used to mark cloudy 
and gloomy days for extraordinary; those are 
now my ordinary ones; the extraordinary are 
the clear and bright; I am ready to leap out of 
my skin for joy, as for an uncommon favour, 
when nothing ails me. Let me tickle myself 
presently after, 1 cannot force a poor smile from 
this wretched body of mine ; I am only merry 
in fancy, or dreaming, by artifice to divert the 
melancholy of age ; but, certes, it requires an- 
other remedy than the efficacy of a dream. A 
weak contest of art against nature ! 'Tis great 
folly to lengthen and anticipate human incon- 
veniences, as every one does. I had rather 
be a less while old, than be old before I am 
really so. 5 I seize on even the least occasions 
of pleasure I can meet. I know very well by 
hearsay several sorts of prudent pleasures, that 
are effectually so, and glorious to boot; but 
opinion has not power enough over me to give 
me an appetite to them. I covet not so much 
to have them magnanimous, magnificent, and 
lofty, as I do to have them soft, easy, and ready : 
a natura discedimus ; populo nos damns, nullius 
rei bono auctori: 6 " we depart from nature, and 
give ourselves to the people, who understand 
nothing." My philosophy is in action, in 
natural and present use, very little in fancy : 
what if I have a mind to play at cob-nut, or to 
whip a top ! 



6 This is word for word the same passage in Cicero (de 
Sencct. c. 14.) for which Montaigne (book ii. c. 10.) criticises 
that author. 

cSenec. Etlst. 99. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



415 



rumores ante saliitcin.' 



Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition ; 
it thinks itself rich enough of itself, without 
any addition of repute ; and is best pleased 
where most obscure. A young man should be 
whipped who pretends to a palate in wine and 
sauces; there was nothing which at that age 
I less valued or knew ; now I begin to learn, 
I am very much ashamed of it; but what should 
we do? I am more ashamed and vexed at the 
occasions that put me upon it. ' I'is for us to 
fiddle-faddle and trifle away the time: and for 
young men to stand upon their reputation and 
punctilios; they are going towards the world, 
and the world's opinion ; we are retiring from it : 
Sibi arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas, sibi clavam, 
sibi pilaw, sibi nalationes et curs us ; habeant 
nobis senibus, ex lusionibus multis, talos relin- 
quant et tesseras: 2 "Let them reserve to 
themselves arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis, 
swimming, and races ; and, of their numerous 
sports and exercises, leave to us old men the 
diversion of cards and dice :" the laws them- 
selves send us home. 3 I can do no less, in favour 
of this wretched condition, into which my age 
has thrown me, than furnish it with toys to 
play withal, as they do children; for we also 
become such. Both wisdom and folly will have 
enough to do to support and relieve me by 
alternate offices in this calamity of age ; 

Misce stultitiain consiliis brevem.'i 



Just so do I avoid the lightest punctures 
and those that formerly would not have rippled 
the skin, now pierce me through and through : 
my habit of body is now so naturally open to 
the stroke of pain ! In fragili corpore odiosa 
omnis qffensio est ,- 5 " To a decrepid body every 
shock is hateful ; 

Mensque pati durum Bustinet a:gra nihil.<> 
" And a sick mind nothing that's hard endures." 

I have ever been tender, and very susceptible 
of bodily injury ; at present I am much more 
tender, and open throughout: 

Et minima; vires frangcre quassa valent.? 
"A cracked pitcher is soon broken." 

My judgment restrains me from kicking 
against and grumbling a # t the inconveniences 
that nature orders me to endure, but it does not 
take away my feeling; I, who have no other 
object in view than to live and be merry, would 



run from one end of the world to the other, to 
seek out one good year of pleasant and jocund 
tranquillity. A melancholic and dull tranquil- 
lity seems enough for me; but it benumbs and 
stupifies ; I am not contented with it. If there 
be any person, any knot of good company, in 
country or city, in France or elsewhere, stay- 
at-home or travelling, who can like my humour, 
and whose humours I can like, let them but 
whistle, and I will come and furnish them with 
Essays in flesh and bone. 

Seeing it is the privilege of the mind to 
rescue itself from old age, I advise mine to it, 
with all the power I have ; let it in the interim 
continue green, and flourish, if it can, like 
mistletoe upon a dead tree. But I fear 'tis a 
traitor; it has contracted so stiff a brothership 
with the body that it abandons me at every 
turn, to follow that in its need : I wheedle and 
deal with it apart in vain; I try to no purpose 
to wean it from this correspondence; in vain 
quote Seneca and Catullus, and represent to it 
beautiful ladies and royal dances; if its com- 
panion has the cholic it seems to have it too : 
even the faculties that are most peculiarly and 
properly its own, cannot then perform their 
functions, but manifestly appear dozed and 
stupified; there is no sprightliness in its pro- 
ductions, if there be not at the same time an 
equal proportion in the body too. 

Our masters are to blame that, searching out 
the causes of the extraordinary 
emotions and sallies of the soul, J i h „ e ou h r e a / t t h h £ nd 
besides attributing them to a di- body is the 
vine ecstasy, love, martial fierce- cause of the ex- 
ness, poetry, and wine, they have u e ToVthe mfiut 
not also allowed health her share 
in them; boiling, vigorous, full, idle health, 
such as formerly the verdure of youth and se- 
curity kept me supplied withal; that fire of 
sprightliness and gaiety darts into the mind 
flashes that are lively and bright beyond our 
natural light, and with the most working, if 
not the most extravagant enthusiasms. It is 
then no wonder if a contrary state stupifies my 
spirit, nails it down, and produces a contrary 
effect : 

Ad nullum consurgit opus cum corpore languet ; 9 

" For when the body languishing doth lie, 
I to no object can myself apply :" 

and yet would have me obliged to it for giving 
much less consent to this than is seen in other 
men ordinarily. Let us at least, whilst we 
have truce, drive away incommodities and 
difficulties from our commerce ; 



Dum licet, obducta solvattir fronte : 
' Drive care, with age's wrinkled front, away :" 



i This is a very plcasanl application of a grave verse, 
ipiolrd cm of Knniiis. by Cirero, de U.ffie. i. 24, where that 
poet, speaking of 1'ahius Maxiinus, says that, while he was 
acting fur i he public good, he was indifferent to every thing 
that u as sanl at Hume to run down his conduct. 

3 Cicero, dr Scnect. c. (i. 

3 Id. ib. c. 11. 



i Horace, Od. iv. 12, 27. 
' Cicero, ut supra, e. 18. 
1 Ovid, lie Panto, i. 5, 18. 
'Id. 7'mf. iii. II. '.»■-•. 
1 Pseudo-Gallus, i. 125. 
> Horace, Epott. xiii. 7. 



416 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



telrica stmt amaznanda jocularibus. 1 "Sour 
things are to be sweetened with those that are 
pleasant." I love a gay and social wisdom, 
and fly from all austerity and sourness of man- 
ners, all grumness and formality of countenance 
being suspected by me, 

Tristemque vultus tetrici arrogantiam; 
" The arrogant affectation of a starched, dismal face ;" 
Et habet tristis quoque turba cinsedos. 2 
" A mien austere oft veils a vicious heart." 

I entirely believe Plato, who says that easy 
or difficult humours are a great prejudice to the 
good or bad disposition of the soul. Socrates 
had a constant countenance, but withal serene 
and smiling; not sourly constant, like the elder 
Crassus, whom no man ever saw to laugh. 
Virtue is a pleasant and gay quality. 

I know very well that few will quarrel with 
. , the liberty of my writings, who 
op?"ion"of S have not more to quarrel with in 
those who shall the license of their own thoughts : 
TedonTofhis I conform myself well enough to 
writings. their inclinations, but I offend 

their eyes. 'Tis a pretty humour 
to strain at the writings of Plato, and glide 
gently over his pretended negotiations with 
Phaedo, Dion, Aster, and Archeanassa ! JSon 
pudeat dicere quod non pudeat sentire. " Let 
us not be ashamed to speak what we are not 
ashamed to think." I hate a froward and 
moping spirit, that slips over all the pleasures 
of life, and seizes and feeds upon misfortunes ; 
like flies, that cannot stick to a sleek and 
polished body, but fix and repose themselves 
upon craggy and rough places ; and like cup- 
ping-glasses, that only suck and attract the 
•worst blood. 

As to the rest, I have enjoined myself to dare 

to say all that I dare to do ; and 

Of the liberty even thoughts that are not to be 

he takes to say i_r i_ j j- i .• 

all that he dares published displease me ; the worst 
to do. of my actions and qualities do not 

appear to me so foul, as I find it 
foul and base not to dare to own them. Every 
one is wary and discreet in confession, but men 
ought to be so in action : boldness in doing ill 
is in some sort modified and restrained by bold- 
ness in confessing it: whoever would oblige 
himself to tell all, would oblige himself to do 
nothing that he must be forced to conceal. I 
wish that this excessive license of mine may 
draw men to freedom, above these timorous and 
mincing pretended virtues, sprung from our 
imperfections; and that, at the expense of my 
immoderation, I may reduce them to reason. 
A man must see and study hfe vice to correct it ; 



1 Sidonius Apollinar, Ep. i. 9. 

a Martial, vii. 58. It is not known whence Montaigne 
borrowed the preceding line. 

a Seneca, Ep. 53. 

* Here Montaigne makes Thnles say the very contrary 
to what he really" said ; and this, by mistaking the sense of 
Diogenes Laertius, the author whom he must have con- 
sulted for the answer: " A man," said Diogenes, " who had 



they who conceal it from others commonly con- 
ceal it from themselves, and do not think it 
covered enough, if they themselves see it; they 
hide and disguise it from their own conscience : 
Quare vitia sua nemo covfitilur? Quia etiam, 
nunc in illis est ; somnium narrare vigilantis 
est. 3 "Why does no man confess his vices'! 
Because he is yet in them ; 'tis for a waking 
man to tell his dream." The diseases of the 
body explain themselves in increasing; we find 
that to be the gout which we called a rheum or 
a strain : the diseases of the soul, the greater 
they are, keep themsalves the more obscure ; 
the most sick are the least sensible of them ; 
for these reasons they must often be dragged 
into light by an unrelenting and pitiless hand ; 
they must be opened and torn from the caverns 
and secret recesses of the heart. As in doing 
well, so in doing ill, the mere confession is 
sometimes satisfaction. Is there any deformity 
in doing amiss, that can excuse us from con- 
fessing ourselves 1 It is so great a pain to me 
to dissemble, that I evade the trust of another's 
secrets, wanting the heart to disavow my know- 
ledge : I can conceal it, but deny it I cannot, 
without the greatest trouble and violence to 
myself imaginable : to be very secret, a man 
must be so by nature, not by obligation. 'Tis 
little worth in the service of a prince to be 
secret, if a man be not a liar to boot. If he 
who asked Thales, the Milesian, whether he 
ought solemnly to deny that he had committed 
uncleanness, had applied himself to me, I should 
have told him that he ought not to do it ; for I 
look upon lying to be a greater crime than the 
other, Thales advised him quite contrary, 4 
bidding him swear to secure himself the greater 
fault by the less : nevertheless this counsel was 
not so much an election as a multiplication of 
vice. Upon which, let me say this by the by, 
that we deal sincerely and well with a man of 
conscience, when we propose to him some diffi- 
culty in counterpoise of a vice : but when we 
shut him up betwixt two vices, he is put to a« 
hard choice, as Origen was, either to idolatrize 
or to suffer himself to be carnally abused by a 
great ^Ethiopian slave that was brought to him ; 
he submitted to the first condition, as it is said. 
And yet tastes differ ; witness those women of 
our times who, according to their error, protest 
they had rather burden their consciences with 
ten men than one mass. 

If it be indiscretion so to publish one's errors, 
yet there is no great danger of its passing into 
example and custom; for Aristo said,* that 
the winds which men feared most were those 
that laid them open. We must tuck up this 



committed adultery, having asked Thales whether he might 
not deny it upon oath ? Thales made answer, ' But is not 
perjury even a worse crime than adultery?'" See Dio- 
genes' Life of Thales. Perhaps Montaigne was deceived 
by some edition of this author, where the note of interro. 
gation was omitted after the last word, which, indeed, is 
an omission that I find in Henry Wetstein's edition, which, 
excepting that, is very correct. 
6 Plutarch, on Curiosity. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



417 



ridiculous rag that hides our manners ; people 
send their consciences to the stews, but keep a 
starched countenance. Even traitors and as- 
sassins espouse the laws of ceremony, and there 
fix their duty ; so that neither can justice com- 
plain of incivility, nor malice of indiscretion. 
'Tis pity but an ill man should be likewise a 
fool, and that decency should palliate his vice: 
this rough-casting is only for sound and good 
walls, that deserve to be preserved and whited. 
To meet the Huguenots, who condemn our 

auricular and private confession, 
Why Mon- I confess myself in public, reli- 

be'confeBsedin giously and purely: St. Augus- 
pubiic. tin, Origen, and Hippocrates, 

have published the errors of their 
opinions; and I moreover of my manners. I 
am greedy of making myself known; and I 
care not to how many, provided it be truly; 
or, rather, I hunger for nothing; but I mor- 
tally hate to be mistaken by those who happen 
to come across my name. He that does all 
things for honour and glory, what can he think 
to gain by showing himself to the world in a 
mask, and by concealing his true being from 
the people] Commend a hunchback for his 
fine shape, he has a right to take it for an 
affront: if you are a coward, and that men 
commend you for your valour, is it of you that 
they speak 1 They take you for another. A 
footman behind a coach might as well glorify 
himself in the compliments and congees which 
are made, as if he were master of the company, 
when he is one of the most inferior of the train. 
Archelaus, King of Macedon, walking along 
the street, somebody threw water on his head! 
which they who were with him said he ought 
to punish: "Aye, but," said he, "whoever it 
was, he did not throw the water upon me, but 
upon him whom he took me to be." ' Socrates 
being told that people spoke ill of him : " Not 
at all," said he, "there is nothing in me of 
what they say." 2 For my part, if any one 
should commend me for a good pilot, for being 
very modest or very chaste, I should owe him 
no thanks ; and, by the same rule, whoever 
should call me traitor, robber, or drunkard, I 
should be as little concerned. They who do 
not rightly know themselves, may feed and feast 
upon false approbations; not I, who see my- 
self, and examine myself even to my very 
bowels, and who very well know what is my 
due. I am content to be less commended, pro- 
vided I am better known. I may be reputed 
a wise man in such a sort of wisdom, as 1 take 
to be folly. I am vexed that my Essays only 
serve the ladies for a common moveable, a book- 
to lie in the parlour window ; this chapter shall 
prefer me to the closet: I love to traffic with 
them a little in private; public conversation is 
without favour and without savour. In fare- 



Plutarch, Jlpothcg. of the King*. 
See Cicero, Epist. Fam. is. -22. 



wells we above ordinary heat our affections 
towards the things we take leave of; I take 
my last leave of the pleasures of this world ; 
these are our last embraces. 

But to come to my subject. What has 
rendered the act of generation, an act so natural, 
so necessary, and so just, a thing not to be 
spoken of without blushing, and to be excluded 
from all serious and regular discourses'! We 
boldly pronounce kill, rob, betray, 3 but the 
other we dare only to mutter betwixt the teeth. 
Is it to say, that the less we say in words, we 
may pay it so much the more with thinking"! 
For it is certain that the words least in use, 
most seldom writ, and best kept in, are the 
best and most generally known ; no age, no 
manners are ignorant of them, any more than 
of the word bread. They imprint themselves in 
every one, without being expressed, without 
voice, and without figure; and the sex that 
most practises it is bound to say least of it. 
'Tis an act that we have placed in the free- 
franchise of silence, whence to take it is a 
crime, even though it be to accuse and judge 
it ; neither dare we reprehend it, but in peri- 
phrasis and circuity. A great favour to a 
criminal, to be so execrable that justice itself 
thinks it unjust to touch and see him ! free and 
safe by the benefit of the severity of his con- 
demnation. Is it not here as with books, that 
sell better and become more public, by being 
suppressed? 4 For my part, I will take Aristotle 
at his word, who says that " bashfulness is an 
ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age." 
These verses are preached in the ancient school. 
a school that I much more adhere to than the 
modern ; the virtues of it appear to me to be 
greater, and the vices less : 



Tu, dea, tu rerum natnram sola gubernas, 
Nee sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras 
Exoritur, neque sit latum, nee amabile quidquam.8 

"Thou deity, by whom all nature's sway'd, 
Without whose power nothing can spring to light, 
Or beautiful, or lovely to the sight." 

I know not who could set Pallas and the 
Muses at variance with Venus, 
and make them cold towards JESSS?^ 
love ; but I see no deities so well great con- 
met, or that are more indebted to v '^' u "" with 
one another. Whoever would 
deprive the Muses of amorous imaginations, 
would rob them of the best stuff they have, 
and of the noblest matter of their work: and 
who would make love lose the communication 
and service of poetry, would disarm him of his 
best weapons: in this way they charge the god 
of familiarity and good-will, and the protecting 
goddesses of humanity and justice, with the 



8 Plutarch, That a Philosopher should converse 

Fritters. 
" Lucret. i. 22. 

2b 



418 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



vice of ingratitude and unthankfulness. I have 
not been so long cashiered from the state and 
service of this god, that my memory is not still 
perfect in his force and power ; 

Agnosco veteris vestigia flammav; i 
" Of my old flame there yet remain some sparks;" 

there are yet some remains of heat and emotion 
after the fever : 

Nee mini deficiat calor hie, hiemantibus annisls 
" I have some heat yet in my winter age I" 

Withered and drooping as I am, I feel yet some 
remains of that past ardour : 

dual l'alto Egeo per che Aquilone o Noto 
Cessi, che tutto prima il volse et scosse, 
Non s' accheta egli pero ; ma 1' suono e I' moto, 
Ritien dell'onde anco agitate e grossed 

" As ^Egean seas, when storms be calm'd again. 

That roll'd their tumbling waves with troublous blast, 
Do yet of tempests past some show retain, 
And here and there their swelling billows cast ;" 

but, for what I understand of it, the force and 
power of this god are more lively and animating 
in the picture of poetry than in their own 



Et versos digitos habet : * 
" For there is charming harmony in verse :" 

it has I know not what kind of air more 
amorous than love itself; Venus is not so beau- 
tiful naked, alive, and panting, as she is here 
in Virgil : 

Dixerat ; et niveis hinc atque hinc Diva lacertis 
Cunctantem ainplexu molli fovet. Tile repente 
Accepit solitam flammam ; notusque medullas 
Intravit calor, et labefacta per ossa cucurrit: 
Non secus atque olim tonitru cum rupta corusco 
Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos. 

. . . . Ea verba loquutus, 
Optatos dedit amplexus; plaeidumque petivit 
Conjugis infusis gremio per membra soporem.s 

" She said, and round him threw her snow-white arms, 
And wanned him. wavering, in a soft embrace. 
Swift he takes lire and through his marrow came 
Accustom'd heat, the wonted amorous flame: 
So amidst thunder lanced alone: the sky; 
A stream of fire runs glittering through the sky. 

This having said, 
After the wish'd embrace, he sank to rest, 
Softly reclined on his fair consort's breast." 

All that I find fault with in considering it 
The transports \ s > * hat he ha ? represented her a 
of love banished little too passionate for a married 
fr T marda S e ; Venus; in this discreet kind of 
an wiy ' coupling, the appetite is not 

usually so wanton, but more grave and dull. 
Love hates that people should hold of any but 
himself, and goes but faintly to work in fami- 
liarities derived from any other title, as mar- 
riage is. Alliance and dowry therein weigh, 
and with reason, as much or more than grace 



> JEneid, iv. 23. 

* It is not. known whence Montaigne borrowed thi: 
probably from pome modern author. 
s Tasso, La Gcrus. c. xii, St. 63. 



and beauty. Men do not marry for themselves, 
though they say so; they marry as much or 
more for their posterity, for their family; the 
use and interest of marriage touches our race 
much more than us; and therefore it is that I 
like that custom to have matches carried on by 
a third hand, rather than a man's own, and by 
another man's liking than that of the party 
himself: but how much is all this opposite to 
the ties of love? And also it is a kind of 
incest to employ, in this venerable and sacred 
alliance, the heat and extravagance of amorous 
license, as I think I have said elsewhere. 6 A 
man, says Aristotle, must approach his wife 
with prudence and gravity, lest, in tickling her 
up too lasciviously, extreme pleasure make 
her exceed the bounds of reason. What he says 
upon the account of conscience, the physicians 
say upon the account of health: "That a 
pleasure excessively hot, voluptuous, and fre- 
quent, deteriorates the seed and hinders con- 
ception;" and 'tis said, elsewhere, "that to a 
languishing congression, as that naturally is, 
to supply it with a due and fruitful heat, a 
man must do it but seldom, and by marked 
intermissions ;" 

Quo rapiat sitiens Venerem, interiusque recondat.' 

I see no marriages where the conjugal under- 
standing sooner fails, than those contracted upon 
the account of beauty and amorous desires: 
there should be more solid and lasting founda- 
tions, and they should proceed with greater 
circumspection ; this furious ardour is worth 
nothing. 

They who think they honour marriage by 
joining love to it, do, methinks, like those who, 
to favour virtue, hold that nobility is nothing 
else but virtue. They are, indeed, things that 
have some relation to one another, but there is 
a great deal of difference ; we should not so 
mix their names and titles; 'tis a wrong to 
them both so to confound them. Nobility is a 
brave quality, and with good reason introduced ; 
but, forasmuch as 'tis a quality depending upon 
others, and may happen in a vicious person, 'tis 
to be estimated infinitely below virtue : 'tis- a 
virtue, if it be one, that is artificial and appa- 
rent; depending upon time and fortune; various 
in form, according to various countries ; living, 
and mortal ; without birth, as the river Nile ; 
genealogical and common; drawn by conse- 
quence, and a very weak one. Knowledge, 
strength, goodness, beauty, riches, and all other 
qualities, fall into communication and commerce; 
but this is consummated in itself, and of no use 
to the service of others. There was proposed 
to one of our kings the choice of two concur- 
rents, who both pretended to the same com- 
mand, of which one was a gentleman, the other 
was not; he ordered that, without respect to 



Virgil, Gcorgic. iii. 137. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



419 



quality, they should choose him who had the 
most merit ; but where the worth of the com- 
petitors should appear to be entirely equal, they 
should have respect to birth : this was exactly 
to give it its due rank. A young man, un- 
known, coming to Antigonus to make suit for 
his father's command, a valiant man, lately 
dead : " Friend," said he, " in such preferments 
as these, I have not so much regard to the 
nobility of my soldiers, as to their strength and 
courage." ' And, indeed, it ought not to go as 
it did with the officers of the kings of Sparta, 
trumpeters, fiddlers, cooks, the children of whom 
always succeeded in their places, how ignorant 
soever, and were preferred before the most 
_ . , experienced in these professions. 

To what rank rrn_ r- /-< i ^ i /. .1 ■ 

the nobility are * ne Y or Calicut make of their 
promoted in nobles a class above human : they 
Calicut 8110 '" ° f are interdicted marriage, and all 
but warlike employments; they 
may have concubines their fill, and the women as 
many lovers as they please, without being jealous 
of one another; but 'tis a capital and irretnissible 
crime to couple with a person of meaner condi- 
tion than themselves ; aud they think themselves 
polluted, if they have but touched one in walk- 
ing along, and supposing their nobility to be 
marvellously injured and interested in it, kill 
such as only approach a little too near them ; 
insomuch that the ignoble are obliged to cry 
out as they go, like the gondoleers of Venice, 
at the turning of streets, for fear of jostling ; 
and the nobles command them to step aside to 
what part they please: by which means the 
one avoid what they repute a perpetual igno- 
miny, and the other a certain death. No time, 
no favour of the prince, no office, or virtue, or 
riches, can ever prevail to make a plebeian 
become noble : to which this custom is assisting, 
that marriages are interdicted betwixt several 
trades: the daughter of a shoemaker cannot 
marry a carpenter; and the parents are obliged 
to train up their children precisely in their own 
callings, and not put them ^o any other trade ; 
by which means the distinction and continua- 
tion of their fortune is maintained. 

A good marriage, 2 if it be really so, rejects 
the company and conditions of love, and tries 
to represent those of friendship. 'Tis a sweet 
society of life, full of constancy, trust, and an 
infinite number of useful and solid offices and 
mutual obligations; of which any woman that 
has a right taste, 

Optato quam junxit [limine la?da,3 

" The wife of him she loves," 

would be loth to serve her husband in quality 
of a mistress. If she be lodged in his affection 
as a wife, she is more honourably and securely 



placed. Though he play the lover with another, 
as eager and warm as you please, let any one 
but then ask him, " on which he had rather a 
disgrace should fall, his wife or his mistress"? 
which of their misfortunes would most afflict 
him 1 and to which of them he wishes the most 
grandeur ]" the answer to these questions there 
can be no doubt about in a sound marriage. 

And that so few are observed to be happy, is 
a token of its price and value. If 
well formed, and rightly taken, A good mar- 

T!. '. , „ ,, , to J • .■ nage the most 

'tis the best of all human societies. nu|)|iy state iu 
We cannot live without it, and human society 
yet we do nothing but degrade it. 
It happens as with cages: the birds without 
despair to get in, and those within despair of 
getting out. Socrates being asked 4 whether it 
was more advisable to take a wife or not? 
" Let a man take which course he will," said 
he, " he will be sure to repent." 'Tis a con- 
tract to which the common saying, Homo 
homini deus, or lupus:* "Man to man 
is either a god or a wolf," may very fitly 
be applied : there must be a concurrence of 
many qualities to the erecting it. It is found 
now a-days, more convenient for ordinary and 
plebeian souls, where delights, curiosity, and 
idleness, do not so much disturb it; but 
unruly humours, such as mine, that hate all 
sorts of obligation and restraint, are not proper 
for it : 

Et milii dulce magis resoluto vivere collo.6 
" For liberty is far more sweet to me." 

Might I have had my own will, I would 
not have married Wisdom herself, 
if she would have had me : but Wh y Mon - 

... . , , .. taiL'iie ma 

'tis to much purpose to evade it, though ill < 
the common custom and use of posed for it. 
life will have it so; the most of 
my actions are guided by example, not choice. 
And yet I did not go to it of my own voluntary 
motion, I was led and drawn to it by extrinsic 
occasions: for not only things that are incom- 
modious in themselves, but also none so ugly, 
vicious, and to be avoided are there, that may 
not be rendered acceptable by some condition or 
accident ; so unsteady and vain is all huuan reso- 
lution. And I was persuaded to it when worse 
prepared and more backward than I am at 
present, that I have tried what it is. And as 
great a libertine as I am taken to be, I have in 
truth more strictly observed the laws of mar- 
riage than I either promised or expected. 'Tis 
vain to kick when a man has once put on his 
fetters. A man must prudently manage his 
liberty; but having once submitted to obliga- 
tion, he must confine himself within the laws of 
common duty, at least do what he can towards 



> Plutarch, On False Shame. 

2 Charron (De la Sarrcssc), in his Essay on Marriage, 
lias largely availed himself of Montaigne'; as, indeed, lie 
has throughout his work. 

a Catullus, de Coma Bcrcn. Carm. l.xiv. 79. 



taigne married, 



Laertius, in vita. 
• The first senteno 
Cecilius, apud Symmnch. Eyist. x. 104. The other, 

homini lu/nix. is in 1'l.iutiis, .Jsin. II. iv. M 
Picudo, Gallus, i. 01. 



420 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



it. They who engage in this con- 
Marriage ought tract, and carry themselves in it 
from hatred w ' tn hatred and contempt, do an 
and contempt, unjust and inconvenient thing; 

and the fine rule that I hear pass 
from hand to hand amongst the women, as a 
sacred oracle : 

" Serve thy husband like a waiter, 
But guard thyself as from a traitor:" 

which is to say: "Comport thyself towards 
him with a dissembled, inimical, and distrustful 
reverence, and respect," a watchword of war 
and suspicion, is equally injurious and hard. I 
am too mild for such rugged designs: to say 
the truth, I am not arrived to that perfection of 
cunning and gallantry of wit, to confound reason 
with justice, and to laugh at all rule and order 
that does not please my palate ; because I hate 
superstition, I do not presently run into irre- 
ligion. If a man does not always perform his 
duty, he ought at least to love and acknow- 
ledge it ; 'tis treachery to marry without espous- 
ing. Let us go on. 

Our poet represents a marriage happy in 
good understanding, wherein nevertheless there 
is not much loyalty. Does he mean that it is 
not impossible to give the reins to passion, and 
yield to the importunities of love, and yet re- 
serve some duty towards marriage ; and that it 
may be hurt without being totally broken 1 A 
serving-man may ride in his master's saddle, 
whom nevertheless he does not hate. Beauty, 
opportunity, and destiny, (for destiny has also 
a hand in it, 

Fatum est in partibus i 1 lis 
Quas sinus abscondit : nam, si tibi sidera cessent, 
Nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi.t 

" Fate with full power presides 
E'en o'er those parts which modest nature hides ; 
And little, if her genial influence fail, 
Will vigour stead, or boundless hopes avail,") 

have debauched her to a stranger ; though not 
so wholly, peradventure, but that she may have 
some remains of kindness for her husband. 
They are two designs, that have several paths 
leading to them, without being confounded with 
one another; a woman may yield to such a 
man as she would by no means have married, 
not only by reason of the condition of his for- 
tune, but by that of his person. Few men 
have made a wife of a mistress, that have not 
repented it; and even in the other world, what 
an unhappy life did Jupiter lead with his, whom 
he had first enjoyed as a mistress ! 'Tis, as the 
proverb is, "To befoul a basket, and then to 
put it upon one's head." I have in my time 
seen love shamefully and dishonestly cured in 
a good family by marriage ; the considerations 
are altogether different. 'Tis to say we love 
at once two things contrary in themselves, 



i Juvenal, Ix. 32. 

2 iElian, Far. Hist. xii. 52. 

3 Tiresias. Ovid, Metam. iii. ! 



without any disturbance. Isocrates said that 
the city of Athens pleased as ladies do that 
men court for love ; every one was delighted 
to come thither to take a turn, and pass 
away his time ; but no one liked it so well as 
to espouse it, that is, to inhabit there and to 
make it his constant residence. I have been 
vexed to see husbands hate their wives, only 
because they do them wrong. We should not 
at any rate, methinks, love them the less for 
our faults; they should, at least upon the 
account of repentance and compassion, be 
dearer to us. 

They are different ends, and yet, says he, in 
some sort compatible. Marriage 
has utility, justice, honour, and f w fj[ marriage 
constancy for its share ; a dull, and love, 
but more universal pleasure. Love 
founds itself wholly upon pleasure, and indeed 
has it more full, lively, and stinging ; a plea- 
sure inflamed by difficulty; there must be in it 
sting and ardour : 'tis no more love, if without 
darts and fire. The bounty of ladies is too pro- 
fuse in marriage, and dulls the point of affection 
and desire; to evade which inconvenience do 
but observe what pains Lycurgus and Plato 
take in their laws. 

Women are not to blame at all when they 
refuse the rules of life that are 
introduced into the world; for- Laws imposed 
asmuch as the men made them uponlhewo- 
without their consent. There is men, before the 
naturally dispute and quarrelling J' n "r r c |^ nt 
betwixt them and us; and the to them, 
strictest friendship we have with 
them is yet mixed with tumult and tempest. 
In the opinion of our author, we deal incon- 
siderately with them in this: after we have 
discovered that they are without comparison 
more able and ardent in the effects of love than 
we, and that the old priest has testified as 
much, who had been one while a man and 
then a woman, 

Venus huic erat utraque nota ; 3 
" For he the pleasure of each sex had tried J" 

and, moreover, that we have learnt from their 
own mouths the proof that in different ages was 
made by an emperor and empress of Rome, 
both famous for ability in that affair: for he 4 
in one night deflowered ten Sarmatian virgins 
that were his captives; but she 6 had five-and- 
twenty bouts in one night, changing her man 
according to her need and liking, 



' Still raging with the fever of desire, 
Her veins all turgid, and her blood all fire, 
Exhausted, but unsatisfied, she sought 
Her home;" 



* Proculns. Flav. Vopiscus, in vita. 

6 JUessalina, wife of the Emperor Claudius. 

6 Juvenal, vi. 128. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



and that, upon the dispute which happened in 
Catalonia, wherein a wife complaining of her 
husband's too frequent addresses to her, not so 
much, as I conceive, that she was incommoded 
by it (for I believe no miracles out of religion), 
as under this pretence to curtail and curb in 
this, which is the fundamental act of marriage, 
the authority of husbands over their wives, and 
to show that their frowardness and malignity 
go beyond the nuptial bed, and spurn under 
foot even the graces and sweets of Venus ; the 
husband, a man really brutish and unnatural, 
replied, that even on fasting days he could not 
subsist with less than ten courses.' Whereupon 
came out that notable sentence of the Queen of 
Arragon, by which, after mature deliberation 
of her council, this good queen, to give a rule 
and example to all succeeding ages of the mo- 
deration required in a just marriage, set down 
six times a day as a legitimate and necessary 
stint; surrendering and quitting a great deal 
of the needs and desires of her sex, that she 
might, she said, establish an easy, and conse- 
quently a permanent and immutable, method :' 
whereupon doctors cry out, " What the devil 
must the female appetite and concupiscence be, 
when their reason, their reformation, and vir- 
tue, is fixed at such a rate 1" considering the 
diverse judgment of our appetites; for Solon, 
patron of the law schools, taxes us but at three 
bouts a month, 2 that men may not fail in point 
of conjugal frequentation. After having, I 
say, believed and preached all this, 3 we go and 
enjoin them continency for their particular 
share, and upon the extremest penalties. 

There is no passion so hard to contend with 
m„„ „•„,, .1, ™ as this, which we will have them 

Mon give them- ' . . . 

wives aioose to only to resist, not simply as a vice 
the passion of alone, but as an execrable abomi- 
vlVeiy forbid it, nation, worse than irreligion or 
at the same ' parricide; whilst we, at the same 
women l " e tirae ' g ive wa y ^'t without of- 
fence or reproach. Even those 
women amongst us who have tried it, have suf- 
ficiently confessed what difficulty, or rather 
impossibility, they have found therein, even 
though seeking by material remedies to subdue, 
weaken, and oppose the body. We, on the 
contrary, would have them in full health, 
vigorous, in good keeping, high fed, and chaste 
together; that is to say, both hot and cold; 
for the marriage which we say is to keep them 
from burning is but a small refreshment to 
them, as we order the matter. If they take 
one whose vigorous age is hot and boiling, he 
will be proud that other women should know it: 



Sii landcin pinlor ; ant ramus in jus ; 
Mollis mentula minibus mlrmpla, 
Non est hajc tua, Basse ; vcmlidisti : ' 



> Boerius (Nicholas Bolder), Dccisiones in Senatu Burde- 
palcnsi. Uisruxs. nr jiromulgata; Decis. 3)7, page .">i'.:i, edit 
of Lyons. l.-,7!l. 

a Plutarch, oh Love. 

a That women ore more apt for love than men. 

I Martial, xii. 'JO. II). 



"Bassos, for shame! at length give o'er, 
Or I to justice must my cause resign ; 
What I demand is yours no more f 
I bought it, and assert it mine. - ' 

Polemon the philosopher was justly sued by his 
wife for sowing in a barren field the seed that 
was due to one that was faithful. 5 If, on the 
other hand, they take an old, decayed fellow, 
they are in a worse conditition in marriage than 
either maids or widows. We think them well 
provided for, because they have a man to lie 
withal, as the Romans concluded Clodia Lseta, 
a vestal, violated, because Caligula had ap- 
proached her, though it was affirmed he did no 
more than approach her: 6 but, on the contrary, 
we by that increase their necessity, forasmuch 
as the touching and company of any man what- 
ever rouses their desires, that in solitude would 
be more quiet; and, to the end, it is likely, that 
they might render their chastity more merito- 
rious by this circumstance and consideration, 
Boleslaus and Kinge his wife, King and Queen 
of Poland, vowed it by mutual consent, being 
in bed together on their very wedding-day, 
and kept their vow in spite of all matrimonial 
conveniences and delights. 7 

We train them up from their infancy to the 
traffic of love ; their grace, their 
dress, knowledge, language, and The whole edu- 
whole instruction tend that way ; cation of wo- 
their governesses imprint nothing j"|pj r e"uiem 
in them but the idea of love, if with a passion, 
for nothing else but by continu- for love- 
ally representing it to them, to 
make them disgusted with it. My daughter, 
the only child I have, is now at an age that 
forward young women are allowed to be mar- 
ried at; she is of a slow, delicate and tender 
complexion, and has accordingly been brought 
up by her mother after a private and particular 
manner, so that she but now begins to be weaned 
from her childish simplicity. She was one day 
reading before me in a French book, where she 
happened to meet the word "fouteau," the 
name of a tree very well known ; s the woman 
to whose conduct she is committed, stopped her 
short a little rudely, and made her skip over 
that dangerous step. I let her alone, not to 
trouble their rules, for I never concern myself 
in that sort of government ; the feminine polity 
has a mysterious course, we must leave it to 
them; but, if I am not mistaken, the commerce 
of twenty lacquies could not, in six months' 
time, have so imprinted in her fancy the mean- 
ing, usage, and all the consequence of the sound 
of those smutty syllables, as this good old woman 
did by reprimand and interdiction. 



Motus doceri gaudet lonicos 
Matura virgo. et frangitur artubus 



6 Laertius, in vita. 

And accordingly buried her alive. Xiphilen, Life of 
Caligula. 

1 Cromer, it Raiva Pol. viii. 

1 The beech. The sound of the word resembles that of 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



" With pliant limbs the ripen'd maid 
Now joys to learn the wanton tread 
Of dance Ionic, and to prove 
The pleasures of forbidden love." 

Let them but give themselves the rein a little, 
let them but enter into liberty of discourse; we 
are but children to them in this science : hear 
them but represent our pursuits and discourses; 
they will perfectly make you understand that 
we bring them nothing they have not known 
before, and digested without our help. It is, 
perhaps, as Plato says, that they have formerly 
been debauched by men. 2 I happened one day 
to be in a place where I could hear some of 
their talk without their suspicion ; I am sorry 
that I cannot repeat it. " By our lady," said 
1, " it is time for us to go study the phrases of 
Amadis, Boccaccio, and Aretin, to be able to 
discourse with them : we employ our time to 
much purpose indeed ! there is neither word, 
example, nor step, they are not more perfect in 
than our books; 'tis a discipline that springs 
with their blood, 

Et mentem Venus ipsa dedit, 9 
" Venus herself has made them what they are," 

and which those good instructors, nature, 
youth, and health, are continually inspiring 
them with ; they need not learn, they breed it : 

Nee tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo 
Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius, 

Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro, 
Quantum prfficipue multivola est mulier.4 

" Not more delighted is the milk- white dove, 
(Or if there 1 
Still tobebilli 
Woman, with every man she meets to kiss." 

So that if the natural violence of their desire 
were not a little restrained by fear and honour, 
which have been wisely contrived for them, we 
should be all shamed. All the motions in the 
world tend to this conjunction; 'tis a matter 
infused throughout; 'tis a centre to which all 
things tend. We yet see the edicts of wise old 
Rome, made for the service of love, and the 
precepts of Socrates for the instruction of 
courtezans : 

Nee non libelli stoici inter sericos 
Jacere pulvillos amant:* 



Zeno, amongst his laws, did also regulate the 
divarications and motions in getting a maiden- 
head. Of what sense was the philosopher 



i Horace, Od. iii. 6, 21. The text has fmgitur arbutus. 

2 Alluding to the transmigration of souls. 

3 Virgil, Qcorgic. iii. 267. 

t Catullus, Carm. lxvi. 125. 

<> Horace, Epod. viii. 15. 

Of getting a maidenhead. In the edition of 1588, this 



Strata's book, " Of Carnal Conjunction ?" And 
what did Theophrastus treat of, in those he 
entitled, the one, "The Lover," and the other 
" Of Love ?" of what Aristippus, in his, " Of 
Ancient Delights'!" what do the so long and 
lively descriptions of Plato of the bolder loves 
in his time pretend to] and the book called 
"The Lover," of Demetrius Phalerius? and 
"Clinias, or Enforced Love," by Heraclides 
Ponticus; and Antisthenes' "Of Getting Child- 
ren, or Of Weddings ;" and the other, " Of 
the Master, or the Lover?" and that of Arista, 
"Of Amorous Exercises?" what those of 
Cleanthes, one " Of Love," the other, " Of the 
Art of Loving?" The amorous dialogues of 
Sphosreus ? and the fable of Jupiter and Juno, 
of Chrysippus, impudent beyond all toleration? 
And his fifty so lascivious epistles? I will let 
alone the writings of the philosophers of the 
Epicurean sect, protectress of pleasure. Fifty 
deities were, in time past, assigned to this office ; 6 
and there has been a nation where, 

to assuage the lust of those that Whores kept in 

came to their devotion, they had temples for the 
purposely male and female strum- who came to 
pets in their temples for them to their devotion, 
lie with; and it was an act of 
ceremony to use them before they went to 
prayers : 7 Nimirum propter continentiam incon- 
tinentia necessaria eat ; incendium ignibus 
extinguitur. "Doubtless incontinency is ne- 
cessary for continency's sake; a conflagration 
is extinguished by fire." 

In the greatest part of the world that member 
of our body was deified : in one and the same 
province some flayed off the skin to offer and 
consecrate a piece, others offered and conse- 
crated their seed. In another, the young men 
publicly cut through betwixt the skin and the 
flesh of that part in several places, and thrust 
pieces of wood into the apertures as long and 
thick as they would receive, and of those pieces 
of wood afterwards made a fire for an offering 
to their gods; and were esteemed neither very 
vigorous nor chaste, if, by the force of that 
intolerable pain, they seemed to be any thing 
dismayed. In other countries the most sacred 
magistrate was reverenced and acknowledged 
by that member ; and in several ceremonies the 
effigy of it was carried in pomp, in honour of 
several divinities. The Egyptian ladies, in 
their Bacchanalia, each carried one carved of 
wood about their necks, exactly made, as great 
and heavy as each was able to bear; be- 
sides one which the statue of their god repre- 
sented, which in greatness surpassed all the 
rest of his body. 8 The married women near to 
the place where I live, make of their kerchiefs 



sentence immediately follows that which is now some lines 
before it, respecting Zeno. 

' At Babylon (see Herod, i. 19U. Strabo, xvi. &c), and at 
Heliopolis, in Phoenicia (see Eusebius, Life of Constantino, 
iii. 58. Val. Max. ii. 6, 15. &c.) 

s Herod, ii. 48. who, however, has it, Atiotov iu iroXAw 
rcoi eXaaaov ebv too aXXs cruuaTOs, " a member which is 
not muck less than the rest of the body." 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



423 



the figure of one upon their foreheads, to glo- 
rify themselves in the enjoyment they have of 
it; and, coming to be widows, they throw it 
behind, and cover it with their head-cloths. 
The most modest matrons of Rome thought it 
an honour to offer flowers and garlands to the 
god Priapus ; and they made the virgins, at the 
time of their espousals, sit upon his shameful 
parts. 1 I know not whether I have not in my 
time seen some air of like devotion. What was 
the meaning of that ridiculous thing our fore- 
fathers wore before on their breeches, and that 
is still worn by the Swiss ] To what end do we 
make a formal show of our implements under 
our gaskins, and often, which is worse, above 
their natural size, by cheating and imposture ? 
I have half a mind to believe that this sort of 
vestment was invented in the better and more 
conscientious ages, that the world might not be 
deceived ; and that every one should give public 
account of his dimensions; the simpler nations 
wear them yet, and near about the real size. 
In those days the tailor took its measure, as is 
done now of a leg or a foot. That good man 
who, when I was young, gelt so many noble 
and antique statues in his great city that they 
might not corrupt the sight, according to the 
advice of this other good ancient : 

Flagitii principium est, nudare inter cives corpora: 2 



should have called to mind that, as in the mys^ 
teries of the goddesses, all masculine appearance 
was excluded, that he did nothing if he did not 
geld horses and asses, and finally all nature too 

Omne adeo genus in tcrris, hominumque, feraruinque, 
Et genus aiquoroiiiii, pi/cudes, picl&'quc volucres, 
In furias ignemque ruunt.a 



to this passion are inclin'd; 
For whether they be those of human kind, 

Beasts, wild or tame, fish, or the feathered choir 
They're all inflamed with wanton love's d-jsire.' 



The gods, says Plato, 4 have given us one 
disobedient and unruly member, that like a 
furious animal, attempts by the violence of its 
appetite to subject all things to it: and they 
have given women one that has the samequal 
ties, like a greedy and ravenous animal, which, 
if one refuse to give him food in season, grow 
wild, impatient of delay, and infusing the rage 
into their bodies, stops the passages, and hm 
ders respiration, causing a thousand inconve' 
niences; till having imbibed the fruit of the 
common thirst, it has plentifully besprinkled 
and bedewed the bottom of their womb. 

Now my legislator 5 should also have consi' 
dered, that perhaps it would have been a chaster 
and more useful custom to let them know the 



1 l.aotantius, Divin. InstiL i. 20. St. Augustin.dc Civit. 
)ei. vi. 9. 

■' Kiniius, n/ntd. Cicero, Tusc. Qums. iv. 33. 
a Virgil, Omr/r. iii. ii. 44. 
♦ Ttmauix, towards the end. 



reality betimes, than permit them to guess 
according to the liberty and heat of their own 
fancy ; instead of real parts, they substitute, 
through hope and desire, others that are three 
times greater ; and a certain friend of mine lost 
himself by letting his be seen in a place not fit 
to apply them to their more serious use. What 
mischief do not those representations of prodi- 
gious size do, that the boys scrawl upon the 
stair-cases and walls, which give them a strange 
contempt of our natural furniture. And what 
do we know but that Plato, after other well- 
instituted republics, ordered that the men and 
women, old and young, should expose them- 
selves naked to the view of one another, in 
his Gymnastics, upon that very account ? The 
Indian women, who see the men stark naked, 
have at least cooled the sense of seeing ; and 
let the women of the kingdom of Pegu say 
what they will, who below the waist have 
nothing to cover them but a cloth slip before, 
so narrow, that what decency and modesty 
soever they pretend by it, at every step all is to 
be seen, that it is an invention to allure the 
men to them, and to divert them from the boys, 
to whom that nation is universally inclined ; 
yet perhaps they lose more by it than they get ; 
and a man may say that an entire appetite is 
much sharper than one already glutted by the 
eyes: Livia used to say that to a virtuous 
woman a naked man was but a statue. 6 The 
Lacedaemonian women, more virgins when wives 
than our daughters are, saw every day the 
young men of the city stripped naked in their 
exercises, little minding themselves to cover 
their thighs in walking, believing themselves, 
says Plato, 7 sufficiently covered with their 
virtue, without any other robe. But those of 
whom St. Austin speaks, 8 have given nudity a 
wonderful power of temptation, that have made 
it a douht whether women, at the day of judg- 
ment, shall rise again in their own sex, and not 
rather in ours, for fear of tempting us again, 
though in that holy place. In brief, we allure 
and flesh them by all sorts of ways; we inces- 
santly heat and stir up their imagination, and 
yet we find fault. Let us confess the truth : 
there is scarce one of us that does not more 
apprehend the shame that accrues to hiin by the 
vices of his wife than by his own, and that is 
not more solicitous (wonderful charity !) of the 
conscience of his wife than of his own ; who had 
not rather commit theft and sacrilege, and that 
his wife was a murderess and an heretic, than 
that she should not be more chaste than her 
husband. An unjust estimate of vices ! Both 
we and they are capable of a thousand corrup- 
tions more prejudicial and unnatural than lust: 
but we weigh vices, not according to nature, 
but according to our interest, by which means 
they take so many unequal forms. 



6 The Pope, " the good man" above referred to. 
o Dion, Life of Tiberius. 

i Republic, v. Plato says this of women in general, 
without referring especially to the Lacedioinonian. 
» Dt Civit. Dei, rxii. 17. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The austerity of our decrees renders the pro- 
pensity of women to this vice more violent and 
vicious than its condition tends to, and engages 
it in consequences worse than the cause ; they 
will voluntarily offer to go to the Exchange to 
seek for gain, and to the war to get reputation, 
rather than, in the midst of ease and delights, to 
have to do with so difficult a guardship: do not 
they very well see that there is neither mer- 
chant nor soldier who will not leave his business 
to run after this other, and so much as the 
porter and cobbler, toiled and tired out as they 
are with labour and hunger 1 

Nora tu, quae tenuit dives Achtemenes, 
Aut pinguis Phrygian Mygdonias opes, 
Permutare velis crine Licymnise, 

Plenas aut Arabum domos, 
Dum fragrantia detorquet ad oscula 
Cervicem, aut facili scevitia negat, 
Quae poscente magis gaudeat eripi, 

Interdum rapere occupet?i 

" Say, shall the wealth by kings possest, 

Or the rich diadems they wear, 
Or all the treasures of the East, 

Purchase one lock of my Lycinnia's hair? 
While now her bending neck she plies, 

Backward to meet the fragrant kiss, 
Then with an easy cruelty denies, 

Vet wishes you would snatch, not ask, the bliss." 

I can hardly tell whether the exploits of Alex- 
ander and Caesar do really surpass 
Chastity in a t ne resolution of a beautiful younsr 

woman hard to ^^ bred up after ^ ^^ 

in the light and commerce of the 
world, assaulted by so many contrary examples, 
and yet keeping herself entire in the midst of a 
thousand continual and powerful solicitations. 
There is no doing more difficult or more thorny, 
than that not-doing: I find it more easy to 
keep a suit of armour on, all the days of one's 
life, than a maidenhead : and the vow of vir- 
ginity, of all others, is the most noble, as being 
the hardest to keep: Diaboli virtus in lumbis 
est, 2 says St. Jerome. 

We have doubtless resigned to the ladies the 
most difficult and most vigorous of all human 
endeavours, and let us resign to them the glory 
too. This ought singularly to 
encourage them to be obstinate in 
it; 'tis a brave thing for them to 
defy us, and to spurn under foot 
that vain pre-eminence of valour 
and virtue that we pretend to have over them ; 
they will find, if they do but observe it, that 
they will not only be much more esteemed for 
it, but also much more beloved. A gallant 
man does not give over his pursuit for being 
refused ; provided it be a refusal of chastity, 
and not of choice: we may swear, threaten, 
and complain as much as we please: we lie, 
we love them all the better : there is no allure- 
ment like modesty, if it be not rude and un- 
civil. 'Tis stupidity and meanness to hold on 
against hatred and disdain ; but, against a vir- 



What ought to 
be an encou- 
ragement to 



tuous and constant resolution, mixed with some 
kindness and acknowledgment, 'tis the exercise 
of a noble and generous soul. They may 
recognise our services to a certain degree, and 
give us civilly to understand that they disdain 
us not; for that law that enjoins them to 
abominate us because we adore them, and to ' 
hate us because we love them, is certainly very 
severe, were it but for the difficulty of it: why 
should they not give ear to our offers and 
requests, so long as they keep within the 
bounds of modesty? Wherefore should we 
fancy them to have other thoughts within, and 
to be worse than they seem 1 A queen of our 
time acutely said, that to refuse these court- 
ships is a testimony of weakness in women, and 
a self-accusation of facility; and that a lady 
could not boast of her chastity who was never 
tempted. The limits of honour are not cut so 
fine; they may give themselves a little rein, 
and dispense a little without forfeiting them- 
selves ; there lies before the frontier some space 
free, indifferent and neuter. He that has beaten 
and pursued her into her fort is a strange fellow, 
if he be not satisfied with his fortune: the value 
of the conquest is to be estimated by the diffi- 
culty. Would you know what impression your 
service and merit have made in her heart ? 
Judge of it by her behaviour. Some may grant 
more, who do not grant so much. The obliga- 
tion of a benefit wholly relates to the good-will 
of those who confer it; the other coincident 
circumstances are dumb, dead, and casual; it 
costs her more to grant you that little, than it 
would do her companion to grant all. If in 
any thing rarity gives a value, it ought espe- 
cially in this. Do not consider how little it is 
that is given, but how few have it to give ; the 
value of money alters according to the coin and 
stamp of the place. 

Whatever the spite and indiscretion of some 
may make them say upon the excess of their 
discontent, yet virtue and truth will in time 
recover all ; I have known some, whose repu- 
tation has for a great while suffered under 
slander, who have after been restored to the 
world's universal opinion, merely by their con- 
stancy, without care or artifice ; every one 
repents, and gives himself the lie for what he 
has believed and said ; and from maids, a little 
suspected, they have been afterwards advanced 
to the first rank amongst ladies of honour. 
Somebody told Plato that all the world spoke 
ill of him : " Let them talk," said he, 3 " I will 
live so as to make them change their note." 
Besides the fear of God, and the value of so 
rare a glory, which ought to make them look 
to themselves, the corruption of the age we live 
in compels them to it ; and if I were as they, 
there is nothing I would not rather do than 
entrust my reputation in so dangerous hands. 
In my time, the pleasure of telling (a pleasure 



i Apud Antonius et Maximus, Serm. 54. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



425 



little inferior to that of doing), was not per- 
mitted, but to those who had some faithful and 
only friend; but now the ordinary discourse 
and common table-talk is nothing but boasts of 
favours received, and the secret liberality of 
ladies. In earnest, 'tis too abject, and too much 
meanness of spirit, to suffer such ungrateful, 
indiscreet, and giddy-headed people so to per- 
secute, tease, and rifle those tender and obliging 
favours. 
This our immoderate and illegitimate exas- 
peration against this vice, springs 
IwonT/of "' from the most vain and turbulent 
jealousy. disease that afHicts human minds, 

which is jealousy. 

Quis vetat apposito lumen <le Inmine sumi? 
Dent licet assidue, nil tainen hide perit.' 



She, and Envy her sister, seem to me to be the 
most idle and foolish of the whole troop. As 
to the last, I can say little to it; 'tis a passion 
that, though said to be so mighty and powerful, 
had never to do with me. As to the other, I 
know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel 
it: the shepherd Cratis being fallen in love 
with a she-goat, the he out of jealousy came to 
butt him as he was laid asleep, and beat out 
his brains. 2 We have raised this fever to a 
greater excess by the examples of some bar- 
barous nations; the best disciplined have been 
touched with it, and 'tis reason, but not trans- 
ported : 



The wisest of Lucullus, Caesar, Pompey, An- 
tions have been tony, Cato, and other brave men, 
the least were cuckolds and knew it, with- 

tliis nation' 1 out ma ^>ng any bustle about it: 
there was in those days but one 
coxcomb, Lepidus, 3 that died for grief that his 
wife had used him so. 

Ah ! turn te iniscrum mnlique fati, 
Quein auractis pedibcis, patente porta, 
Percurrent raphanique mugileeque:* 

"Wretched will then lie thy malignant fate, 

When by the heels they drag thee from the gate. 
Thro' show'rs of rotten roots and stinking skate :" 

and the god of our poet, when he surprised 
one of his companions with his wife, satisfied 
himself with putting them to shame only, 



1 The sense of the last, verse is in Ovid's Arte Armandi 
iii. ill). Montaigne has taken the words from an epigram, 
entitled "Priapus," which begins thus: 

"Obscure poteram tibi dicere : da mihi, quod tu 

Des licet assidue, nil tamen hide perit." 

a Lilian, Treatise of Animals, xii. 4'J. 

8 " The father of one of the triumvirs, who died," says 

Plutarch, "having broken his heart not so much by tile 

distress of Ins mlairs as by a discovery he made from a letter 



Atque aliquis de diis nou tristibus optat 
Sic fieri turpis : 5 

" Yet for the pleasure all had borne the shame." 

and took fire at the languid embraces she after- 
wards gave him, complaining that, upon that 
account, she was grown jealous of his affection: 



nay, she asks him a favour for a bastard of 
hers, 

Arma rogo genitrix nato,' 
" The mother for her son doth armour crave :" 

which is freely granted ; and Vulcan speaks 
honourably of ^neas, 

Arma acri facienda viro.e 
" Arms for a valiant hero shall be made," 

with, in truth, a more than common humanity; 

and I am willing to leave this excess of bounty 

to the gods : 

Nee divis homines componere aiquum est :» 
" Nor is it fit to equal men with gods." 

As to the confusion of children, besides that 
the gravest legislators ordain and affect it in 
their republics, it touches not the women, 
where this passion is, I know not how, much 
more strongly seated : 



"And Juno, with fierce jealousy inflam'd, 
Her husband's daily slips has often blam'd." 

When jealousy seizes these poor, weak, and 
resistless souls, 'tis pity to see how miserably 
it torments and tyrannizes over them ; it insi- 
nuates itself into them, under the title of amity ; 
but after it has once possessed them, the same 
causes that served for a foundation of good-will 
serve them for a foundation of mortal hatred. 
'Tis of all the diseases of the mind that which 
most things serve for aliment, and fewest for 
remedy ; the virtue, health, merit, and reputa- 
tion of the husband are the incendiaries of their 
fury and ill-will : 



"No enmities so keen as those of love." 
This fever defaces and corrupts all they have of 



which fell into Ins hands, that his wife had forfeited her 
honour."— Life of Pompey. 

* Catull. Carm. XV. 17. 

» Ovid, Mctum. iv. lfc-7. taken from the Odyssty viii. 339. 

'^ncirl, viii. 395. 

' Id. ib. 383. 

" Id. ib. 441. 

"Catull. Carm. lxviii. 141. 

'<> JEucid, v. 138. 

'i Propert. ii. 8, 3. 



426 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



beautiful and good besides; and there is no 
action of a jealous woman, let her be how chaste 
and how good a housewife soever, that does not 
relish of anger and rudeness; 'tis a furious 
agitation, that rebounds them to an extremity 
quite contrary to its cause. Which was very 
manifest in one Octavius, 1 at Rome, who, hav- 
ing lain with Porcia Postumia, found his love 
so much augmented by fruition, that he solicited 
with all importunity to marry her; which, see- 
ing he could not persuade her to, this excessive 
affection precipitated him into the effects of the 
most cruel and mortal hatred, and he killed her. 
In like manner, the ordinary symptoms of this 
other amorous disease are intestine hatreds, fac- 
tions, conspiracies, 

Notumque furens quid fcemina possit, 
" 'Tis known what woman in her rage can do," 

and a rage which so much the more frets itself, 
as it is compelled to veil itself under a pretence 
of good-will. 

Now the duty of chastity is of a vast extent. 
Is it their wills that we would have them 
restrain? That is a very pliant and active 
thing; a thing very quick and nimble to be 
staid. How, if dreams sometimes engage them 
so far that they cannot deny them. It is not 
in them, nor perhaps in chastity itself, seeing it 
is female, to defend itself from lust and desire. 
If we are only interested in their will, what a 
case are we in then ! Do but imagine what 
crowding there would be amongst men in pur- 
suance of this privilege, to run full speed, 
without tongue and eyes, into every woman's 
arms that would accept them: the Scythian 
women put out the eyes of all their slaves and 
prisoners of war, that they might have their plea- 
sure of them, and they never the wiser. 3 Oh, 
the furious advantage of opportunity ! Should 
any one ask me what was the first part of love, 
I should answer, that it is how to take a 
man's time; and so the second, and so the 
third ; 'tis a point that can do every thing. I 
have sometimes wanted fortune, but I have 
also sometimes been wanting to myself in 
matter of attempt. There is greater temerity 
required in this age of ours, which our young 
people excuse under the name of warmth : but 
did women examine it more strictly, they would 
find that it rather proceeded from contempt. I 
was always superstitiously afraid of giving 
offence, and have ever had a great respect for 
her I loved; besides shame, he who in this 
traffic takes away the reverence defaces at the 
same time the lustre. I would in this affair 
have a man a little play the child, the timorous, 
and the servant. If not altogether in this, I 



i Octavius Sagitta. Tacitus, Annal. xiii. 44. 

s JEncid, v. 21. 

3 Herodotus, lib. iv. 255, does not say that the Scythian 
women had tlie eyes of their slaves plucked out for the pur- 
pose assigned by Montaigne, but that the Scythians them- 
selves deprived all their slaves of sight for the purpose of 
drawing inilk from their mares, which was their food. But 



have in other things, some air of the foolish 
bashfulness whereof Plutarch makes mention; 
and the course of my life has been divers ways 
hurt and blemished with it, a quality very ill 
suiting my universal form. And what is there 
also amongst us but sedition and discord 1 I am 
as much out of countenance to be denied, as I 
am to deny ; and it so much troubles me to be 
troublesome to others, that in occasions where 
duty compels me to try the good-will of any 
one in a thing that is doubtful, and that will 
be chargeable to him, I do it very faintly, and 
very much against my will ; but if it be for my 
own particular (whatever Homer truly says, 
that modesty is a foolish virtue in an indigent 
person 4 ), I commonly commit it to a third person 
to blush for me, and deny those that employ me 
with the same difficulty ; so that it has some- 
times befallen me to have had a mind to deny 
when I had not the power to do it. 'Tis folly 
then to attempt to bridle in women a desire that 
is so powerful in them, and so natural to 
them ; and when I hear them brag of having 
so maidenly and so temperate a will, I laugh at 
them; they retire too far back. If it be an 
old toothless trot, or a young dry consumptive 
thing, though it be not altogether to be be- 
lieved, at least they may say it with more 
likelihood of truth; but they who are yet 
capable of love and desire say this to their own 
prejudice, by reason that inconsiderate excuses 
serve for accusation; like a gentleman, a 
neighbour of mine, suspected to be insufficient, 



" Unfit for love's sweet toil," 

who, three or four days after he was married, 
to justify himself; swore that he had ridden 
twenty stages the night before: an oath that 
was afterwards made use of to convict him of 
his ignorance in that affair and to unmarry 
him. Besides, it signifies nothing; for there 
is neither continency nor virtue where there are 
no opposing desires. "I feel it," they may 
say, " but I will not yield to it." Saints them- 
selves speak after that manner. I mean those 
who boast in good earnest of their coldness and 
insensibility, and who expect to be believed 
when they profess it with a grave and serious 
countenance; for when it is spoken with an 
affected look, where their eyes give the lie to 
their tongue, and speak in the cant of their pro- 
fession, which goes always against the hair, 'tis 
good sport. I am a great friend of liberty and 
plainness; but there is no medium; if it be not 
wholly simple and child-like, 'tis silly and un- 
becoming ladies in this commerce, and presently 



it does not appear very plain that there was a necessity of 
blinding these poor slaves for this work ; and therefore the 
reason that Montaigne assigns for it is much more easy to 
comprehend. 

* Odyssey, xvii. 347. 

° Catullus, Carm. lxvii. 21. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



427 



runs into impudence. Their disguises and figures 
only serve to cozen fools. Lying is there in its 
seat of honour; 'tis a by-way, that by a back- 
door leads to truth. If we cannot curb their 
imagination, what would we have them do? 
Do indeed ! there are enough who evade all 
foreign communication, by which chastity may 
be corrupted ; 

Illud same fncit, quod sine teste facit.-i 

" He often does himself apply 
To that lie does when none is by :" 

and those whom we fear the least are perhaps 
most to be feared; their sins that made the 
least noise are the worst: 

Offendor iiicecha simpliciore minus. 2 
" A profess'd strumpet less offence does give." 

There are ways by which they may lose their 
virginity without prostitution, and, which is 
more, without their knowledge: Obstetrix, 
virginis cnjusdam inlegrilatem manu velut ex- 
plorans, sive malevolenlia, sive inscitia, sive 
casu, dum inspirit, perdidit: 3 some one by 
seeking her maidenhead has lost it; another by 
playing with it has destroyed it. We cannot 
precisely define the actions we interdict them: 
they must guess at our meaning under general 
and doubtful terms; the very idea we invent 

for their chastity is ridiculous; 
SEmy ofwme ?' am °"J^ ^ g'^test examples 
women. I hear ot, Fatua, the wire ot Fau- 

nus, is one, who never after her 
marriage suffered herself to be seen by any man 
whatever; 4 and the wife of Hiero, who never 
noticed her husband's bad breath, imagining 
that it was common to all men. 5 They must 
needs become insensible arid invisible to satisfy 
us. 

Now let us confess that the knot of the judg- 
Chastity de- ment of this duty principally lies 
pends on the in the will : there have been 
ijiaoeence ot ' husbands who have suffered this 

mishap, not only without re- 
proaching or taking offence at their wives, but 
with singular obligation to them, and great 
commendation of their virtue. Such a woman 
has been, who prized her honour above her life, 
and yet has prostituted it to the furious lust of 
a mortal enemy to save her husband's life, and 
who, in so doing, did that for him she would 
not have done tor herself! 6 It is not here that 
we are to produce these examples ; they are too 
high and rich to be set off with so poor a foil 
as I can give them here ; let us reserve them 
for a nobler place; but for examples of the 



1 Martial, vii. 62, 6. 

» Id. vi. 7, 0. 

' Th. sr words are n confirmation of what Montaigne has 
ooti saying and thou»li they are to he met with in St. 
Austin's in ,'Uisc, Dc Cieitalc Dei, i. la, they are too gross 
o !»■ translated. 

< Vurro, apud Lactantiu.8, i. 22. 

D Plutarch, jipolh. of the Ancient Kings. 

t Baylo, Via. art. Jicindijnus. 



ordinary sort, do we not every day see women 
amongst us, that surrender themselves for their 
husband's only benefit, and by their express 
order and mediation'! And, of old, Phaulius 
the Argive offered his to King Philip out of 
ambition, 7 as Galba did out of civility, who, 
having entertained Mscenas at supper, and 
observing that his wife and he began to cast 
sheep's eyes at one another, and to complot 
love by signs, let himself sink down upon his 
cushion, like One in a profound sleep, to give 
opportunity to their fondling; which he himself 
handsomely confessed ; for at the 
same time a servant making bold ™™™ y v t ™f 1 ' 
to filch a vase that stood upon the mediation of 
table, he frankly cried, "Hold, their husbands, 

.1-. ., . and for their 

you rogue ! Do you not see that advantage. 
I only sleep fir Msecenas?" 8 Such 
a one there may be, whose manners may be lewd 
enough, and yet whose will may be more staid 
than another, who outwardly carries himself 
after a more regular manner. As we see some 
who complain of having vowed chastity before 
they knew what they did; and I have also 
known others really complain of being given 
up to debauchery before they were at years of 
discretion ; the vice of the parents, or the im- 
pulse of necessity, which is a rude counsellor, 
may be the cause. In the East Indies, though 
chastity is of singular reputation, yet custom 
permitted a married woman to prostitute herself 
to any one who presented her with an elephant, 
and that with glory too, to have been valued 
at so high a rate. 9 Phedo the philosopher, a 
man of birth, after the taking of his country, 
Elis, made it his trade 10 to prostitute the beauty 
of his youth for money, so long as it lasted, 
to any one that would, thereby to gain his 
living. And Solon was the first in Greece, 'tis 
said, who by his laws gave liberty to women, 
at the expense of their chastity, to provide for 
the necessities of life; a custom that Herodotus 
says had been received in many governments 
before his time. 41 And besides, what fruit is 
there of this painful solicitude! For what 
justice soever there is in this passion, we are 
yet to consider whether it turns to account or 
no; does any one think to curb it by his 
industry? 



" I hear, old friends, I hear you : make all sure, 
Plant spies within, and hulls without the door: 
But who shall keep the keepers? wives contemn 
Our poor precautions, and begin with them." 

What conveniency will not serve their turn in 
so knowing an age? 



' Plutarch, oh Love, 
e Id. ib. 

9 Arrian, Hist. Indie, c. 17. 
io He did not make a trade of himself, voluntarily; but 

being a slave, his master compelled I to do so. Laertiua, 

in vita. Aulus Gellius, ii. lb. 

ii Herodotus al tributes it also to the Lydians (i. 34), and 
to the Babylonians (i. 90). 
U Juvenal, vi. 346. 



428 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Curiosity is vicious throughout; but 'tis per- 
nicious here : 'tis folly to examine 
Curiosity in j n t a disease for which there is 
women's chas- no physic that does not inflame 
tity pernicious, and make it worse ; of which 
the shame grows still greater and 
more public by jealousy, and of which the 
revenge more wounds our children than heals 
us. You wither and die in the search of so 
obscure a proof. How miserably have they of 
my time arrived at that knowledge, who have 
been so unhappy as to find it out] If the 
informer does not at the same time present a 
remedy, and bring relief, 'tis an injurious in- 
formation, and that better deserves a dagger-stab 
than does the lie given. We no less laugh at 
him who takes pains to prevent it, than at him 
who is a cuckold and knows it not. The cha- 
racter of cuckold is indelible; he who once 
has it carries it to his grave ; the punishment 
proclaims it more than the fault. It is to 
much purpose to see, to draw the curtain, and 
to discover our private misfortunes, and to 
trumpet forth on tragic scaffolds misfortunes 
that only hurt us by being known : for " a 
good wife," or "a happy marriage," is said, 
not of those that really are so, but of those 
whereof no one says to the contrary. Men 
should be so discreet as to evade this tor- 
menting and unprofitable knowledge ; and the 
Romans had a custom, when returning from 
any expedition, to send home before to acquaint 
their wives with their coming, that they might 
not surprise them ; ' and to this purpose it is 
that a certain nation has introduced a custom, 
that the priest shall on the wedding-day unlock 
the bride's cabinet, to free the husband from 
the doubt and curiosity of examining in the 
first assault whether she comes a virgin to his 
bed, or has been at the sport before. 

But the world will be talking: I know an 
hundred honest men, cuckolds, 
A ^""h^less that are handsomely and not very 
esteemed for indecently so; a worthy man is 
being disho- pitied, but not disesteemed for it. 
noured by his Qrder jt gQ ^ yQur v]rtue may 

stifle your misfortune ; that good 
men may curse the occasion ; and that he who 
wrongs you may tremble but to think, on't. 
And, moreover, who escapes being talked of at 
the same rate, from the least to the greatest ] 

Tot qui legionibus imperitavit, 

£t melior quam tu multis fuit, improbe, rebus:' 



you hear how many honest men are reproached 
with this in your presence, and you may believe 
that you are no more spared behind your back. 
Nay, the ladies will be laughing too ; and what 
are they so apt to laugh at in this virtuous age 



of ours, as at a peaceable and well-composed 
marriage 1 There is not one amongst you but 
has made somebody a cuckold; and nature 
runs in parallel, in compensation, and turn for 
turn. The frequency of this mishap ought 
long since to have made it easy; 'tis now 
into custom. 
Miserable passion, which has this aggravation 
also, that it is incommunicable : 

Fors etiam nostris invidit questibus aures; 8 

" And spiteful fortune too denies 
To give an ear unto our cries ;" 

for to what friend dare you entrust your griefs; 
who, if he does not laugh at them, will not 
make use of the information to get a share of 
the quarry ] The sours as well as the sweets 
of marriage are kept secret by the wife ; and, 
amongst other troublesome conditions annexed 
to it, this, to a prating fellow, as I am, is one 
of the chief, that custom has rendered it indecent 
and prejudicial to communicate to any one 
all that a man knows and feels. 

To give even women counsel against jealousy 
would be so much time lost; 
their very being is so made up of The jealousy of 
suspicion, vanity, and curiosity, } a ^\ \ ' s n e r ery 
that to cure them by any lawful husband, 
way is not to be hoped or ex- 
pected. They often recover of this infirmity 
by a form of health much more to be feared 
than the disease itself; for as there are enchant- 
ments that cannot take away the evil but by 
throwing it upon another, they also willingly 
transfer this fever to their husbands, when they 
shake it off themselves. And yet I know not, 
to speak truth, whether a man can suffer worse 
from them than their jealousy; 'tis the most 
dangerous of all their conditions, as the head is 
of all their members. Pittacus used to say, 
" That every one had his misfortune ; and that 
his was the jealous head of his wife ; but for 
which he should think himself perfectly happy." 
It must indeed be a mighty inconvenience 
which could thus poison the whole life of so 
just, so wise, and valiant a man; what must 
we poor little fellows do? The senate of 
Marseilles had reason to grant him his request, 
that begged leave to kill himself; that he might 
be delivered from the clamour of his wife ; for 
'tis a mischief that is never removed but by 
carrying away the piece ; and that has no 
remedy but flight or patience, both of them 
very hard. He was, to my mind, an under- 
standing fellow that said there was no happy 
marriage but betwixt a blind wife and a deaf 
husband. 

Let us also consider whether the great and 
violent severity of obligation we The d ug 

enjoin them does not produce consequences 
two effects contrary to our de- of too great a 



i Plutarch, Roman Questions. 

i Lucret. iii. 1041, 1039. Of the latter verse Montaig 
gives the sense, but not the words. 



> Catullus, Carm. lxvii. 170. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



429 



restraint laid si^n ; namely, whether it does 
on tiiu wife by not render the pursuers more 
the husband. ea g er to attac ^ an( i t h e women 
more easy to yield: for, as to the first, by 
raising the value of the place, we raise the 
value and desire of the conquest. Might it 
not be Venus herself who so cunningly en- 
hanced the price of her merchandize, by making 
the laws her bawds; knowing how insipid a 
delight it would be that was not heightened 
by fancy, and hardness to achieve? In short, 
'tis all pork, only varied by sauces, as said 
Flaminius's host. 1 Cupid is a roguish god, 
who makes it his sport to contend with reli- 
gion and justice ; 'tis his glory that his power 
makes all other powers and all other rules give 
place to his : 

Materiam culpa; prosequiturque suae.2 
" And seeks out matter for his crimes-" 

And as to the second point, should we not be 
less cuckolds if we less feared to be so ? accord- 
ing to the humour of women, whom interdiction 
incites, and who are more eager for being 
forbid : 

Ubi velis, nolunt; ubi nolis, volunt ultro;9 

Concessa pudet ire via,< 

"In every varied choice, repugnant still, 
They would, you won't, and when you wont they will." 

What better interpretation can we make of 
Messalina's behaviour? She at first made her 
husband a cuckold in private, as is the common 
use ; but, bringing her business about with too 
much ease, by reason of her husband's stupidity, 
she soon scorned that way, and presently fell 
to making open love to her own servants, and 
to favour and entertain them in the sight of all 
She would make him know and see how she 
used him. This animal, not to be roused with 
all this, and rendering her pleasures dull and 
flat by his too stupid facility, by which he 
seemed to authorize and make them lawful, 
what does she but, being the wife of a living 
and healthful emperor, and at Rome, the 
theatre of the world, in the face of the sun 
and with solemn ceremony, and to Silius, whom 
she had long before enjoyed, she publicly 
marries herself, one day that her husband was 
gone out of the city. 6 Does it not seem as if 
she was going to become chaste by her hus- 
band's negligence? or that she sought another 
husband that might sharpen her appetite by his 
jealousy, and who by watching should incite 
her? But the first difficulty she met with was 
also the last ; the beast suddenly roused ; these 
stupid sort of men are oft the' most dangerous 
to deal with. I have seen by experience that 
this extreme toleration, when it comes to dis- 



ve, produces the most severe revenge; for 
taking fire on a sudden, anger and fury being 
collected in one point, discharge their utmost 
force at the first charge, 

Irarumque omnes effundit habenas; 8 
" And poureth forth the whirlwind of his rage ;" 

he put her to death, and with her a great num- 
ber of those with whom she had intelligence : 
even one man who could not help it, and 
whom she had caused to be forced to her bed 
with scourges. 7 

What Virgil says of Venus and Vulcan, 
Lucretius had better expressed of a stolen 
enjoyment betwixt her and Mars: 

Belli fera macnera Mavors 
Armipotens regit, in gremium qui sacpe tijum se 
Rejicit, auerno dovinctus vulnere amoris; 
Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Lea, visus, 
Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore: 
Hunc tn. Diva, tuo recubantem corpnre sancto 
Circumfusa super, suaves ex ore loquelas 
Funde. 8 

" For furious Mars 
The only governor and god of wars, 
With then enamoured often doth resort 
To taste the pleasures of the Paphian court ; 
There, on thy bosom, he supinely lies, 
Panting, and drinking love at both liis eyes; 
Sucking thy barmy breath with eager kiss. 
And hastening to enjoy yet greater bliss; 
Then, while thy tender limbs about him move, 
Involv'd and fetter'd in the clasps of love. 
Thy charms in that transporting moment try 
And softest language to his heart apply." 

When I consider this rejicit, pascit, inhians, 
rnalli, fovet, medullas, labefacta, pendet, per- 
currit, and that noble circumfusa, mother of 
the gentle infusus, I contemn those little quib- 
bles and verbal allusions that have been since 
in use. Those good people stood in need of no 
subtlety to disguise their meaning; their lan- 
guage is downright and plain, 
and full of natural and continued what consti- 

., ,1 ■ tutes true BIO- 

vigour, they are all epigram ; que nce. 
not the sting only, but the head, 
body, and feet ; there is nothing forced, nothing 
languishing; but they still keep the same pace: 
Contextus totus virilis est ; non sunt circa 
ftosculos occupati? " The whole contexture is 
manly, without introducing little flowers of 
rhetoric." 'Tis not a soft eloquence and with- 
out offence merely ; 'tis nervous and solid, that 
does not so much please as it fills and ravishes 
the greatest minds. When I see these brave 
methods of expression, so lively, so profound, 
I do not say that 'tis well said, but well 
thought. 'Tis the spriglitliness of the imagina- 
tion that swells and elevates the words, Pectus 
est quod disertum facit.' " 'Tis the heart 
makes it eloquent." Our people call judgment, 
language, and fine words, full conceptions. This 
representation is not so much carried on by 



i I.ivv, xxv. 49. 

3 Ovid, Trial, iv. i. 34. 

» Terence, Eunuch, iv. 8, 43. 



' Muester. a comedian, and Tmulus Montanus, a knight 
Tacitus, ut supra. 
8 Lucret. i. 33. 
• Seneca, Epist. 33. 
x> Quintilian, x. 7. 



430 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



dexterity of hand, as by having the object more 
vividly imprinted in the soul. Gallus speaks 
simply, because he conceives simply: Horace 
does not content himself with a superficial 
expression, that would betray him ; he sees 
farther and more clearly into things; his wit 
breaks into and rummages all the magazine of 
words and figures wherewith to express him- 
self, and he must have them above ordinary, 
because his conception is so. Plutarch says 1 
that he sees the Latin tongue by the things : 'tis 
here the same ; the sense illuminates and pro- 
duces the words, not words of air, but of flesh 
and bone; they signify more than they express. 
Inferior heads perceive some image of this ; for 
in Italy I said whatever T had a mind to do in 
common discourse ; but in more serious subjects, 
I durst not have trusted myself with an idiom 
that I could not wind and turn out of its ordi- 
nary pace : T would therein have a power of 
introducing something of my own. 

The handling and utterance of fine wits is 
. that which sets off a language ; 

rid" language"" not s0 mu ch by innovating it, as 
and give it ° ' by putting it to more vigorous 
fresh vigour. an( j var i ous service, by straining, 
bending, and adapting; they do not create 
words, but they enrich their own, and give 
them weight and signification by the uses they 
put them to, and teach them unwonted motions, 
but withal ingeniously and discreetly. And 
how little this talent is given to all, is manifest 
by the many French scribblers of this age; 
they are bold and proud enough not to follow 
the common road, but they lose their way for 
want of invention and discretion. There is 
nothing seen in their writings but a wretched 
affectation of a strange new style, with cold 
and absurd disguises, which, instead of elevat- 
ing, depresses the matter; provided they can 
but trick up their style with fine new words, 
they care not what they signify ; and to bring- 
in a new word by the head and shoulders, they 
leave out the old one, very often more sinewy 
and significant than the other. 

There is stuff enough in our language, but 
there is a defect in fashioning it ; 
Montaigne's f or t h ere j s nothing that might 
opinion of the . , , . -P , s c 

French lan- not be made out of our terms or 
guage. hunting and war, which is a fruit- 

ful soil to borrow from : and the 
forms of speaking, like herbs, improve and 
grow stronger by being transplanted. I find 
it sufficiently abounding, but not sufficiently 
pliable and vigorous : it quails under a power- 
ful conception: if you would maintain the 
dignity of your style, you will oft perceive it to 
flag and languish under you, and there Latin 



: i In the Life of Demosthenes, chap. 1. "I began to take 
Latin authors in hand," says he, " very late, being far ad- 
vanced in the decline of life, when an odd thing happened 
to me, which is nevertheless true, viz., that I did not so 
much learn to understand things by the words, as I came 
to understand the words, in some degree, by the use and 
knowledge 1 had of the tilings thereby signified." 
» Leo of Judah, a Portuguese rabbi, who lived under 



steps in to its relief, as Greek does to other lan- 
guages. Of some of the words I have picked 
out for my own use, we do not easily discern 
the energy, by reason that the frequent use of 
them has in some sort debased their beauty, 
and rendered it common : as in our ordinary 
language, there are several excellent phrases 
and metaphors to be met with, of which the 
beauty is withered by age, and the colour is 
sullied by too common handling; but that 
takes nothing from the relish to an under- 
standing man : neither does it derogate from 
the glory of those ancient authors, who, 'tis 
likely, first brought those words into that lustre. 

The sciences treat of things too finely, and 
after an artificial, very different 
from the common and natural tre'a^of^thinga 
way. My page makes love, and with too much 
understands it: but read to him art - 
Leo the Hebrew, and Ficinus, 2 where they 
speak of him, his thoughts and actions, he 
understands it not. I find in Aristotle most 
of my ordinary notions ; they are there covered 
and disguised in another robe for the use of 
their schools. Well may they speed; but, 
were I of the trade, I would as much naturalize 
art as they artify nature. Let us leave Bembo 
and Eqnicola to themselves. 3 When I write, I 
can very well spare both the company and the 
remembrance of books, lest they 
should interrupt my method ; and 
also, in truth, the best authors 
too much humble and discourage 
me. I am very much of the 
painter's mind, who, having re- 
presented cocks most wretchedly ill, charged all 
his boys not to suffer any real cock to come into 
his shop ; and had rather need to give myself 
a little lustre after the manner of Antigenides 
the musician, who, when he had to perform, 
took care beforehand that the auditory should, 
either before or after, be disgusted with some 
other ill musicians. But I can hardly be with- 
out Plutarch ; he is so universal and so full, 
that, upon all occasions, and what extravagant 
subject soever you take in hand, he will still 
introduce himself into your business, and holds 
out to you a liberal and not to be exhausted 
hand of riches and embellishments. It vexes 
me that he is so exposed to the spoil of those 
who are conversant with him ; I can no sooner 
cast an eye upon him but I purloin either a leg 
or a wing. 

And also, for this design of mine, 'tis conve- 
nient for me to write at home, in a wild country, 
where I have nobody to assist or 
relieve me ; where I hardly see a 
man that understands the Latin of home.where he 



Why Mon- 
taigne chose to 
have no books 
by him but 
Plutarch while 
he was writing. 



Why he 



Ferdinand the Catholic, and composed a " Dialogue on 
Love." Ficinus, who lived at the same period, translated 
the works of Plato and Plotinus, and wrote several meta- 
physical pieces. 

a Cardinal Bembo. author of a poem called Gli Jlsotani. 
Equicola, a theologian and philosopher of the sixteenth 
century, wrote a book entitled Delia Natura d'Mmore. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



431 



had none to n ; s pater-noster, and of French as 
lielp """• little, if not less. I might have 

made it better elsewhere, but then the work 
would have been less my own ; and its principal 
end and perfection is to be exactly mine. I 
should well enough correct an accidental error, 
of which I am full, as I run carelessly on: but 
for any ordinary and constant imperfections, it 
were a kind of treason to put them out. When 
another tells me, or I say to myself! "Thou art 
too full of figures: this is a word of the Gascon 
growth : this a dangerous phrase (I do not re- 
ject any of those that are used hi the common 
streets of France, they that will light custom 
with grammar are fools): this is an ignorant 
discourse; this is a paradoxical saying; this is 
a foolish expression : thou makest thyself merry 
sometimes; and men will think thou sayest a 
thing in good earnest, which thou only speakest 
in jest." Yes, say I ; but I correct the faults 
of inadvertence, not those of custom. Do I not 
talk at the same rate throughout 1 Do I not 
represent myself to the life 1 Enough : I have 
done what 1 designed ; all the world knows me 
in my book, and my book in me. 

Now I have an apish imitating quality ; when 

I used to write verses (and I never made any 

but Latin), they evidently accused 

1 ■ ' 'i ' very », * t i_ i i .. j i 

apt to imitate. tne P oet * na( * > ast reac ' i an£ l 

some of my first essays have a 
little exotic taste : I speak somewhat another 
kind of language at Paris than I do at Mon- 
taigne. Whomever I stedfastly look upon 
easily leaves some impression of his upon me: 
whatever I consider, I usurp: a foolish coun- 
tenance, a disagreeable look, or a ridiculous 
way of speaking; vices most of all, because 
they seize and stick to me, and will not leave 
their hold without shaking oft'. I swear more 
by imitation than humour. A murdering imi- 
tation, like that of the apes, so terrible both in 
stature and strength, that Alexander met with 
in a certain country of the Indies, which he 
would have had much ado any other way to 
have subdued ; but they afforded him the 
means, by that inclination of theirs, to imitate 
whatever they saw done. For the hunters, 
being directed to put on shoes in their sight, 
and to tie them fast with many knots, and to 
muffle up their heads in caps with running 
nooses, and to seem to anoint their eyes with 
glue : ' so did those silly creatures employ their 
imitations to their own ruin ; they glued up 
their own eyes, haltered and bound themselves. 
The other (acuity of playing the mimic, and 
ingeniously acting the words and gestures of 
another, purposely to make others merry, and 
to raise their admiration, is no more in me 
than in a stock. When I swear my own oath, 



'tis only, by God, of all oaths the most direct. 
They say that Socrates swore by his dog ; Zeno 
had for his oath the same interjection, at this 
time in use amongst the Italians, cappari ; 2 
Pythagoras swore by water and air. 3 I am so 
apt, without thinking of it, to receive these 
superficial impressions, that have I majesty or 
highness in my mouth for three days together, 
eight days after they come out instead of ex- 
cellency and lordship; and what I say to-day 
in sport and fooling, I shall say seriously 
to-morrow. Wherefore, in writing, ] more 
unwillingly undertake beaten arguments, lest 
I should handle them at another's expense. 
Every subject is equally fertile to me. A fly 
will serve me for a subject; and 'tis well if this 
I have in hand has not been undertaken at the 
recommendation of as flighty a will ! I may 
begin with that which pleases me best, for 
matter is all linked to one another. 

But my soul displeases me, in that it ordi- 
narily produces its deepest and 
most airy conceits, and those produceiThis 
which please me best, when I profonndest 
least expect or study for them, JJjggJ 1 on a 
and then suddenly vanish, I hav- 
ing, at that instant, nothing to apply them to : 
on horseback, at table, or in bed; but most on 
horseback, where I am most given to think. My 
speaking is somewhat nicely jealous of silence 
and attention; if I am talking forcibly, who 
interrupts, stops me. In travelling, the neces- 
sity of the way will often put a stop to discourse ; 
besides that I, for the most part, travel without 
company fit to entertain long discourse, by 
which means I have all the leisure I would to 
entertain myself. It falls out as it does in my 
dreams ; whilst dreaming I recommend them to 
my memory (for I am apt to dream that I 
dream), but the next morning I may represent 
to myself of what complexion they were, whe- 
ther gay, or sad, or strange, but what they 
were, as to the rest, the more I endeavour to 
retrieve them, the deeper I plunge them into 
oblivion. So, of thoughts that come accidentally 
into my head, I have no more but a vain image 
remaining in my memory, only enough to make 
me torment myself in their quest to no purpose. 

Well then, laying books aside, and more 
simply and materially speaking, I _... 
find after all that love is nothing ^ n,t,on ° f 
else but the thirst of enjoying the 
object desired ; neither is Venus any other thing 
than the pleasure of discharging the vessels, like 
the pleasure nature gives us in discharging 
other parts ; which either by immoderation or 
indiscretion becomes vicious. According to 
Socrates, 4 love is the appetite of generation, 
by the mediation of beauty. And having often 



' ./Elian, dr. Jlnimal, xvii. 2. r >, and Strabo, xv. 

a Laertius, in vilu. Cappari, or cirpparit, is tile name of 
a shrub hearing capers; others swore by a cabbage, as is 
(lie custom in I'Yame even at ibis day; witness ilie word 
Bcrtuclwu, a kind of oath, which signifies the virtue of 



cabbage : an expression which many people make us(' of 
constantly. 

3 Laertius, in ritu. 

* Plato, Banquet. 



432 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



considered the ridiculous titillation of this plea- 
sure, the absurd, hair-brained, and senseless 
motions with which it inspires Zeno and Cra- 
tippus, the indiscreet rage, and the countenance 
enflamed with fury and cruelty in the sweetest 
effects of love, and then that grave, severe, and 
extatic air in so wanton an action; that our 
delights and our excrements are promiscuously 
shuffled together ; and that the supreme pleasure 
carries along with it fainting and complaining, 
as well as grief; I believe it to be true that, as 
Plato says, 1 the gods made man for their sport, 



"What a strange sporting cruelty is this?" 

and that it is in mockery that nature has 
ordered the most troublesome of actions to be 
the most common, by that to make us equal, 
and to parallel fools and wise men, beasts and 
us. Even the most contemplative and sedate 
man, when 1 imagine him in this posture, I 
hold him an impudent fellow to pretend to be 
sedate and contemplative: 'tis the peacock's 
feet abating his pride. 



" Why may not truth in laughing guise be drest?" 

They who banish serious imaginations from 
their sports, do, says one, like him who dares 
not adore the statue of a saint, if not covered 
with a veil. We eat and drink, indeed, as 
beasts do; but those are not actions that ob- 
struct the functions of the soul ; in these we 
maintain our advantage over them ; but this 
subjects all other thoughts, and by its imperious 
authority makes an ass of all Plato's divinity 
and philosophy too, and yet he complains not 
of it. In every thing else a man may keep 
some decorum, all other operations submit to 
the rules of decency ; this cannot so much as in 
imagination appear other than vicious or ridi- 
culous. Examine if you can therein find one 
wise and discreet proceeding. Alexander said 4 
that he chiefly knew himself to be mortal by 
this act and sleeping. Sleep suffocates and 
suppresses the faculties of the soul : the fami- 
liarity with women does likewise dissipate and 
exhaust them. Truly, 'tis a mark not only of 
our original corruption, but also of our vanity 
and deformity. 

On the one hand, nature pushes us on to it, 
having fixed the most noble, useful, and plea- 
. a sant of all her functions to this 

with whiclTna- desire: and, on the other, leaves 
ture inspires us to accuse and avoid it, as in- 
deinnec? 6 COn " s °l ent an d indecent, to blush at 



it, and to recommend abstinence. 



1 Laws, i. 13. 

a Claudian, in Eutrop, i. 4. 

8 Horace, Sut. I. i. 24. 

* Plutarch, How to distinguish a Flatterer. 

s Jfat. Hist. v. 17. 



Are we not, in fact, brutes to call that work 
brutish which begets us 7 People of differing 
religions have concurred in several ceremonies, 
as sacrifices, lamps, burning incense, fasts, and 
offerings; and amongst others, in condemning 
this act: all opinions come to this, besides the 
so extended custom of circumcision, which is for 
punishment of it. We have perhaps reason to 
blame ourselves for being guilty of so foolish a 
production as man, and to call the act and parts 
shameful that are employed in the work (I am 
sure mine are now properly shameful and ab- 
ject). The Essenians, of whom Pliny speaks, 5 
kept up their nation several ages without nurse 
or baby-clouts, by the arrival of strangers, who 
following this pretty humour, came continually 
into them: a whole nation resolute rather to 
hazard a total extermination, than to engage 
themselves in female embraces, and rather to 
lose a succession of men than to beget one. 'Tis 
said that Zeno never had to do with a woman 
but once in his life, and then out of civility, 
that he might not seem too obstinately to dis- 
dain the sex. 6 Every one avoids seeing a man 
born, every one runs to see him die ; to destroy 
a man a spacious field is sought out, and in the 
face of the sun; but to make him, we creep 
into as dark and private a corner as we can ; 
'tis a man's duty to withdraw himself from the 
light to do it; but 'tis glory, and the fountain 
of many virtues to know how to destroy what 
we have done : the one is injury, the other 
favour: for Aristotle says that to do any one a 
benefit, in a certain phrase of his country, is to 
kill him. The Athenians, 7 to couple the dis- 
grace of these two actions, having to purge the 
Isle of Delos, and to justify themselves to 
Apollo, interdicted at once all birth and burial 
in the precincts thereof: Nostri nosmet pcenitet.* 
" We are ashamed of ourselves." 

There are some nations that will not be seen 
to eat. 9 I know a lady, and of 
the best quality, who has the There are 

same opinion, that it is an ill P e °P le wn ° d0 

. , , . r . ... not care that 

sight to see women chew their anj , should see 
meat, that it takes away much them eat. 
from their grace and beauty, and 
therefore unwillingly appears at a public table 
with an appetite ; and I know a man also that 
cannot endure to see another eat, nor be seen 
himself; and is more shy of company in putting 
in than putting out. In the Turkish empire 
there are a great number of men who, to excel 
others, never suffer themselves to be seen when 
they make their repast ; who never have more 
than one a week ; who cut and mangle their 
faces and limbs, and never speak to any one. 
Fanatic people! who think to honour their 
nature by disnaturing themselves; that value 
upon their contempt of themselves, 



6 Laertius. in vita. 
' Thucydides, iii. 104. 
6 Terence, Pliormio, i. 3, 20. 
8 Leo, Description of Africa. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



43*1 



and grow better by being worse ! What mon- 
strous animal is this, that is a horror to himself 
to whom his delights are grievous, and who 
weds himself to misfortunes ! There are who 
conceal their life, 

Exilioque domos et dulcia limina mutant, 1 



and withdraw them from the sight of other 
men ; that avoid health and cheer- 
Men who con- f u ] ness as dangerous anu P re " 

ceal themselves . , o -. . r 

from sight, ami judicial qualities. INotonlymany 
are ingenious sects, but many nations, curse 

ie'lvesm.'" 6 " 1 ' their birth and bless their deaUl 5 

and there is a place where the 
sun is abominated and darkness adored. We 
are only ingenious in using ourselves ill; 'tis 
the real quarry our wits fly at; and wit, when 
misapplied, is a dangerous tool ! 

O miseri ! quorum gaudia crimen habent. 3 
" O wretched men ! whose pleasures are a crime !" 

Alas, poor man! thou hast enough inconve- 
niences that are inevitable, without increasing 
them by thine own invention; and art miser- 
able enough by nature, without being so by 
art; thou hast real and essential deformities 
enough, without forging those that are ima- 
ginary : is the little ease thou hast too much 
for thee, that thou wouldst abridge the half of 
that? Dost thou find that thou hast performed 
all the necessary offices that nature has en- 
joined thee, and that she is idle in thee, if thou 
dost not oblige thyself to more and new ones'! 
Thou dost not stick to infringe the universal 
and undoubted laws, but stickest close to those 
confederate and fantastic ones of thy own ; and 
by how much more particular, uncertain, and 
contradictory they are, by so much thou em- 
ployest thy whole endeavour in them; the 
laws of thy parish occupy and bind thee ; those 
of God and the world concern thee not. kun 
but a little over the examples of this kind; thy 
life is full of them. 

The verses of these two poets treating so 
reservedly and discreetly of wan- 
To talk dis- tonness as they do, methinks 

creetly ol love ., ]• *.. , 

only stimulates tnev . discover it much more, 
it the more. Ladies cover their persons with 
net-work, as priests do several 
sacred things; and painters shade their pic- 
tures, to give them greater lustre; and 'tis said 
that the sun and wind strike more violently by 
reflection than in a direct line. The Egyptian 
wisely answered him who asked him what he 
had under his cloak; "It is hid under my 
cloak," said he, "that thou mayest not know 
what it is:" 3 but there are certain other things 
that people hide only to show them. Hear 
this one, that speaks plainer: 



1 Virgil, Ocorgic, ii. /ill 
a Piemlo-Uallus, i. if". 
8 1'lutarHi, on Uuriixaiu. 

•61 



Et nudam pressi corpus ad usque meum : * 
"And pressed her naked body close to mine." 

Methinks I am eunuched with the expression. 
Let Martial turn up Vonus's coats as high as 
he can, he cannot show her so naked : he who 
6ays all that is to be said gluts and disgusts us. 
He who is afraid to express himself, draws us 
on to guess at more than is meant ; there is a 
kind of treachery in this sort of modesty, and 
especially whilst half opening, as they 5 do, so 
fair a path to imagination; both the action and 
description should give a relish to their theft. 

The more respectful, more timorous, more 
coy and secret love of the Spaniards and Ita- 
lians pleases me ; 1 know not who, of old, wished 
his neck as long as that of a crane, that he 
might the longer taste what he had swallowed ; 
it had been better wished in this quick and 
precipitous pleasure, especially in such natures 
as mine, that have the fault of being too 
prompt. To stop its flight and delay it with 
preambles, all things, a wink, a bow, a word, a 
sign, stand for favour and recompense betwixt 
them. Was it not an excellent piece of thrift 
in him that could dine on the steam of the 
roast? 'Tis a passion that mixes, 
with very little of solid essence, Love ought to 
much more of vanity and fever- h , e made § ^ a " 

... , J . . dually, and 

ish raving, and we are to reward without preci- 
and pay it accordingly. Let us pitation. 
teach the ladies to value and 
esteem themselves, to amuse and fool us. We 
give the last charge at the first onset; the 
.French impetuosity will still show itself. By 
spinning out their favours, and exposing them 
in small parcels, all, even miserable old age, 
will find some little share of reward, according 
to their worth and merit. He who has no 
fruition but in fruition, who wins nothing 
unless he sweeps the stakes, who takes no 
pleasure in the chace hut in the quarry, ought 
not to introduce himself into our school. The 
more steps and degrees there are, so much 
higher and more honourable is the uppermost 
seat ; we should take a pleasure in being con- 
ducted to it, as in magnificent palaces, by 
porticos, entries, long and pleasant galleries, 
by many turns and windings. This disposition 
of things would turn to our advantage; we 
should tliere longer stay, and longer love ; with- 
out hope and without desire we proceed not 
worth a pin. Our conquest and entire posses- 
sion is what they ought infinitely to dread : 
when they wholly surrender themselves up to 
the mercy of our fidelity and constancy, they 
run a mighty hazard ; they are virtues very 
rare, and hard to be found ; they are no sooner 
ours, but we are no more theirs ; 

I'ostqnam cupidie me 



i Ovid. Amor. i. 5, 24. 

' Virgil anil Lurrclius. 

I CBtUllUS, Curm. Ixiv. 117. 

2c 



434 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



And Thrasonides, 1 a young man of Greece, was 
so in love with his passion, that having gained 
a mistress's consent, he refused to enjoy her, 
that he might not by fruition quench and stu- 
pjty the unquiet ardour of which he was so 
proud, and with which he so pleased himself. 
Dearness is a good sauce to meat. Do but 
observe how much the form of salutation, parti- 
cular to our nation, has by its facility made 
kisses, which Socrates says 2 are so powerful and 
dangerous for stealing hearts, of no esteem. It 
is a nauseous and injurious custom for ladies, 
that they must be obliged to lend their lips to 
every fellow that has three footmen at his 
, heels, 3 how nasty or deformed soever, 

Cujus livida naribus caninis, 
Depeudet glacies, rigetcjue barba - - • 
Centum occurrere malo culilingis :< 

and we do not get much by the bargain; for as 
the world is divided, for three pretty women, 
we must kiss fifty ugly ones ; and to a tender 
stomach, like those of my age, an ill kiss over- 
pays a good one. 

In Italy they passionately court, even their 
common women, who prostitute themselves for 
money, and justify the doing so by saying that 
there are degrees of fruition; and that by 
courting they will procure themselves that 
which is best and most entire ; they sell nothing 
but their bodies, the will is too free, and too 
much its own to be exposed to sale. So say 
these, that 'tis the will they undertake, and 
they have reason ; 'tis indeed the will that we 
are to serve, and to have to do withal. I abhor 
to imagine as mine a body without affection ; 
and this madness is, methinks, cousin-german to 
that of the boy, who would needs lie with the 

beautiful statue of Venus, made 
be a e ui?fui S wo f h y Praxiteles, 5 or that of the 
men kept three furious Egyptian, who violated 
days in Egypt, the dead carcase of a woman he 
vvere^nterred. was embalming, which was the 

occasion of the law, afterwards 
made in Egypt, that the corpse of beautiful 
young women, and of those of good quality, 
should be kept three days before they should be 
delivered to those whose office it was to take 
care for the interment. 6 Periander did more 



iLaertius, vii. 130. 

' J Xenophon, Mem. on Socrates. 

3 The kiss of ceremony or salutation, which Montaigne 
here erroneously affirms to be peculiar to Fiance, came, not 
long afterwards, in be regarded as a piece of great immodesty 
there, as appears from iJr. Heylin's " Survaye of France." 
When the Doctor visited that country, in 1U25, he thought 
it strange and uncivil that the ladies should turn away frbm 
the pro fie r of a salutation; and he indignantly exclaims, 
" that the chaste and innocent kiss of an English gentle- 
woman is more in heaven than their best devotions." — 
Erasmus, in a letter, urging his friend Andrelinus to come 
to England, verv pleasantly makes use of this custom to 
strengthen his invitation. " If, Faustus," says he, -'thou 
knewestthe advantagesof England, llmu wouldst run hither 
with winged feet, and ill he gout would not suffer that, thou 
wouldst wish thyself a D.edalus. For, to name one among 
many, here are girls with divine countenances, bland and 
courteous, and whom thou wouldst readily prefer to thy 



wonderfully, who extended his conjugal affec- 
tion (more regular and legitimate) to the enjoy- 
ment of his wife Melissa after she was dead. 7 
Does it not seem a lunatic humour in the moon, 
seeing she could not otherwise enjoy her darling 
Endymion, to lay him for several months asleep, 
and to please herself with the fruition of a boy, 
who stirred not but in his sleep ' So I say that 
we love a body without a soul, when we love a 
body without its consent and concurring desire. 
All enjoyings are not alike ; there are some that 
are hectic and languishing; a thousand other 
causes, besides good-will, may procure us this 
favour from the ladies ; this is not a sufficient 
testimony of affection; treachery may lurk 
there as well as elsewhere; they sometimes go 
to it but by ' 



I know some who had rather lend that than 
their coach, and who only impart themselves 
that way. You are to examine whether your 
company pleases them upon any other account, 
or for that only, as some strong-limbed groom ; 
in what character, and what degree of favour 
you are with them, 



What if they eat your bread with the sauce of 
a more pleasing imagination 1 

Te tenet, absentes alios suspirat amores.'o 

"While in her arms entwin'd, you don't discover 
She pants with longing for an absent lover." 

What ! have we not seen one, in these days of 
ours, that made use of this act upon the account 
of a most horrid revenge, by that means to kill 
and poison, as he did, an excellent woman 1 

Such as know Italy will not think it strange 
if, for this subject, I seek not elsewhere tor 
examples; for that nation may be called the 
regent of the world in this. They have gene- 
rally more handsome, and fewer ugly, women 
than we ; but for rare and excelling beauties, 



Muses. And besides, there is a custom which can never be 
suthcientlv praised: for, if you visit any where, you are dis- 
missed with kisses; if you return, these sweet tilings are 
again rendered ; if any one goes away with you, the kisses 
are divided; wherever you go you are abundantly kissed. 
In short, move w hich way you will, all things are full of 
delight." Erasmus, Ep. v. 10. 

* Martial, vii. 94. The Latin is the only language that 
is so licentious as to convey ideas so gross and nasty. 
Seneca says it is better to suppress some things in silence, 
though it be to the detriment of the cause, rather than to 
tiniisgress the bounds of modesty. Seneca, Controv. i. 2, 
towards the end. 

« Val. Max. viii. 2, Ext. 5. 

« Herod, ii. K). 



Ma 



i. 103, 12. and 39, 
xviii. 147. 
. 6, 35. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



435 



I think we may have as many as they. I think j 
the same of their wits ; of those of the common 
sort they have evidently far more : brutal stupi- 
dity is without comparison much rarer there ; 
but for singular souls and of the highest form, | 
we are nothing indebted to them. If I should i 
carry on the comparison, I might say, as touch- 1 
ing valour, that on the contrary it is, to what : 
it is with them, common and natural with us: i 
but sometimes we see them possessed of it to I 
such a degree as surpasses the greatest examples ■ 
we can produce. The marriages of that country j 
are defective in this: their custom commonly 
imposes so rude and so slavish a law upon the 
women, that the most distant acquaintance with j 
a stranger is held as criminal in them as the ! 
most intimate; a law which necessarily renders ' 
all such acquaintances, when they are made, , 
substantial ; and seeing that all comes to one . 
account, they have no hard choice to make; 
and when they have broken down the fence, j 
believe me, they launch out to some tune : | 
Luxuria ipsis vinr.ulis, sicut fera bestia, irri- 
tata, deinde ernissa. 1 "Lust, like a wild beast, I 
being more enraged by being bound, breaks 
from his chains with greater wildness." They 
must give them a little more rein : 



" The fiery i-tmrsur, u limn no art can stay, 
Or reined force, doth oft fair means obey." 

The desire of company is allayed by giving a 
little liberty. We run pretty nearly the same 
fortune ; they go to extremes from their con- 
straint; we from our licence. 'Tis a good 
custom we have in France, that our sons are 
received into high families, there to be enter- 
tained and bred up pages, as in a school of 
nobleness; and 'tis looked upon as a dis- 
courtesy and an affront to refuse a gentleman : 
I have taken notice (for so many families, so 
many different forms) that the ladies who have 
been strictest with their women attendants have 
had no better luck than those who allowed 
them a greater liberty; there should be moder- 
ation in all things; one must leave a great deal 
of their conduct to their own discretion; for, 
when all comes to all, no discipline can curb 
them throughout. It is certain that she who 
comes off with flying colours from a school of 
liberty, brings with her whereon to repose more 
confidence than she who comes away sound 
from a severe and strict education. 

Our fathers dressed up their daughters' looks 

in bashfulness and fear ; we ours 
sary°to women. M1 confidence and assurance, the 

courage and the desire being 
alike in both cases. We understand nothing of 
the matter ; we must leave it to the Sarmates, 
that may not lie with a man till with their own 
hands they have first killed another in battle. 3 



i Livv, xxxiv. 4. 

■J Ovid, Jimtir, iii. 4. 13. 

« Herod, iv. 117. 



For me, who have no other title left me to these 
things but by the ears, 'tis sufficient, if; accord- 
ing to the privilege of my age, they retain rne 
for one of their counsel. I advise thern then, 
and men too, to abstinence ; but if the age we 
live in will not endure it, at least to modesty and 
discretion; for as the story says of Aristippus, 1 
speaking to some young men, who blushed to 
see him go into a scandalous house: "The vice 
is in not coming out, not in going in." Let 
her that has no care for her conscience have 
yet some regard to her reputation; and though 
she be rotten within, let her carry a fair outside 
at least. 

I commend a gradation and procrastination 
in their bestowing of favours: Plato declares 
that, in all sorts of love, facility and prompt- 
ness are forbidden the defendant. 'Tis a sign 
of eagerness, so rashly, suddenly, and hand- 
over-head, to surrender themselves, and they 
ought to disguise it with all the art they have; 
in carrying themselves with modesty and reluc- 
tance in granting their last favours, they much 
more allure our desires, and hide their own. 
Let them still fly before us, even those who 
have most mind to be overtaken; they conquer 
more surely by flying, as the Scythians do. 
Indeed, according to the law that nature has 
imposed upon them, it is not properly for them 
either to will or desire; their part is to suffer, 
consent, and obey : and for this it is that nature 
has given them a perpetual capacity, which in 
us is but occasional and uncertain; they are 
always fit for the encounter, that they may 
be always ready when we are so, pati natx:* 
"born to endure:" and whereas she has or- 
dered that our appetites shall be manifest by a 
prominent demonstration, she would have theirs 
to be hidden and concealed within, and has 
furnished them with parts improper for osten- 
tation, and simply defensive. Such proceedings 
as this that follows, must be left to the Ama- 
zonian licence: Alexander inarching his army 
through Hyrcania, Thalestris, queen of the 
Amazons, came with three hun- A , ,, d 
dred horse of her own sex, well Thalestris. 
mounted and armed, having left 
the remainder of a very great army that fol- 
lowed her, behind the neighbouring mountains, 
to pay him a visit; and publicly and in plain 
terms told him, that the fame of his valour and 
victories had brought her thither to see him, and 
to make him an offer of her forces, to assist 
him in the pursuit of his enterprises; and that, 
finding him so handsome, young, and vigorous, 
she, who was also perfect in ail her qualities, 
advised that they might lie together; totiie end 
that from the most valiant woman of the world, 
and the bravest man then living, there might 
spring some great and wonderful issue for the 
time to come. Alexander returned her thanks 
for all the rest; but to give leisure for the ac- 



« I.aertius, in vita. 
» Seneca. Ep. 'J5. 



436 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



complishment of her last demand, he stayed 
thirteen days in that place, which were spent 
in royal feasting and jollity, for the welcome of 
so brave a princess. 1 

We are almost throughout incompetent and 
unjust judges of their actions, as the}' are of 
ours. I confess the truth when it makes against 
me, as when 'tis on my side. 'Tis an abo- 
minable intemperance that pushes them on so 
often to change, and that hinders them to limit 
their affection to any one person whatever; 
as is evident in that goddess to whom are attri- 
buted so many changes and so many lovers: 
but 'tis true withal that love is contrary to its 
own nature if it be not violent, and that vio- 
lence is contrary to its nature if it be constant. 
And they who make it a wonder, exclaim, and 
keep such a clutter to find out the causes of 
this frailty of theirs, as unnatural and not to be 
believed ; how comes it to pass they do not 
discern how often they are themselves guilty of 
the same, without any astonishment or miracle 

at all! it would peradventure 
naufr-u^sub- 11 be more stran g e { ° see the passion 
ject to change, fixed ; 'tis not a simply corporeal 

passion : if there be no end in 
avarice and ambition, there is doubtless none 
the more in desire ; it still lives after satiety ; 
and 'tis impossible to prescribe either constant 
satisfaction or end; it ever goes beyond its 



And inconstancy perhaps is in some sort 
more pardonable in them than in 

pardonSn US = theV ma - Y P lead ' aS Wel1 a ? 

women. we, the inclination to variety and 

novelty, common to us both; and 
secondly, which we cannot, that they buy a 
pig in a poke. Joan, Queen of Naples, caused 
her first husband, Andreosso, 2 to be hanged at 
the bars of her window, in a halter of gold and 
silk, woven with her own hand, because that, 
in matrimonial performances, she neither found 
his parts nor abilities answer the expectation 
she had conceived from his stature, beauty, 
youth, and activity, by which she had been 
caught and deceived. They may allege that 
there is more required in doing than in suffer- 
ing; and so they are on their part always at 
least provided for necessity, whereas on our 
part it may fall out otherwise. For this reason 
it was that Plato, in his Laws, wisely provided 
that, before every marriage, to 
"aked'biffSre determine of the fitness of the 
marriage. persons, the judges should see 

the young men who pretended to 
it stark naked, and the women naked to the 
girdle only. When they come to try us they 
do not perhaps find us worthy of their choice : 



i Diodorus Sic. xvii. 16. But this historian does not say 
that this queen of the Amazons offered Alexander troops to 
aid him in his military expeditions: and (iuintus Uurtius, 
vi.5, says expressly that Alexander having asked her if she 
would go to the wars with him, she ru-used herself by say- 
ing, that she had left nobody to be guardian of her king- 
dom : "Causata, sine custode regnum reliquisse." / 

a Andrew (whom the Italians called Andreosso), son of 
Charles, King of Hungary. See Bayle, art. Joan I. of Naples. 



Experta latus, madidoque simillima loro 
inguina, nee lassa stare coacta manu, 
Deserit implies thalamos.3 

' All efforts vain t' excite his vigour dead, 
The married virgin flies tii' injoyous bed." 

'Tis not enough that a man's will be good ; 
weakness and insufficiency lawfully break a 
marriage, 

Et qwerendum aliunde foret nervosius illud, 
Guod posset zonam solvere virgineam:* 

" And elsewhere seek a man fit for love's toil." 

and why not? and, according to her own 
measure, an amorous intelligence, more bold 
and active, 

Si blando nequeat superesse labori.s 
" If strength they want love's task to undergo." 

But is it not a great impudence to offer our 
imperfections and imbecilities, where we i" 
to please, and leave a good opinion ai 
of ourselves'! For the little that I am able 
to do now, 



" One bout a night," 

I would not trouble a woman that I reverence 
and fear : 

Fuge suspicari, 
Cujus undenum trepidavit eetas 
Claudere lustrum. 7 

" Suspect not him 
On whose love's wild-fire age doth throw ■ 

Of fifty years the cooling snow." 8 

Nature should satisfy herself in having rendered 
age miserable, without making it ridiculous too. 
I hate to see it, for one poor inch of pitiful 
vigour, which comes upon it but thrice a week, 
to strut and set out itself with as great an air 
as if it could do mighty feats, a true flame of 
flax; and wonder to see it so boil and bubble 
at a time when it is so congealed and extin- 
guished. This appetite ought not to appertain 
to anything but the flower of beautiful youth; 
trust not to it because you see it seconds that 
indefatigable, full, constant, and magnanimous 
ardour that is in you, for it will certainly leave 
you in the lurch at your greatest need ; but 
rather return it to some tender, bashful, and 
ignorant boy, who yet trembles under the rod, 
and blushes: 

Indum sanguineo veluti violaverit ostro 

Si quis ebur, vel mixta rubent ubi lilia multa 

Alba rosa. 

" Thus Indian iv'ry shows 
Which with a bord'ring hue of purple glows ; 
Or lilies damasked with the neighbouring rose." 



' Martial, vii. 58. 3. 

* Catullus, Carm. lxvii. 27. 
6 Virgil, Oeorg. iii. 127. 

6 Horace, Epod. xii. 15. 
' Id. ode. ii. 4. 12. 

* Mneid, xii. 67. 



:0NTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



437 



He who can stay till the morning, without dying 
for shame, to behold the disdain of the fair 
eyes of her who knows so well your fumbling 
impertinence, 

Et taciti fecere tamen convicia vultus, 1 

"And though she nothing say, 
How ill she likes my work her looks betray," 

never had the satisfaction and the glory of 
having battled them till they were weary, with 
the vigorous performance of one heroic night. 
When I have observed any one to be tired of 
me, I have not presently accused her levity; 
but have been in doubt if I had not reason 
rather to complain of nature. She has cer- 
tainly used me very uncivilly and unkindly ; 

Si non longa satis, si non bene mentula crassa : 
Nimirum sapiunt, videntcjue parvam 
Matrons quoque mentulam illibenter;' 

and done me a most irreparable injury. Every 
member I have, as much one as another, is 
equally my own, and no other does more 
properly make me a man than this. 

I universally owe my entire picture to the 
public. The wisdom of my instruction wholly 
consists in liberty and naked truth; disdaining 
to introduce little, feigned, common, and pro- 
vincial rules into the catalogue of its real duties, 
all natural, general, and constant; of which 
civility and ceremony are daughters indeed, 
but illegitimate. We are sure to have the 
vices of appearance, when we have had those of 
essence; when we have done with these, we 
run full drive upon others, if we find it must be 
so; for there is danger that we shall fancy new 
offices, to excuse our negligence towards the 
natural ones, and to confound them. That 
this is so, it is seen that in places where faults 
are crimes, crimes are but faults; and that 
in nations where the laws of courtesy are 
most rare and amiss, the primitive laws of 
common reason are better observed, the innu- 
merable multitude of so many duties stifling 
and dissipating our care. Application to trivial 
things diverts us from those that are necessary 
and just. Oh, how these superficial men take 
an easy and plausible way in comparison of 
ours! These are shadows wherewith we pal- 
liate and pay one another; but we do not pay, 
but inflame our reckoning to that great judge, 
who tucks up our rags and tatters about our 
shameful parts, and is not nice to view us all 
over, even to our inmost and most secret vile- 
nesses: it were an useful decency of our maid- 
enly modesty, could it keep him from this 
discovery. In tine, whoever could reclaim 
man from so scrupulous a verbal superstition, 



» Ovid, Amor. i. 7, 21. 

a Of these three verses the first is the beginning of a sort 
of epigram, entitled Prinpua, in the Vctcrum Poctarum Ca- 
tain i a, .-niil the two others arc taken from one of the first 
epigrams oi I he same collection, Jid Matronas, two of which 

37* 



would do the world no great disservice. Our 
life is divided betwixt folly and prudence. 
Whoever will write of it but what is reverend 
and canonical, will leave more than half behind. 
I do not excuse myself to myself; and if I did, 
it should rather be for my excuses that I would 
excuse myself, than for any .other fault; I ex- 
cuse myself, of certain humours, which I think 
more strong in number than those that are on 
my side. In consideration of which, I will 
farther say this (for 1 desire to please every 
one, though a thing hard to do: Esse unum 
hominem accommodatum ad tantam rnorum ac 
serrnonum et voluntatum varietatum : 3 "That 
one man accommodates himself to so great a 
variety of manners, discourses, and wills") : that 
they ought not to condemn me for what I make 
authorities, received and approved of by many 
ages, to utter; and that there is no reason 
that, for want of rhyme, they should refuse me 
the liberty, they allow even to churchmen of our 
nation, and of which here are two specimens : 

Eimula, dispeream, ni monogramma tua est;* 
Un vit d'aray la contente, et hien traicte; 5 

besides many others. I love modesty, and 'tis 
not out of judgment that I have chosen this 
scandalous way of speaking; 'tis nature that 
has chosen it for me. I recommend it not, no 
more than other forms that are contrary to 
common custom; but I excuse it, and by cir- 
cumstances, both general and particular, alle- 
viate the accusation. 

But to proceed: whence also can proceed 
that usurpation of sovereign authority you take 
upon you over the women who favour you at 
their own expense, 

Si furtiva dedit nigra munuscula nocte, 6 

'■ If in the silence of the night. 
She has permitted stolen delight." 

so that you presently assume the interests, cold- 
ness, and authority of a husband ; whence, I 
ask, can it be derived ! 'Tis a free contract : 
why do you not begin, as you intend to hold 
on 1 there is no prescription upon voluntary 
tilings. 'Tis against the form, but it is true, 
withal, that I in my time have carried on this 
affair, as well as the nature of it would permit, 
as conscientiously, and with as much colour of 
justice, as any other contract whatever; and 
that I never pretended ether affection than 
what I really had, and have truly acquainted 
them with the declination, vigour, and birth 
of the same, the fits and intermissions; a man 
does not always hold on at the 
te rate. I have been so spar- 
of my promises that I think 



are parodied by Montaigne. The lines are altogether un- 
susceptible of translation, 
s ft. Cicero, de Petit. Conmil. c. 14. 

* Theodore Beza, Juvmilia. See Bayle, art. Beza. 

• St. Gelais, (Euvres Poeliqucs, p. "J9. 
6 Catullus, Carm. liviii. 145. 



433 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



I have been better than my word. They have 
found me faithful to their inconstancy, even to 
a confessed, and even to a multiplied, incon- 
stancy. I never broke with them whilst I had 
any hold at all ; and what occasion soever they 
have given me, never broke with them to 
hatred or contempt : for such privacies, though 
obtained upon never so scandalous terms, do 
yet oblige us to some good will. I have some- 
times, upon their tricks and evasions, discovered 
a little indiscreet anger and impatience ; for I 
am naturally subject to rash emotions, which, 
though slight and short, often spoil my market- 
ing. Would they freely have consulted my 
judgment, I should not have stuck to have 
given them sharp and paternal counsels, and to 
have pinched them to the quick. If I have 
left them any cause to complain of me, 'tis 
rather to have found in me, in comparison of 
the modern custom, a love foolishly conscien- 
tious, than anything else. I have kept my 
word in things wherein I might easily have 
been dispensed; they then sometimes surren- 
dered themselves with reputation, and upon 
articles that they were willing enough should 
be broken by the conqueror. I have more 
than once made pleasure in its greatest tempta- 
tion strike to the interest of their honour ; and 
where reason importuned me, have armed 
them against myself; so that they conducted 
themselves more decently and securely by my 
rules, when they frankly referred themselves to 
them, than they would have done by their own. 
I have ever, as much as I could, wholly taken 
upon myself alone the hazard of our assigna- 
tions to acquit them, and have always contrived 
our meetings after the hardest and most unusual 
manner, as less suspected, and moreover, in my 
opinion, more accessible. They are chiefly 
more open where they think they are the most 
securely shut ; things least feared are less de- 
fended and observed ; one may more boldly 
dare what nobody thinks you will dare, which 
by the difficulty becomes easy. Never had 
any man his approaches more impertinently 
genital. This way of loving is more according 
to discipline, but 'tis most ridiculous and inef- 
fectual to our people. Who better knows it than 
I, yet I repent me not of it. I have nothing 
there more to lose : 

Me tabula sacer 
Votiva paries indica uvida 

Suspendis9e potenti 
Vestimenta maris deo:* 

" For me my votive tablet shows 
That I have hung my dripping clothes 
At Neptune's shrine :" 

'tis now my time to speak out. But I might 
perhaps say, as another would do, "Thou 
talkest idly, my friend ; the love of thy time 
has little commerce with faith and integrity :" 



i Horace, Od. i. 5, 13. 

2 Terence, Eunuch, i. 1, 16. 

3 Seneca, Epist. 95. The text has i 



Haec si tu postules 
Ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas, 
Q.uam si des operam, ut cum ratioue insanias: 2 



' These things if thou wilt undertake, 
Bv reason, permanent to make ; 
This will be all thou'lt get by it, 
Wisely to run out of thy wit." 



But, on the contrary, if it were for me to begin 
again, assuredly it should be by the same 
method and the same progress, how unfruitful 
soever it might prove. Folly and ignorance 
are commendable in an incommendable action ; 
the farther I go from their humour in this, I 
approach so much nearer to my own. 

As to the rest, in this traffic, I did not suffer 
myself to be totally carried away ; I pleased 
myself in it, but did not forget myself withal. 
I kept the little sense and discretion that nature 
has given me entire for their service and my 
own: a little emotion, but no dotage. My 
conscience also was engaged in it, even to 
debauchery and dissoluteness, but never so far 
as to ingratitude, treachery, malice and cruelty. 
I did not purchase the pleasure of this vice at 
any price, but contented myself with its proper 
and single cost : Nullum intra se vitium est. 3 
" Nothing is a vice in itself." I almost equally 
hate a stupid and slothful laziness, as I do 
a toilsome and painful employment; the one 
pinches, the other lays me asleep. I like 
wounds as well as bruises, and cuts as well as 
dry blows. I found in this commerce, when 
I was the most able for it, a just moderation 
betwixt these extremes. Love is a sprightly, 
lively, and gay agitation; I was neither 
troubled nor afflicted with it, but heated, and, 
moreover, disordered. A man must stop there ; 
it hurts nobody but fools. A young man asked 
the philosopher Panetius, if it was becoming a 
wise man to be in love ] " Let the wise man 
look to that," answered he, " but 4 let not thou 
and I, who are not such, engage ourselves in so 
stirring and violent an affair, that enslaves us 
to others, and renders us contemptible to our- 
selves." He said true, that we are not to 
entrust a thing so precipitous in itself to a soul 
that has not wherewithal to withstand its as- 
saults, and disprove the saying of Agesilaus, 
"that prudence and love cannot live toge- 
ther." 6 'Tis a vain employment, 'tis true; 
unbecoming, shameful, illicit, and illegitimate ; 
but, to carry it on after this manner, I look 
upon it as wholesome, and proper to enliven 
a drowsy soul, and to rouse up a heavy body , 
and, as a physician, I would prescribe it to a 
man of my form and condition, as soon as any 
other recipe whatever, to rouse and keep him 
in vigour till well advanced in years, and to 
defer the approaches of age. Whilst we are but 
in the suburbs, and that the pulse yet beats, 



•> Seneca. Epist. 117. 

6 •• Oh ! how hard a matter is it," said Agesilaus, "for ; 
man to be in love and in his sober senses at one and thi 
same time !" Plutarch, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



439 



T)um nova canities, rtuin prima el i'rt;i sencctus, 
Dum superesl Lachesi quod torqueat, et pedibus me 
Porto meis, nullo dextram subcunte bacillo ; > 

" While something yet of health and strength remains, 
While yet my steps no bending staff sustains, 
While few grey hairs upon my head are seen ;" 

we have need to be tickled by some such nip- 
ping incitation as this. Do but observe what 
youth, vigour, and gaiety it inspired Anacreon 
withal ; and Socrates who was then older than 
I, speaking of an amorous object: "Leaning," 
says he, 2 " my shoulder to her shoulder, and my 
head to hers, as we were reading together in a 
book, I felt, it is a fact, a sudden sting in my 
shoulder, like the biting of a flea, which I still 
felt above five days after, and a continual itch- 
ing crept into my heart." A mere accidental 
touch, and of a shoulder, to heat and excite a 
soul mortified and enervated by age, and the 
most moderate liver of all mankind ! And why 
not! Socrates was a man, and would neither 
be, nor be like, any other thing. Philosophy 
does not contend against natural pleasures, pro- 
vided they be moderate; and only preaches 
moderation, not a total abstinence. The power 
of resistance is employed against 

Natural plea- th e that are adulterate, anf J 
sure-, allowed . , , , . ' ., 

if moderate. introduced by innovation; philo- 
sophy says that the appetites of 
the body ought not to be augmented by the 
mind ; and intelligently warns us not to stir up 
hunger by saturity ; not to stuff instead of fill- 
ing the belly ; to avoid all enjoyments that may 
bring us to want, and all meats and drinks that 
procure thirst and hunger, as in the service of 
love, she prescribes us to take such an object as 
may simply satisfy the body's real need, and 
may not stir the soul, which ought only barely 
to follow and assist the body, without mixing 
in the affair. But have I not reason to believe 
that these precepts, which also, in my opinion, 
are in other respects somewhat rigorous, only 
apply to a body that really performs its office; 
and that in a body broken with age, as in a 
weak stomach, 'tis excusabe to warm and sup- 
port it by art, and, by the meditation of the 
fancy, to restore that appetite and vivacity it 
has lost in itself] 

May we not say that there is nothing in us, 
during this earthly prison, that is purely either 
corporeal or spiritual, and that we injuriously 
dissever a man alive, and that it seems but rea- 
sonable that we should regard as favourably, at 
least, the use of pleasure as we do that of pain? 
This 3 was (for example) vehement even to per- 
fection in the souls of the saints by penitence; 
the body had there naturally a share by the 
right of union, and yet might have but little 
part in the cause. And yet are they not 



contented that it should barely follow and 
assist the afflicted soul ; they have afflicted it 
by itself, with grievous and peculiar torments, 
to the end that, by emulation of one another, 
the soul and body might plunge man into 
misery, by so much more salutif'erous, as it is 
more painful and severe. In like manner, is it 
not injustice in bodily pleasures to subdue and 
keep under the soul, and say that it must 
j therein be dragged along, as to some enforced 
and servile obligation and necessity? 'Tis 
rather her part to aid and cherish them, 
there to present herself and to invite them, the 
authority of ruling belonging to her; as it is 
also her part, in my opinion, in pleasures that 
are proper to her, to inspire and infuse into the 
body all the feeling and sense it is capable of, 
and to study how to make it pleasant and use- 
ful to it. For it is good reason, as they say, 
that the body should not pursue its appetites 
to the prejudice of the mind ; but why is it not 
also reason that the mind should not pursue 
hers to the prejudice of the body 1 

I have no other passion to keep me in breath. 
What avarice, ambition, quarrels, 
and law-suits do for others, who, The advantages 
like me, have no particular em- that ma / be 

, . , r , , reaped from 

ployment, love would more com- ] OV e in au ad- 
modiously do; it would restore vanced age. 
to me vigilancy, sobriety, care as 
to my deportment and person; re-assure my 
countenance that these sour looks, these de- 
formed and pitiable sour looks of old age, 
might not step in to disgrace it; would again 
put me upon sound and wise studies, by which 
I might render myself* more loved and esteemed, 
J clearing my mind of the despair of itself, and 
of its use, and re-integrate it to itself; would 
divert me from a thousand troublesome thoughts 
and a thousand melancholic humours, that idle- 
ness and ill health load us withal, at such an 
age ; would warm again, in dreams at least, 
the blood that nature has given over; will hold 
up the chin, and a little stretch out the nerves, 
the vigour and gaiety of life of that poor man 
who is going full drive to his ruin. But I very 
well understand that is a commodity very hard 
to recover. By weakness and long experience 
our taste has become more delicate and nice ; 
we ask most when we bring least, and will have 
the most choice when we least deserve to be 
accepted. Knowing ourselves for what we are, 
we are less confident and more distrustful ; 
nothing can assure us of being beloved, con- 
sidering our condition and theirs. I am out of 
countenance to find myself in company with 
young folks, full of wantonness and vigour, 



1 Juvenal, iii. 20. 

o Xenophon, Banquet, iv. 27. 

3 Pain. 

* Horace, Epod. xii. 19. " Who are always in a capacity 



of performing well." This is a short paraphrase on the 
distich, which those who do not understand Latin must be 
content with ; for the terms made use of by Horace convey 
such gross ideas that I do not choose to translate them 
more closely. 



440 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



To what end should we go and intrude our 
misery amid their gay and sprightly humours'? 

Possint ut juvenes visere fervidi, 
Multo non sine risu, 
Dilapsam in cineres facem?' 

" That youths, in fervent wishes bold, 
Not without laughter, may behold 

A torch, whose early fire 
Could ev'ry breast with love inflame, 
Now faintly spread a sickly gleam. 

And in a smoke expire." 

They have strength and reason on their side ; 
let us give way, we cannot make good our 
ground; and these blossoms of springing beauty 
suffer not themselves to be handled by such 
benumbed hands, nor be dealt with by mere 
material means; for, as the old philosopher 2 
answered one that jeered him, because he could 
not gain the favour of a young girl he made 
love to: "Friend the hook will not stick in 
such soft cheese." It is a commerce that re- 
quires relation and correspondence: the other 
pleasures we receive may be acknowledged by 
recompense of another nature ; but this is not 
to be paid but with the same kind of coin. In 
earnest, in this sport, the pleasure I give more 
tickles my imagination than that I receive. 
Now, as he has nothing of generosity in him 
that can receive a courtesy where he confers 
none, it must needs be a mean soul that will 
owe all, and can be contented to maintain a 
correspondence with persons to whom he is a 
continual charge; there is no beauty, favour, 
nor privacy so exquisite, that a gallant man 
ought to desire at this rate. If they can only 
be kind to us out of pity, I had much rather 
die than live upon charity. I would have a 
right to ask it in the style that I saw some, beg 
in Italy, Fate ben per voi, "Do good to 
yourself;" or after the manner that Cyrus 
exhorted his soldiers, " Who loves himself let 
him follow me." " Comfort yourself," some one 
will say to me, "with women of your own 
condition, whose company, being of the same 
age, will render itself more easy to you." O 
ridiculous and stupid composition ! 



"Tear not the sleeping lion's beard:" 

Xenophon uses it for an objection and an accusa- 
tion against Menon, that he never made love 
to any but old women. I take more pleasure 
in merely seeing the just and sweet mixture of 
two young beauties, or only meditating it in 
my fancy, than to be myself an actor in one 
made up of miserable and wan old age. I 
leave that fantastic appetite to the Emperor 
Galba, that was only for hard old flesh ; 4 and 
to this poor wretch : 



i Horace, Od. iv. 13, 26. 
2 Bion; Laertius, in vita. 
a Martial, x. 90, 9. 
< Suetonius, in vita. 

<> Ovid, who from his melancholy place of exile writes 
thus to his wife. Ex Ponio, i. 4. 49. 



O ego dii faciant talem te cernere possim, 

Caraque mutatis oscula ferre comis, 
Amplectique meis corpus non pingue lacertis ! 6 

" 1 would to heav'n I such might thee behold, 
To kiss those locks now thou in cares art old, 
And thy worm body in my arms enfold !" 

and amongst the chief deformities, I reckon 
forced and artificial beauty. Emonez, a 
young courtezan of Chios, think- fainted 
ing by fine dressing to acquire beauties reck- 
the beauty that nature had denied oned among 
her, came to the philosopher Ar- e ormlties - 
cesilaus, and asked him if it was possible for a 
wise man to be in love: "Yes," replied he, 6 
"provided it be not with a factitious and so- 
phisticated beauty like thine." The ugliness 
of a confessed old age is to me less ugly and 
less old than another that is 
polished and painted up. Shall £^"1, hE 
I say it without the danger of throne, 
having my throat cut? — love, in 
my opinion, is not properly and naturally in 
its season, but in the age next to childhood, 

Q.nem si puellarum insereres choro, 
Mire sagaces falleret hospites, 
Discrimem obscurum, solutis 
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu:' 

" Who in the virgin choir defies 
The curious stranger's prying eyes 
So smooth his doubtful cheeks appear, 
SB loose, so girlish, flows his hair :" 

and beauty the same ; for whereas Homer ex- 
tends it so far as to the budding of the chin, 
Plato himself has observed this as rare. And 
the reason why the sophist Bion so pleasantly 
called the first appearing hairs of adolescence 
Aristogitons and Harmodians is sufficiently 
known. I find it in virility already, in some 
sort, a little out of date, to say nothing of 
old age ; 



and Margaret, Queen of Navarre, like a wo- 
man, does very far extend the advantage of 
women, ordaining that it is time for them at 
thirty years old to convert the title of fair into 
that of good. The shorter authority we give 
him over our lives, 'tis so much the better for 
us. Do but observe his port; 'tis a beardless 
boy. Who knows not how, in his school, they 
proceed contrary to all order"! study, exer- 
cise, and custom, are ways for insufficiency to 
proceed by ; their novices rule : Amor ordi- 
nem nescit. 10 " Love knows no rules," Doubt- 
less his conduct Is much more graceful when 
mixed with inadvertency and trouble ; miscar- 
riages and ill successes give him appetite and 



» Laertius, in vita. 
i Horace, Od. ii. 5. 21. 
8 See Plutarch, on Love. 
8 Horace, Od. iv. 13. 9. 

i° St. Jerome, Episl. ad Chromat. Anacreon, long before 
him, said much the same thing. See Ode 50, verse 24. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



441 



grace ; provided it be sharp and eager, 'tis no 
great matter whether it be prudent or no; do 
but observe how he goes reeling, tripping, and 
playing; you put him in the stocks when you 
guide him by art and wisdom ; and restrain 
his divine liberty when you put him into those 
hairy and callous hands. 

As to the rest, I often hear them set forth 
this intelligence as entirely spiritual, and dis- 
dain to put the interest the senses there have 
into consideration : everything there serves 
turn; but I can say that I have often seen 
that we have excused the weakness of their 
understandings in favour of their outward 
beauty ; but have never seen that in favour of 
a mind, how mature and well-disposed soever, 
any one would lend a hand to a body that was 
never so little decayed. Why does not some 
one take it into her head to make that noble 
Socratical contract and exchange of body for 
soul? purchasing, at the price of her thighs, a 
philosophical and spiritual intelligence and re- 
generation, the highest value she can get for 
them. Plato 1 ordains, in his Laws, that he 
who has performed any signal and advan- 
tageous exploit in war, may not be refused 
during the whole expedition, whatever his age 
or deformity may be, a kiss or any other amo- 
rous favour, from any woman whatever. What 
he thinks to be so just in recommendation of 
military valour, why may it not be the same in 
recommendation of any other good quality? 
And why does not some woman take a fancy 
to prepossess, over her companions, the glory 
of this chaste love? I say chaste, 



Nam si quando ail pralia 
(It quondam in stipulis magnus 
Incassum furit :» 



ibus ignis 



the vices that are stifled in the thought are 
not the worst. 

To conclude this notable commentary, which 
has escaped from me in a torrent of chatter, 
a torrent sometimes impetuous and hurtful, 

(Jt missum sponsi furtivo munere malum 

Procurril casto virginis e grcmio, 
Quod misenu oblitte molli sun veste locatum, 

Duin adventu malris prosilii, excutitur, 
Atque iliud prono praccps airitur decursu: 

Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.a 

" As a fair apple, by a lover sent 
To 's mistress for a private compliment, 
Which tumbles from the modest virgin's lap, 
Where she had quite forgot it by mishap. 
When starting as her mother opes the door, 
And falls out of her garments on the floor I 
While as it rolls and she betrays surprise, 
A guilty blush her fair complexion dyes,'" 

I say that males and females are cast in the 



> Rrpublic, V. 

» Oeornii iii !I8. The application which Montaigne here 
mains el Virgil's wmds is vers' extraordinary, as will ap- 

pear im diately to those who will be at the pains of con- 

suiting the original. 



same mould, and that, education and custom 
excepted, the difference between them is not 
great. Plato indifferently invites both the one 
and the other to the society of all studies, exer- 
cises, commands, and occupations, military 
and civil, in his commonwealth ; and the philo- 
sopher Antisthenes took away all distinction 
between their virtue and ours. 4 It is much 
more easy to accuse one sex than to excuse the 
other: 'tis the old saying: "the pot and the 
kettle." 



CHAPTER VI. 

OF COACHES. 

It is no difficult matter to prove, that when 
great authors write of causes, they not only 
make use of those they think to be the true 
causes really, but also of such as they believe 
are not so, provided they have some beauty and 
invention ; they speak true and usefully enough, 
if it be ingeniously. We cannot make ourselves 
sure of the supreme cause ; and therefore col- 
lect a great many together, to see if it may not 
accidentally be amongst them, 

i causam 

t sit.s 

" And thus my muse a store of causes brings; 
For here, as in a thousand other things, 
Tho' by one single cause th' effect is done, 
yet since 'tis hid, it thousand must be shown, 
That we may surely hit that single one." 

Will you ask me whence the custom of bless- 
ing those that sneeze ? we break why „ 
wind three several ways; that God bless you, 
which sallies from below is too when y°" 
filthy; that which breaks out sneeze 
from the mouth carries with it some reproach 
for having eaten too much ; the third eruption 
is sneezing, which, because it proceeds from 
the head, and is without offence, we give it this 
civil reception. Do not laugh at this distinc- 
tion, for tiiey say 'tis Aristotle's. 6 

I think 1 have read in Plutarch 7 (who, of all 
the authors I ever conversed with, is he that 
has best mixed art with nature, and judgment 
with knowledge), giving a reason 
for the rising of the stomach in ap^to'v'omit'a't 
those that are at sea, that it is sea. 
occasioned by fear, having found 
out some reason by which he proves that fear 
may produce such an effect. I, who am very 
subject to being sick, know very well that that 
cause concerns not me; and know it, not by 
argument, but by necessary experience. With- 
out instancing what has been told mo, that the 
same thing often happens in beasts, especially 
hogs, free from all apprehension of danger; and 



9 Catullus, Carm. lxv. 19. 

4 Laertius, in vita. 

6 Lucrct. vi. 704. 

Problem, sect. 33, quffis. I 

' On Natural Causes. 



442 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



what an acquaintance of mine told me of him- 
self, that being very subject to it, the disposition 
to vomit has three or four times gone off him, 
being very much afraid in a violent storm, as 
it happened to that ancient, Pejus vexabar, 
quam ut periculum mihi succurreret s 1 "I was 
too ill to think of my danger." I was 
never afraid upon the water, nor, indeed, 
any where else (and I have had just occa- 
sions enough before my eyes, if death be 
one), so as to be confounded and lose my judg- 
ment. Fear springs sometimes 
What fear is. as well from want of judgment as 
from want of courage. All the 
dangers I have been in, I have looked upon 
without winking, with an open, sound, and 
entire sight; and besides, a man must have 
courage to fear. It has formerly served me 
better than some others, so to order my retreat, 
that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless 
without affright and astonishment ; it was stir- 
ring indeed, but not amazed nor stnpified. 
Great souls go yet much farther, and represent 
nights not only sound and firm, but moreover 
fierce. Let us make a relation of that which 
Alcibiades reports 2 of Socrates, his fellow in 
arms: "I found him," says he, "after the 
rout of our army, him and Laches, in the rear 
of those that fled ; and considered him at my 
leisure, and in security, for I was mounted on a 
good horse, and he on foot, and had so fought. 
I took notice, in the first place, how much 
judgment and resolution he showed, in compa- 
rison of Laches; and then the bravery of his 
march, nothing different from his ordinary gait; 
his sight firm and regular, considering and 
judging what passed about him, looking one 
while upon those, and then upon others, friends 
and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged 
the one, and signified to the others that he 
would sell his life dear to any one that should 
attempt to take it from him, and so they came 
off; for people are not willing to attack such 
kind of men, but pursue those they see are in 
a fright." This is the testimony of this great 
captain, which teaches us what we every day 
see, that nothing so much throws us into dan- 
gers as an inconsiderate eagerness to get our- 
selves clear of them : Quo tirnoris minus est, 
eo minus ferme periculi est? " Where there 
is least fear, there is, for the most part, least 
danger." Our people are to blame to say that 
such a one is afraid of death, when he expresses 
that he thinks of it, and foresees it. Foresight 
is equally convenient in what concerns us, 
whether good or ill: to consider and judge of 
the danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being 
astonished thereat. I do not find myself strong 
enough to sustain the force and impetuosity of 
this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement 
passion whatever ; if I was once conquered and 
beaten down, I should never rise again very 



sound; whoever should once make my soul 
lose her footing, would never set it upright 
again ; she retastes and researches herself too 
profoundly, and too much to the quick, and 
therefore would never let the wound she had 
received heal and cicatrize. It has been well 
for me that no sickness has ever yet discom- 
posed it; at every charge made upon me, I 
make my utmost opposition and best defence ; 
by which means the first that should rout me, 
would disable me from ever rallying again. I 
have no after-game to play; on which side 
soever the inundation breaks my banks, I lie 
open, and am drowned without remedy. Epi- 
curus says 4 that a wise man can never become 
a fool ; and I have an opinion converse to this 
sentence, which is, that he who has once been 
a very fool, will never after be very wise. God 
gave me cold according to my cloth, and pas- 
sions proportionable to the means I have to 
withstand them; nature having laid me open 
on the one side, has covered me on the other; 
having disarmed me of strength, she has armed 
me with insensibility, and an apprehension 
regular or dull. 

Now I cannot long endure (and when I was 
young much less endured) either coach, litter, 
or boat, and hate all other riding but on horse- 
back, both in the city and country ; but I can 
worse endure a litter than a coach, and, by the 
same reason, better a rough agitation upon the 
water, whence fear is produced, than the 
motion of a calm. At the little jerks of oars, 
stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know 
not how, both my head and my stomach dis- 
ordered; neither can I endure to sit upon a 
tottering stool. When the sail or the current 
carries us equally, or if we are towed, those 
equal agitations do not disturb me at all. 'Tis 
an interrupted motion that offends me, and most 
of all when most slow. I cannot otherwise 
express it. The physicians have ordered me to 
squeeze and gird myself about the bottom of my 
belly with a napkin, to remedy this accident; 
which however I have not tried, being accus- 
tomed to wrestle with my own defects, and to 
overcome them by myself. 

Would my memory serve me, I should not 
think my time ill spent in setting down here 
the infinite variety that history presents us of 
the use of coaches in the service of war; 
various, according to the nations, and according 
to the ages; in my opinion of great necessity 
and effect; so that it is a wonder that we have 
lost all knowledge of them. I will only say 
this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the 
Hungarians made very advantageous use of 
them against the Turks; having in everyone 
of them a targetteer and a musketeer, and a 
number of harquebuses, ranged along, loaded 
and ready, the whole protected by shield-work, 
like a galliot. They made the front of their 



i Seneca, Epist. 53. 
= f lato, Banquet. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



443 



battle with three thousand such coaches; and, 
after the cannon had played, made them all 
pour in their shot upon the enemy, and made 
them swallow that volley before they tasted of 
the rest, which was no slight instalment; and 
that done, these chariots charged into their 
squadrons to break them, and make way for 
the rest: besides the use they might make of 
them to flank their troops, in a place of danger 
marching in the field, or to cover a building 
and fortify it in haste. In my time, a gentle- 
man in one of our frontiers, unwieldy of body, 
and not being able to procure a horse able to 
carry his weight, having a quarrel, rode up and 
down in a chariot of this fashion, and found 
great convenience in it. But let us leave these 
chariots, of war. 
_ As if their insignificance had not been suffi- 
ciently known by" better proofs, the last kings 
of our first race travelled in a chariot drawn by 
four oxen. 1 Mark Anthony was the first at 
Rome that caused himself to be drawn in a 
coach by lions, and a singing wench with him. 2 
Heliogabalus 2 did since as much, calling him- 
self Cybele the mother of the gods ; and was 
also drawn by tigers, taking upon him the per- 
son of the god Bacchus ; he also sometimes 
harnessed two stags to his coach, another time 
four dogs, at another four naked wenches, 
causing himself to be drawn by them in pomp, 
he being stark naked too. The Emperor 
Firmus 4 caused his chariot to be drawn by 
ostriches of a prodigious size, so that it seemed 
rather to fly than roll. 

The strangeness of these inventions puts this 
other fancy in my head; that it is a kind of 
The excessive P us il' a nimity in monarchs, and a 
exponas uf testimony that they do not them- 
ni.inarriisii _ selvessufficiently understand what 

[msVuanwiity. tnev are > wnen tilev stuu "y to make 
themselves honoured, and to ap- 
pear great by excessive expense ; it were excu- 
sable in a foreign country, where they are 
strangers, but amongst their own subjects, 
where they may do what they please, tiiey 
derive from their dignity itself the most supreme 
degree of honour to"vvhich they can arrive; as, 
(Bethinks, it is superfluous in a private gentle- 
man to go finely dressed at home : his house, 
his attendance, and his kitchen, sufficiently 
answer for him. The advice that Isocrates 5 
gave his king seems to be grounded upon rea- 
son: "that he should be splendid in plate and 
furniture, forasmuch as it is an expense of dura- 
tion that devolves to his successors, and that 
he should avoid all magnificence that will, in a 
short time, be forgotten." I loved to go fine, 
when I was a younger brother, for want of other 
ornament, and it became ine well; there are 



1 See Eginhard, Life of Charlemagne. 
"The cornelian Cytheris. Plutarch, Life of Antony, 
Cicero, Philip, li. 24. J 

J Lampridius, in vita, c 28. 
« Flaw Vnpiscus, in vita, c. 6. 
s Ditc. to Jfteocta. 



some upon whom rich clothes weep. We have 
strange stories of the frugality of our kings 
about their own persons, and in their gifts; 
kings that were great both in reputation, va- 
lour, and fortune. Demosthenes 6 mightily 

stickles ao-ainst the law of the -. ... 
. & . , ... I he public 

city, that assigned the public money, bow it 
money for the pomp of their pub- should be 
lie plays and festivals; he would e «P°" ted - 
that their greatness should be seen in the num- 
ber- of ships well equipped, and good armies 
well provided for; and there is good reason to 
condemn Theophrastus, 7 who, in his Book of 
Riches, has laid down a contrary opinion, and 
maintains that sort of expense to be the true 
fruit of opulence; they are delights, says 
Aristotle, 8 that only please the lowest sort of 
the people; and that vanish from the memory 
so soon as they are sated with them, and for 
which no serious -and judicious man can have 
any esteem. 9 This money would, in my opinion, 
be much more royally, as more profitably, 
justly, and durably, laid out in ports, harbours, 
walls, and fortifications; in sumptuous build- 
ings, churches, hospitals, colleges ; the regene- 
ration of streets and roads, wherein Pope Gre- 
gory the Thirteenth will leave a laudable 
memory to future times; and wherein our 
Queen Catharine would, to all posterity, mani- 
fest her natural liberality and munificence, did 
her means equal her affection. Fortune has 
done me a great despite, in interrupting the 
noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great 
city, and depriving me of the hopes of seeing 
it finished before 1 die. 

Moreover, it seems to the subjects, who are 
daily spectators of these triumphs, that their 
own riches are exposed before them, and that 
they are entertained at their own expense : for 
the people are apt to presume of kings, as we 
do of our servants, that they are to take care to 
provide us all things necessary, in abundance, 
but not to touch it themselves. And therefore 
the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a 
musician that played to him at supper, called 
for his cash-box, and gave him a handfull of 
crowns that he took out of it, with these words : 
"This is not the public money, but my own." 10 
And it so falls out that the people, for the most 
p;irt, have reason on their side; and that their 
princes feed their eyes with what they once had 
to fill their bellies withal. 

Liberality itself is not in its true lustre in a 
sovereign hand ; private men have therein the 
most right; for, to take it ex- _ 
actly, a king has nothing properly SJfywen t£ 
his own; he owes even himself to cmncs a kin?, 
others; authority is not given in jj"'' r ^ wlwl 
favour of the magistrate, but of 



" Third Olynthiae. 

' II is Cicero who passes this criticism upon Thcophras- 
tus. De. Urnc. ii. 16. 
8 Id. ib. 
» Id. ib. IT. 
"> Plutarch, in vita. 



444 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the people. A superior is never made so for his 
own profit, but for the profit of the inferior ; a 
physician for the sick person, and not for himself; 
all magistracy, as well as all art, has its end 
out of itself : Nulla ars in se versaiur. 1 "No 
art is comprehended within itself." Wherefore 
the governors of young princes, who make it 
their business to imprint in them this virtue of 
liberality, and to preach to them to deny no- 
thing, and to think nothing so well spent as 
what they give, a doctrine that I have known 
in great credit in my time, either have more 
particular regard to their own profit than that 
of their master, or ill understand to whom they 
speak. It is too easy a thing to imprint libe- 
rality in him, who has as much as he will to 
supply it with, at the expense of others ; and 
the estimate of it not being proportioned to the 
value of the gift, but to the wealth of him who 
bestows it, it comes to nothing in so mighty 
hands; they find themselves prodigal before 
they are reputed liberal; and yet it is but of 
little recommendation, in comparison of other 
royal virtues ; and the only one, as the tyrant 
Dionysius said, 2 that suits well with tyranny 
itself. I should rather teach him this verse of 
the ancient labourer : s 

Ttj x l 'f l <5" o-rrelpav, a\\a /in o\ rjn o\y tw 9v\aKif ; 

" Whoever will have a good crop, must sow with 
his hand, and not pour out of the sack :" that 
he must disperse it abroad, and not lay it on a 
heap in one place : and that, as he has to give, 
or rather to pay and restore to so many people, 
according as they have deserved, he ought to 
be a faithful and discreet disposer. If the 
liberality of a prince be without measure or 
discretion, I had rather he were covetous. 
Royal virtue seems most to consist in justice ; 



that best denotes a king which 
accompanies liberality ; because 
they have particularly reserved it to be per- 
formed by themselves, whereas all other sorts 
of justice they remit to the administration of 
others. An immoderate bounty is a very weak 
means to acquire them good-will, for it checks 
more people than it allures : Quo in plures usus 
sis, minus in multos uti possis. . . . Quid 
autern est stultius, quam quod libentur facins, 
curare ut id diutius facem non possis ? " By 
how much more you exercise it to many, by so 
much less will you be in a capacity to do so to 
many more. And what greater folly can there 
be than to order it so that what you would do 
willingly you cannot do long]" and if it be 
conferred without due respect of merit, it puts 
him out of countenance that receives it, and is 



virtue consists. 



' Cicero, de Fi7iib. v, 6. 
s Plutarch, Apothegms of the Kings. 

s Plutarch, Whether the Athenians were more excellent in 
Arms than in Learning ; where Corinna makes use of it to 



received without grace. Tyrants 
have been sacrificed to the hatred $'Zse ftjf 
of the people, by the hands of the they have un- 
very men they have unjustly ad- {Ja,)^ * 1 " 
vanced ; such kind of men think- 
ing to secure to themselves the possession of 
benefits unduly received, if they manifest to 
have him in hatred and disdain, of whom they 
hold them, and thus associate themselves to 
the common judgment and opinion. 

The subjects of a prince profuse in gifts, grow 
unreasonable in asking, and accommodate 
themselves not to reason but example. We 
have, indeed, very often reason to blush at our 
own impudence; we are overpaid, according to 
justice, when the recompense equals our ser- 
vice; for do we owe nothing of natural obliga- 
tion to our princes'? If he bears our charges, 
he does too much; 'tis enough that he contri- 
butes to them ; the overplus is called benefit, 
which cannot be exacted, for the very name of 
liberality sounds of liberty. There is no- end of 
it, as we use it ; we never reckon what we have 
received ; we care only for the future liberality ; 4 
wherefore, the more a prince exhausts himself 
in giving, the poorer he grows in friends. How 
should he satisfy desires, that still increase the 
more they are fulfilled 1 He who has his thoughts 
upon taking, never thinks of what he has 
taken: covetousness has nothing so much its 
own as ingratitude. 

The example of Cyrus will not do amiss in 
this place, to serve the kings of these times for 
a touchstone to know whether their gifts are 
well or ill bestowed, and to see how much 
better that emperor conferred them than they 
do, who are reduced to borrow of their un- 
known subjects, and rather of them whom they 
have wronged, than of them on whom they 
have conferred their benefits, and so receive 
aids, wherein there is nothing of gratuitous but 
the name. Croesus reproached him with his 
bounty, and cast up to how much his treasure 
would have amounted, if he had been a little 
closer-fisted. He had a mind to justify his 
liberality, and therefore sent dispatches into all 
parts, to the grandees of his dominions, whom 
he had particularly advanced, entreating every 
one of them to supply him with as much money 
as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to 
send him a particular of what every one could 
advance. When all the answers were brought 
to him, every one of his friends, not thinking it 
enough barely to offer him only so much as he 
had received from his bounty, having added to 
it a great deal of his own, it appeared that 
the sum amounted to much more than Croe- 
sus's savings would. Whereupon Cyrus: "I 
am not," said he, "less fond of riches than 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



other princes, but rather a better husband of 
them: you see with how small a venture I 
have acquired the inestimable treasure of so 
many friends; and how much more faithful 
treasurers they are to me, than mercenary men 
without obligation or affection would be; and 
my money better laid up than in chests, bring- 
ing upon me the hatred, envy, and contempt of 
other princes." ' 

The emperors excused the superfluity of their 

plays and public spectacles, by the 
The expenses reason that their authority did, 
of rite emperors j n some sor t ( a t i eas t J n outward 
spectacles, why appearance), depend upon the 
not justifiable, will of the people of Rome, who, 

time out of mind, had been ac- 
customed to be entertained and caressed with 
such shows and excesses. But they were pri- 
vate men who had nourished this custom, to 
gratify their fellow-citizens and companions, 
and chiefly out of their own purses, by such 
profusion and magnificence; it had quite another 
taste, when they were the masters who came 
to imitate it: Pecuniarum translatio a justis 
dominis ad alienos non debet liheralis videri: 2 
"The transferring of money from the right 
owners to strangers, ought not to have the title 
of liberality." Philip, seeing his son sought 
by presents to gain the affection of the Mace- 
donians, reprimanded him in a letter after this 
manner: "What! hast thou a mind that thy 
subjects look upon thee as their cash-keeper, 
and not as their king] Wilt thou tamper with 
them to win their affections? Do it then by 
the benefits of thy virtue, and not by those of 
thy chest." 3 

And yet it was doubtless a fine thing to bring 
and plant within the theatre. a great number of 
vast trees, witli all their branches in their full 
verdure, representing a great shady forest, dis- 
posed in excellent order; and the first day to 
throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand 
stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow- 
deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people ; 
the next day, to cause a hundred great lions, 
a hundred leopards, and three hundred bears 
to be killed in their presence ; and for the third 
day, to make three hundred pair of gladiators 
fight it out to the death, as the emperor Probus 

did. 4 It was also very fine to see 
taous a £mph£ P ' those vast amphitheatres, all faced 
theatres. with marble without, curiously 

wrought with figures and statues, 
and the inside sparkling with rare decorations 
and enrichments, 

Caltcus 5 en gemmis, en illita porticus auro:> 



all the sides of this vast space were filled and 
environed, from the bottom to the top, with 
three or fourscore ranges of seats, all of marble 
also, and covered with cushions, 

Exeat, inquit, 
Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri, 
Cujus res legi non sufficit:'" 1 



where a hundred thousand men might sit at 
their ease: and the place below, where the 
plays were played, to make it by art first open 
and cleft into chinks, representing caves, thai 
vomited out the beasts designed for the spec- 
tacle ; and then, secondly, to be overflowed 
with a deep sea, full of sea-monsters, and 
covered with ships of war, to represent a naval 
battle ; and, thirdly, to make it dry and even 
again, for the combats of the gladiators ; and 
for the fourth scene, to have it strewed with 
vermilion and storax instead of sand, there to 
make a solemn feast for all that infinite number 
of people, the last act of one single day. 

Quoties nos descendentis arenae 
Vidimus in paries, ruptaque voragine terrae 
Emersi.-se terns, ei iisuem siepe latebris, 
Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro! 

Contigil; lequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis 
Spcctavi vitulos, et equoruin nomine dignum, 
Sed deforme pecus.» 

" How often, when spectators, have we seen 
Tart of the spacious theatre sink in, 
And. from a sudden chasm in the earth, 
Start up wild beasts: then presently give birth 
Unto a shining grove of golden bow'rs. 
Of shrubs thai blossom'd with enamell'd flow'ra ! 
Nor yet of sylvan monsters had we sight 
Alone; 1 saw sea-calves with wild bears fight; 
And a deformed sort of cattle came, 
Which river or sea-horses we might name." 

Sometimes they made a high mountain rise, 
full of fruit and other trees in full fruit and 
foliage, sending dou n rivulets of water from the 
top, as from the mouth of a fountain ; other whiles 
a great ship was seen to come rolling in, which 
opened and divided of itself; and, after having 
disgorged from the hold four or five hundred 
beasts for fight, closed again, and vanished 
without help; at other times, from the floor of 
this place they made spouts of perfumed waters 
dart their streams upward, and so high as to 
besprinkle all that infinite multitude. To de- 
fend themselves from the injuries of the weather, 
they had that vast place one while covered over 
with purple curtains of needle-work, and by and 



' Xenophou. Cyrop. viii. 9. 

s Cicero, dc Off. i. 14. 

s Id. ih. ii. 15. 

« Vopiscus, in vita, c. 19. 

» " I know not," says Mr. Coste, " what is strictly to be 
understood here by the word bullous. In the amphitheatres 
this term was applied to certain steps that were higher and 
wider than the others, as may be seen in the Antiquities 
of Father Momfaucon, torn. iii. part ii. p. 25u. Father 



Tachart, in his Latin and French Dictionary, says that tbe 
word is used by Vitruvius to denote a belt or girdle round 
the bottom and top of a column. Whither jewels would 
make a better figure there than on iMontfaiu ■oil's steps, I 
leave to the determination of the connoisseurs." 

« Cnlpurnius, Eclog. 7, entitled Templum, verse 47. 

' Juvenal, iii. 153. 

• Calpiiruius, vt supra, verse C4. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



by with silk of sometimes one sometimes another 
colour, which they could draw off or on in a 
moment, as they had a mind : 



The net-work also that was set before the 
people, to defend them from the violence of 
these turned-out beasts, was interwoven with 
gold. 

Auro quoque torta refulgent 
Retia.' 

" And woven nets refulgent are with gold." 



If there be any thing excusable in such 
as these, it is where the novelty and invention 
create the wonder and admiration, not the ex- 
pense: even in these vanities we discover how 
fertile those ages were in other kind of wits 
than these of ours. It is with this sort of fer- 
tility as with other products of nature: it is not 
to say she there employed her utmost force ; 
we do not go, we rather wander up and down, 
this way and that ; we turn back the road we 
came. I am afraid our knowledge is weak in 
every way ; we neither see far forward nor 
backward ; our understanding comprehends 
little, and lives but a little while; 'tis short, 
both in extent of time and extent of matter : 

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
Multi, sed omnes jllaclirymabiles 
Urgentur, ignotique longa 
Nocte. 3 

" Before Atrides, brave in fight, 
Reigned many kings; but endless night 
To all denies our tears and praise, 
For never were they graced with lays." 

Et supera bellum Thebanum, et funera Trojre, 
Multi alias alii quoque res cecinere poets :<» 

" And long before the wars of Thebes and Troy 
On other things bards did their song employ :" 

and the narrative of Solon, 6 of what he had 
got out of the Egyptian priests, touching the 
long life of their state, and their manner of 
learning and preserving foreign histories, is 
not, methinks, a testimony to be slighted in 
this consideration. Si interminalam in omnes 
partes magnitudinem regionum videremus, et 
temporum, in quam se injiciens animus et in- 
tendens, ita late longeque peregrinatur, ut nul- 
lam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit insistere : 
in hac immensilate . . . infinita vis innumera- 
bilium appareret formarum. s " Could we see 
that boundless extent of countries and ages, in 



all their parts, on which the mind, being fixed 
and intent, might ramble where and when it 
list, without meeting with any limits to its 
sight, we should discover innumerable forms in 
that immensity." Though all that has arrived 
at our knowledge of times past should be true, 
and known by any one, it would be less than 
nothing in comparison of what is unknown. 
And of this same image of the world, which 
glides on whilst we are in it, how wretched and 
narrow is the knowledge of the most curious ! 
Not only of particular events, which fortune 
often renders exemplary and of great concern, 
but of the state of great governments and na- 
tions, an hundred more tilings escape us than 
ever come to our knowledge ; we p r j nt - n ;„ 
make a mighty business of the china" 8 
invention of artillery and print- 
ing, which other men at the other end of the 
world, in China, had a thousand years ago. 
Did we but see as much of the world as we do 
not, we should perceive, it is to be supposed, a 
perpetual multiplication and vicissitude of forms. 
There is nothing singular and rare in respect of 
nature, but in respect of our knowledge; which 
is a wretched foundation whereon to ground 
our rules, and that represents to us a very false 
image of things. As we now-a-days vainly 
conclude the declension and decrepitude of the 
world by the arguments we extract from our 
own weakness and decay ; 

Jamque adeo est affecta cetas, effcetaque tellus:* 
" So much the age, so much the earth decays :" 

so did he 8 vainly conclude the birth and youth 
of theirs by the vigour they observed in the 
wits of their time, abounding in novelties and 
the invention of divers arts : 

Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque 
Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia cepit : 
Uuare etiam qucedam nunc artes expoliuntur, 
Nunc etiatn augescunt ; nunc addita navigiis sunt 
MuJta. a 

" But sure the nature of the world is strong, 
Perfect, and young ; nor can I think it long 
Since it beginning took, because we know 
Arid still increase, ami still politer grow. 
And many things, from former times concealed, 
Are now, by means of ships, to us revealed." 

Our world has lately discovered another (and 
who will assure us it is the last 
ofhisbr 

the sibyls, and we ourselves, ge1> 
have been ignorant of this till ^abi tants^ 
now?) as large, well peopled, first discovered, 
and fruitful as this whereon we 



i Martial, xii. 29, 15. This Hermogenes was a notorious 
thief. 
» Calpurnius, ut supra, 53. 

3 Horace, Od. iv. 9, 25. 

4 Lucret. v. 327. Montaigne here gives Lucretius' words 
a construction directly contrary to what they bear in the 
poem. 

<■ l'lato, Timttus. 

6 Cic. de NaUira Dec-rum, i. 20. Here also Montaigne 
puts a sense qui le dilli-rent (iom what the words bear in "the 
original ; but the application he makes of them is so happy 



that one would declare they were actually put together 
only to express his own sentiment. " Et temporum" is 
an addition by Montaigne; and, instead of " infinita vis 
innmnerabiliuin appareret formarum," it is in Cicero 
" infinita vis innuniiTal.ilinm vuliial alomorum." These 
two last are sufficient to show that Cicero treats of quite 
another thing than what Montaigne does here. 

' Lucret. ii. 1151. 

e Lucretius, in his poem. 

a Lucret. v. 331. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



447 



busses, enough to frighten Ciesar himself; if 
surprised with as little experience of them; 
i against people naked, except where the inven- 
! tion of a little quilted cotton was in use ; with' 
! out other arms, at the most, than bows, stones, 
staves, and bucklers of wood ; people sur- 
prised, under colour of friendship and good 
faith, by the curiosity of seeing strange and 
unknown things; take but away, 1 say, this 
disparity from the conquerors, and you take 
away all the occasion of so many victories. 
When 1 look upon that invincible ardour where- 
with so many thousands of men, women, and 
children have so often presented, and thrown 
themselves into inevitable dangers, for the de- 
fence of their gods and liberties, that generous 
obstinacy, to suffer all extremities and difficulties, 
and death itself, rather than submit to the do- 
minion of those by whom they had been so 
shamefully abused ; and some of them choosing 
rather to die of hunger and fasting than to 
accept of nourishment from the hands of their 
so basely victorious enemies; I take it that 
whoever would have attacked them upon equal 
terms of arms, experience, and number, would 
have had as hard, and perhaps a harder, game 
to play, than in any other war we have seen. 

Why did not so noble a conquest fall under 
Alexander, or the ancient Greeks and Romans; 
and so great a revolution and change of so 
many empires and nations fall into hands that 
might have gently made plain and smooth 
whatever was rough and savage amongst them, 
and have cherished and assisted the good seeds 
that nature had there produced ; mixing not 
only with the culture of land and the ornament 
of cities, the arts of this part of the world, in 
what was necessary, but also the Greek and 
Roman virtues, with those that were originals 
of the country ! What a particular reparation 
had it been to them, and what a general good 
to the whole world, had our first examples and 
deportment in those parts allured those people 
to the admiration and imitation of virtue, and 
had begot betwixt them and us a fraternal so- 
ciety and intelligence! How easy had it been 
to have made advantage of souls so innocent, 
and so eager to learn; having for the most part 
naturally so good capacities! Whereas, on 
the contrary, we have taken advantage of their 
ignorance and inexperience, with the greater 
ease to incline them to treachery, luxury, ava- 
rice, and towards all sorts of inhumanity and 
cruelty, by the pattern and example of our 
manners: whoever put at so high a price the 
benefit of merchandize and traffic? So many 
cities levelled with the ground, so many nations 
exterminated, so many millions of people fallen 
[ by the edge of the sword, and the richest and 
| most beautiful part of the world turned upside- 
down, tor the traffic of pearls and p 
Mechanical victories! Never did ambition, 
never did political animosities engagj 
against one another, in such horrible hostilities 
and calamities. 



live, and yet so raw and childish, that we yet 
teach it its a, b, c; 'tis not above fifty years 
since it knew neither letters, weights, mea- 
sures, vestments, corn, nor vines; it was then 
quite naked, in the mother's lap, and only lived 
upon what she gave it. If we rightly con- 
clude of our end, and this poet of the youthful- 
ness of that age of his, that other world will 
only enter into the light when this of ours shall 
make its exit: the universe will be paralytic; 
one member will be useless, another in vigour. 
I am greatly afraid that we have very much 
precipitated its declension and ruin by our con- 
tagion, and that we have sold it our opinions 
and our arts at a very dear rate. It was an 
infant world, and yet we have not whipped 
and subjected it to our discipline by the advan- 
tage of our valour and natural forces ; neither 
have we won it by our justice and goodness, 
nor subdued it by our magnanimity. Most of 
their answers, and the negociations we have 
had with them, witness that they were nothing 
behind us in pertinency and clearness of natural 
understanding: the astonishing magnificence 
of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst 
many other such like things, the garden of that 
king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants, ac- 
cording to the order and stature they have in a 
garden, were excellently formed in gold, as in 
his cabinet were all the animals bred upon the 
land and the sea of his dominions; and the 
beauty of their manufactures, in jewels, feathers, 
cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that 
they were as little inferior to us in industry. 
But as to devotion, observance of the laws, 
goodness, liberality, and plain dealing, it was 
of main use to us that we had not so much as 
they; for they have lost, sold, and betrayed 
themselves by this advantage. 

As to boldness and courage, stability, con- 
stancy against pain, hunger, and death, I should 
not fear to oppose the examples I find amongst 
them, to the most famous examples of elder 
times, that we find in our records on this side 
of the world. For as to those who have sub- 
dued them, take but away the sleights and 
artifices they practised to deceive them, and 
the just astonishment it was to those nations to 
see so sudden and unexpected an arrival of men 
with beards, differing in language, religion, 
shape, and countenance, from so remote a part 
of the world, and where they had never heard 
there was any habitation, mounted upon great 
unknown monsters, against those who had 
never so much as seen a horse, or any other 
beast, trained up to carry a man or any other 
loading; shelled in a hard and shining skin, 
with a cutting and glittering weapon in his 
hand against them, who, for the wonder of the 
brightness of a looking-glass or a knife, would 
truck great treasures of gold and pearl; and 
who had neither knowledge nor matter with 
which, even at leisure, they could penetrate 
our steel: to which may be added the light- 
ning and thunder of our pieces and arque- 



448 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Certain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest 
of their mines, landed in a fruitful and pleasant 
and very well peopled country, and there made 
their usual representations to the inhabitants : 
"That they were peaceable men, who were 
come from a very remote country, and sent on 
the part of the King of Castile, the greatest 
prince of the habitable world, to whom the 
Pope, God's vicegerent upon earth, had given 
the principality of the Indies; that if they 
would become tributaries to him, they should 
be very gently and courteously used :" at the 
same time requiring of them victuals for their 
nourishment, and gold, whereof to make some 
pretended medicine ; they moreover represented 
to them the belief of one only God, and the 
truth of our religion, which they advised them 
to embrace, to which they also added some 
threats. To which they received this answer : 
" That as to their being peaceable, they did not 
seem to be such, if they were so ; as to their 
king, he must be necessitous and poor, since he 
asked ; and he who had given him that grant, 
a man that loved dissension, to give away that 
to another which was none of his own, and to 
bring it into dispute against the ancient posses- 
sors ; as to victuals, they would supply them ; 
that of gold they had little, it being a thing 
they had in very small esteem, as being of no 
use to the service of life, their care being only 
to pass it happily and pleasantly; but that 
what they could find, except what was em- 
ployed in the service of their gods, they might 
freely take; as to one only God, the notion 
had pleased them, but that they would not 
change their religion, because they had so hap- 
pily lived in it, and that they were not used to 
take advice of any but their friends, and those 
they knew ; as to their menaces, it was a sign 
of want of judgment, to threaten those whose 
nature and power was to them unknown ; that 
therefore they had better make haste to quit their 
coast, for they were not used to take such civi- 
lities and remonstrances of armed men and 
strangers in good part; otherwise they would 
do by them as they had done by those others," 
showing them the heads of several executed 
men round the wall of their city. Here is one 
specimen of the prattle of this infancy. But 
so it is, that the Spaniards did, neither in this 
nor several other places where they did not find 
the merchandize they sought for, make any 
stay or any attempt, whatever other conve- 
niences were there to be had; witness my 
Cannibals. 1 

Of two of the most puissant monarchs of that 
world, and perhaps of this, kings of so many 
kings, and the last they exterminated, that of 
Peru, 2 having been taken in a battle, and put 
to so excessive a ransom as exceeds all belief; 
it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his 
conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, 
liberal, and constant spirit, and of a clear and 



settled understanding; the conquerors, after 
having exacted one million three hundred and 
twenty-five thousand five hundred weight of 
gold, besides silver and other things, which 
amounted to no less (so that their horses were 
thenceforth shod with massy gold) had yet a 
mmd to see, at the price of what disloyalty and 
injustice soever, what the remainder of the 
treasure of this king might be, and to possess 
themselves of that also. To which end a false 
accusation was exhibited against him, and false 
witnesses brought in to prove that he planned 
to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to pro- 
cure his own liberty ; whereupon, by the worthy 
sentence of those very men, who had by this 
treachery conspired his ruin, he was condemned 
to be publicly hanged, after having made him 
buy oft' the torment of being burned alive, by 
the baptism they gave him immediately before 
execution ; a horrid and unheard of barbarity, 
which nevertheless he underwent without be- 
lying himself either in word or look, with a 
truly grave and royal behaviour. After which, 
to calm and appease the people, daunted and 
astonished at so strange a .thing, they counter- 
feited great sorrow for his death, and appointed 
most sumptuous funerals. 

The other, king of Mexico, 3 after having a 
long time defended his beleaguered city, and in 
this siege manifested the utmost of what suffer- 
ing and perseverance can do, if ever prince and 
people did, and his misfortune having delivered 
him alive into his enemies' hands, upon articles 
of being treated like a king; neither did he in 
his captivity discover any thing unworthy of 
that title. His enemies after their victory, not 
finding so much gold as they expected, when 
they had searched and rifled with their utmost 
diligence, they went about to procure dis- 
coveries by the most cruel torments they could 
invent, upon the prisoners they had taken ; but 
having profited nothing that way, their courage 
being greater than their torments, they arrived 
at last to such a degree of fury as, contrary to 
their faith and the law of nations, to condemn 
the king himself and one of the principal noble- 
men of his court to the rack, in the presence of 
one another. This lord, finding himself over- 
come with pain, being environed with burning 
coals, pitifully turned his dying eyes towards 
his master, as it were to ask him pardon that 
he was able to endure no more ; whereupon the 
king, darting at him a fierce and severe look, 
as reproaching his cowardice and pusillanimity, 
with a stern and firm voice said to him this 
only: "Am 1 in a bath? am I more at my 
ease than thou 7" The other soon after quailed 
under the torment, and died upon the place. 
The king, half roasted, was carried thence ; not 
so much out of pity (for what compassion ever 
touched such barbarous souls, who, for the 
doubtful information of some vessel of gold to 
be made a prey of, caused not only a man, but 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Indian prison- 
ers burnt alive 
by the Spa- 
niards. 



a king, so great in fortune and desert, to be 
broiled before their eyes), but because his 
endurance rendered their cruelty still more 
shameful. They afterwards hanged him, for 
having nobly attempted to deliver himself by 
arms from so long a captivity, and he died with 
a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince. 
Another time they burned, in one and the 
same fire, four hundred and sixty 
men alive at once; the four hun- 
dred being of the common people, 
the sixty the principal lords of a 
province, mere prisoners of war. 
We have these narratives from themselves; for 
they do not only own it, but boast of it and 
inculcate it. Could it be for a testimony of 
their justice, or their zeal to religion - ! Doubt- 
less these are ways too differing and contrary 
to so holy an end. Had they proposed to 
themselves to extend our faith, they would 
have considered that it does not amplify in the 
possession of territories, but in the gaining of 
men; and would have more than satisfied 
themselves with the slaughters occasioned by 
the necessity of war, without indifferently mix- 
ing a massacre, as upon wild beasts, as universal 
as fire and sword could make it ; having only, 
by their good will, saved so many as they in- 
tended to make miserable slaves of, for the 
work and service of their mines : so that many 
of the captains were put to death upon their 
place of conquest, by order of the King of 
Castile, justly offended with the horror of their 
conduct, and almost all of them hated and 
disesteemed. God did meritoriously permit 
that all this great plunder should be swal- 
lowed by the sea in transportation, or by civil 
wars, wherewith they devoured one another, 
and the most of the actors in it were buried 
upon the place, without any fruit of their 
victory. 

That the revenue, though in the hands of so 
parsimonious and so prudent a prince,' so little 
answers the expectation given to his pre- 
decessors of it, and of that first abundance of 
riches which was found at the first landing in 
those new discovered countries (for though a 
great deal be fetched thence, yet we see 'tis 
nothing in comparison of what might be 
expected), comes from this, that the use of 
money was there utterly unknown, and that 
consequently their gold was found all collected 
together, being of no other use but for ornament 
and show; as furniture reserved from father to 
son by many puissant kings, who always 
drained their mines to make this vast heap of 
vessels and statues, for the decoration of their 
palaces and temples: whereas our gold is 
always in motion and traffic; we cut ours 
into a thousand small pieces, and cast it into a 
thousand forms, and scatter arid disperse it a 
thousand ways. Only suppose our kings should 



Philip II. 
38* 



thus hoard up all the gold they could get in 
several ages, and let it lie idle by them. 

Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in 
some sort more civilized and more ingenious 
than the other nations were in those parts: 
therefore did they judge, as we do, that the 
world was near its period, and looked upon the 
desolation we brought amongst them for a cer- 
tain sign of it. They believed that the exist- 
ence of the world was divided into five ages, 
and into the life of five successive 



ended their time, and that which 
gave them light was the fifth. The first 
perished, with all other creatures, by an uni- 
versal inundation of water: the second, by the 
heavens falling upon us, which suffocated every 
living thing; to which age they assign the 
giants, and showed bones to the Spaniards, 
according to the proportions of which, the sta- 
ture of men amounted to twenty hands high : 
the third by fire, which burnt and consumed 
all: the fourth, by an emotion of the air and 
wind, which came with such violence as beat 
down even many mountains; wherein the men 
died not, but were turned into baboons: what 
impressions will not the weakness of human 
belief admit! After the death of this fourth 
sun, the world was twenty-five years in perpe- 
tual darkness; in the fifteenth of which a man 
and a woman were created, that restored the 
human race: ten years after, upon a certain 
day, the sun appeared newly created, and 
since, the account of their years takes beginning 
from that day : the third day after his creation, 
the ancient gods died; and the new ones are 
since born from day to day. After what man- 
ner they think this last sun shall perish, my 
author knows not; but their number of this 
fourth change agrees with the great conjunction 
of stars, that eight hundred and odd years ago, 
as astrologers suppose, produced great alter- 
ations and novelties in the world. 

As to pomp and magnificence, in relation to 
which I engaged in this discourse, 
neither Greece, R,ome, nor Egypt, Tlle magnifi- 
whether for utility, difficulty, or b'^Vi.u'uiiYiV. 
state, can compare any of their andCusco. 
works with the road to be seen 
in Peru, made by the kings of the country, 
from the city of Quito to that of Cusco, (three 
hundred leagues), straight, even, five-and- 
twenty paces wide, paved, and enclosed on 
both sides with high and beautiful walls, and 
along these, on the inside, two clear rivulets, 
bordered with a beautiful sort of a tree, which 
they call molly. In which work, where they 
met with rocks and mountains, they cut them 
through and made them even, and filled up pits 
and valleys with lime and stone to make them 
level. At the end of every day's journey are 
beautiful palaces, furnished with provisions, 
vestments, and arms, as well for travellers as 
for the armies that are to pass that way. In the 
estimate of this work I have reckoned the diifa- 
2d 



450 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



culty, which is particularly considerable in that 
place : they did not build with any stones less 
than ten feet square ; and had no other means 
of carriage than by drawing their load them- 
selves by force of arm, and knew not so much 
as the art of scaffolding, nor any other way of 
standing to their work but by throwing up 
earth against the building, as it rose higher, 
taking it away again when they had done it. 

Let us return to our coaches. In their place, 

and that of all other sorts of carriage, these 

people caused themselves to be carried by men, 

and upon their shoulders. This 

o; h p™?ed iast kin e ? f Pe ™' th u e da y *■* 

iii a chair of he was taken, was thus earned 
gold to the U pon staves of gold, sitting in 

field of battle. a cnair of g old in the middle of 
his battle. As many of his chair- 
men as were killed, to make him fall (for they 
wanted to take him alive), as many others took 
their place, so that they could never beat him 
down, what slaughter soever they made of 
those people, till a horseman, seizing upon him 
brought him down. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS. 

Since we cannot attain to greatness, let us 
revenge ourselves by railing at it ; and yet it is 
not absolutely railing against any thing to pro- 
claim its defects, because they are to be found 
in all things, how beautiful or how much soever 
to be coveted. Greatness has in general this 
manifest advantage, that it can grow less when 
it pleases, and has very near the choice of both 
the one and the other condition, for a man does 
not fall from every height; there are several 
from which one may descend without falling. 
It does, indeed, appear to me that we value it 
at too high a rate, and also overvalue the reso- 
lution of those who, we have either seen or 
heard, have contemned it, or displaced them- 
selves of their own accord : its essence is not so 
evidently commodious that a man may not, 
without a miracle, refuse it. I find it a very 
hard thing to undergo misfortunes, 'but to be 
content with a competent measure of fortune, 
and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy 
matter; 'tis methinks a virtue to which f, who 
am none of the wisest, could without any great 
endeavour arrive. What then is to be expected 
from them that would yet put into consideration 
the glory attending this refusal, wherein there 
may lurk worse ambition than even in the de- 



sire itself and fruition of greatness 1 Forasmuch 
as ambition never behaves itself better, accord- 
ing to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure 
and unfrequented ways. 

I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it 
in as much as I can from desire. I have as 

much to wish for as another, and ., 
,, . , , T? . Montaigne was 

allow my wishes as much liberty ntjver a T nbi . 
and indiscretion ; but yet it never tious of very 
befel me to wish for either empire JjJ|J 1 ' t prefer ' 
or royalty, or the eminence of 
high and commanding fortunes; I do not aim 
that way; I love myself too well. When I 
think of growing greater, 'tis but very mode- 
rately ; and by a compelled and timorous 
advancement, such as is proper for me, in 
resolution, in prudence, in health, in beauty, 
and even in riches too ; but supreme place, or 
mighty authority, oppresses my imagination, and 
quite contrary to the other, 1 I should perhaps 
rather choose to be the second or third in Peri- 
gord, than the first at Paris ; at least, without 
lying, the third at Paris than the first. I 
would neither dispute, a miserable unknown, 
with a nobleman's porter, nor make crowds 
open in adoration as I pass. I am trained up 
to a moderate condition, as well by my choice 
as by fortune; and have made it appear, in the 
whole conduct of my life and enterprises, that 
I have rather avoided, than otherwise, the 
climbing above the degree of fortune in which 
God placed me by my birth: all natural con- 
stitution is equally just and easy. My soul is 
so sneaking and mean, that I measure not good 
fortune by its height, but hy its facility. 

But if my heart be not great enough, 'tis, 
on the other hand, open enough to make 
amends, by freely laying open its weakness. 
Should any one put me upon comparing the 
life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, hand- 
some, learned, healthful, understanding, and 
abounding in all sorts of conveniences and plea- 
sures, leading a quiet life, and all his own, hia 
mind well prepared against death, superstition, 
pains, and other incumbrances of human neces- 
sity ; dying at last in battle with his sword in 
his hand, for the defence of his country, on tho 
one part; and on the other part, the life oi" 
M. Regulus, so great and high as it is known 
to every one, and his end admirable ; the one 
without name and without dignity, the other 
exemplary and glorious to a wonder ; I should 
doubtless say what Cicero did, could I speak 
as well as he. 2 But if I had to decide them 
with reference to myself, I should then say 
that the first is as much according to my capa- 
city and desire, which I conform to my capa- 
city, as the second is far beyond it: that I 
could not approach the last but with venera- 



1 Cicero, from whom Mo 



wallowed in pleasures of every kind, and was acoiiteniner 
of Die sacrifices and temples of his country: lie was a 



handsome man, perfectly healthy, and so valiant that lie 
died in battle for til" cause of Hie republic; insomuch, ileitis 
Cicero, that I dare not name the man who was prefjrable 
to him ; bet virtue shall speak forme, who will not hesitate 
a moment to give M. Regulus the preference, and to pro- 
claim him the more happy man. JJe Fiuib. ii. 20. 



ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



451 



tion ; the other I would readily attain by 
custom. 

But let us return to our temporal greatness, 
from which we are digressed. 
Montai»ne J disrelish all dominion, whether 

iommand'nor active or passive. Otanes, one 
be commanded, of the seven who had right to 
pretend to the kingdom of Per- 
sia, did as I should readily have done; which 
was that he gave up to his competitors his 
right of being promoted to it, either by election 
or lot, provided that he and his might live in 
the empire free from all authority and subjec- 
tion, that of the ancient laws excepted, and 
might enjoy all liberty that was not prejudicial 
to these; as impatient of commanding as of 
being commanded. 1 

The most painful and difficult employment 

in the world, in my opinion, is 

t'rllhiii'.'sJmi'e worthily to discharge the office 

andiiiiiicuit of a king. I excuse more of 

runnnand!''' l ° their rais,akes than men com - 

monly do, in consideration of 
the intolerable weight of their function, which 
astonishes me; 'tis hard to keep measure in so 
immeasurable a power ; yet so it is, that, even 
in those who are of the least excellent nature, 
it is a singular incitement to virtue to be 
seated in a place where you cannot do the least 
good that shall not be put upon record ; where 
the least benefit goes to so many men, and 
where your talent, like that of preachers, prin- 
cipally addresses itself to the people, no very 
exact judge, easy to be deceived, and easily 
content. There are few things wherein we can 
give a sincere judgment, by reason that there 
are few wherein we have not in some sort a 
particular interest. Superiority and inferiority, 
dominion and subjection, are bound to a natural 
envy and contest, and must necessarily per- 
petually encroach upon one another. F believe 
neither the one nor the other touching the 
rights of the adverse party; let reason there- 
fore, which is inflexible and without passion, 
determine. 'Tis not above a month ago that I 
read two Scotch authors contending upon this 
subject, of which he who stands for the people 
makes kings to be in a worse condition than a 
carter; and he who writes for monarchy places 
them soirrfe degrees above God Almighty in I 
power and sovereignty. 

Now the inconvenience of greatness, that T 

have made choice of to consider 

Tim inennve- m this place, upon some occasion 

greatness. that has la,cl y P ut il mt0 ni y 

head, is this. There is not. per- 
haps, anything more pleasant in the commerce 
of men than the trials that we make against 
one another, out of emulation of honour and 
valour, whether in the exercises of the body or 
in those of the mind; yet herein the sovereign 
greatness can have no true part. And, indeed, 



I have often thought that, through mere force 
of respect, men have used princes disdainfully 
and injuriously in that particular; for the 
thing I was infinitely offended at in my child- 
hood, that they who exercised with me forbore 
to do their best, because they found me un- 
worthy of their utmost endeavour, is what we 
see happen to them every day, every one find- 
ing himself unworthy to contend with them; 
if we discover that they have the least passion 
to have the better, there is no one who will not 
make it his business to give it them, and who 
will not rather betray his own glory than offend 
theirs, and will therein employ so much force 
only as is necessary to advance their honour. 
What share have they, then, in the engage- 
ment, wherein every one is on their side ? Me- 
thinks, in such cases, I see those Paladins of 
ancient times presenting themselves to justs, 
with enchanted arms and bodies. Crison run- 
ning against Alexander, purposely missed his 
blow, and made a fault in his career; 2 Alex- 
ander chid him for it, but he ought to have had 
him whipped. Upon this consideration Car- 
neades said, 3 that "The sons of princes learned 
nothing right but to ride; by reason that in 
all their other exercises every one bends and 
yields to them : but a horse, that is neither a 
flatterer nor a courtier, throws the -son of a 
king with as little ceremony as he would that 
of a porter." 

Homer was compelled to consent that Venus, 
so sweet and delicate as she was, should be 
wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to 
ascribe courage and boldness to her; qualities 
that cannot possibly be in those who are exempt 
from danger. The gods are made to be angry, 
to fear, to run away, to be jealous, to grieve, 
and to be transported with passion, to honour 
them with the virtues that amongst us are 
built upon these imperfections. He who does 
not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can 
pretend to no interest in the honour and plea- 
sure that are the result of hazardous actions. 
'Tis pity a man should be so potent that all 
things must give way to him ; fortune therein 
sets you too remote from society, and places 
you in too great a solitude. This easiness and 
mean facility of making all things bow before 
you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure; this is 
to slide, not to go; to sleep, not to live. Con- 
ceive man accompanied with omnipotence, you 
throw him into an abyss; he must beg disturb- 
ance and opposition as an alms; his bem? and 
his good is indigence. Their good qualities are 
dead and lost ; for these are not perceived but 
by comparison, and we put them out of it; they 
have little knowledge of true praise, having 
their ears stunned with so continual and uni- 
form an approbation. Have they to do with 
the most foolish of all their subjects! They 
have no means to take any advantage of him ; 



452 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



if he but say, "'Twas because he is my king," 
he thinks he has said enough to express that he 
therefore suffered himself to be overcome. This 
quality stifles and consumes the other true and 
essential qualities; they are buried under roy- 
alty, and leave them nothing to recommend 
themselves withal, but actions that directly 
concern it, and that merely respect the func- 
tions of their place: 'tis so much to be a 
king, that he only is so by being so. The 
strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and 
shrouds him from us ; our sight is there broken 
and dissipated, being stopped and filled by 

this prevailing light. The se- 
The prize of na te awarded the prize of elo- 
fused by^Ibe- quence to Tiberius ; he refused it, 
rius, and why. holding that, though it had been 

just, he could derive no advan- 
tage from a judgment so partial, and that was 
so little free to decide. 

As we give them all advantages of honour, 
so do we soothe and authorize all their vices 
and defects, not only by approbation, but by 
imitation also. Every one of Alexander's fol- 
lowers carried their heads awry as he did ; ' 
and the flatterers of Dionysius run against one 
another in his presence, stumbled at and over- 
turned whatever was under foot, to make out 
they were as short-sighted as he. 2 Hernia has 
sometimes also served to recommend a man to 
favour; I have seen deafness affected; and 
because the master hated his wife, Plutarch 3 
has seen his courtiers repudiate theirs, whom 
they loved ; and, which is yet more, unclean- 
ness and all manner of dissoluteness has been 
in fashion ; as also disloyalty, blasphemy, 
cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion, effemi- 
nacy, and worse, if worse there be ; and by an 
example yet more dangerous than that of Mith- 
ridates' flatterers, who, because their master 
pretended to the honour of a good physician, 
came to him to have incisions and cauteries 
made in their limbs; 4 for these others suffered 
the soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be 
cauterized. But to end where I began: the 
Emperor Adrian disputing with the philosopher 
Favorinus about the interpretation of some 
word, Favorinus soon yielded him the victory ; 
for which his friends rebuking him ; " You 
talk simply," said he; 5 "would you not have 
him wiser than I, who commands thirty le- 
gions?" Augustus wrote verses against Asinius 
Pollio: "And I," said Pollio, 6 "say nothing; 
for it is not prudent to write in contest with 



i Plutarch, of the difference between the Flatterer and 
the Friend. 

a Id. ib. 

3 Id. ib., who only says that he knew a man who, because 
his friend divorced his wife, turned away his wife also, 
whom, nevertheless, he went to visit, and sent for some- 
times privately to his house, which was discovered by the 
very wife of his friend. 

" Id. ib. 

s Spartian, Life of Mritvn, c. 15. 

6 Marrobius, Satumal. ii. 4. 

7 Or rather because he was not able to bear the slight 
opinion which Philoxenus showed of his poetry. Diodorus 
of Sicily, xv. 6. says, that one day, at supper time, as they j 



him who has power to proscribe." And he 
was in the right; for Dionysius, because he 
could not equal Philoxenus in poetry, 7 and 
Plato in discourse, condemned one to the 
quarries, 6 and sent the other to be sold for a 
slave in the island of iEgina. N 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OF THE ART OF CONVERSATION. 

'Tis a custom of our justice to condemn some 
for a warning to others. To con- 
demn them for having done amiss The end of P u - 
were folly, as Plato says,** for SowTviceT 
what is done can never be un- of some men 
done; but 'tis that they may ™^ V? 
offend no more, and that others others, 
may avoid the example of their 
offence: we do not correct the man we hang; 
we correct others by him. I do the same: my 
errors are sometimes natural and incorrigible ; 
but the good which virtuous men do the public 
in making themselves imitated, I perhaps may 
do in making my manners avoided ; 

Nonne vides Albi ut male vivat filius ? utque 
Barrus inops ? magnum documentum, ne patriam rem 
Perdere quis velit ; w 

" Behold the son 
Of Albus there, and Barrus. too. undone! 
A striking lesson is the spendthrift's fate, 
To caution youth from squandering their estate ;" 

while I publish and accuse my own imperfec- 
tions, somebody will learn to be afraid of them. 
The parts that I most esteem in myself derive 
more honour from decrying, than from com- 
mending my own manners : which is the reason 
why I so often fall into and co much insist upon 
that strain. But, when all is summed up, a 
man never speaks of himself without loss. A 
man's accusations of himself are always be- 
lieved ; his praises never. There may be some 
of my complexion, who better instruct me by 
contrariety than similitude, and more by avoid- 
ing than imitating; the elder Cato had a regard 
to this sort of discipline, when he said that 
" the wise may learn more of fools than fools 
of the wise;"" and Pausanias tells us of an 
ancient player upon the lyre, who used to make 
his scholars go to hear one that lived over 
against him, and played very ill, that they might 
learn to hate his discords and false measures. 



were reading some worthless poems of this tyrant, thatex- 
cellent poet Philoxenus, being charged to give his opinion 
of them, was too free in his answer to piease Dionysius, 
for which the tyrant was so much incensed against him 
that he ordered him to be sent immediately to the quarries. 

8 Montaigne and his authority Plutarch (on Contentment 
of Mini) are mistaken here with regard to Plato, who was 
sold a slave in the island of jEgina. by order of Dionysius 
the tyrant, because he had spoken too freely to him ; as 
Diodorus of Sicily says positively, xv. cap. 2, and more 
particularly also Diog. Laert. Life of Pluto. 

9 Laws, xi. 

«» Horace, Sat. i. 4, 109. 
» Plutarch, in viti. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



453 



The horror of cruelty more inclines me to cle- 
mency than any example of clemency could 
do; a good rider does not so much mend my 
seat as an attorney ox a Venetian on horseback ; 
and a clownish way*of speaking does more to 
reform mine than the most elegant. Everyday 
the foolish countenance of another is advertis- 
ing and advising me ; that which pricks, rouses 
and incites, much better than that which tickles. 
The present time is fitting to reform us back- 
ward ; more by dissenting than agreeing, by 
differing than consenting. Profiting little by 
good examples, I make use of those that are ill, 
which are everywhere to be found; I endea- 
vour to render myself as agreeable as I see 
others offensive; as constant as I see others 
fickle ; as affable as I see others rough ; and as 
good as I see others evil; but I proposed to 
myself impracticable measures. 

The most fruitful and natural exercise of the 
mind, in my opinion, is conversation; I find 
the use of it more sweet than of any other 
action of life ; and for that reason it is that, 
if I were now compelled to choose, I should 
sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight than 
my hearing and speech. The Athenians, and 
also the Romans, kept this exercise in great 
honour in their Academies ; the Italians retain 
some footsteps of it to this day, to their great 
advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of 
our understandings with theirs. The study of 
books is a languishing and feeble motion, that 
heats not, whereas conversation teaches and 
exercises at once. If I converse 
Conversation of with a man of mind, and no 
t "'I-' t han V «ie" fl' ncl > er > wn0 presses hard upon 
reading of and digs at me right and left, 

books, his imagination raises up mine; 

jealousy, glory, and contention 
stimulate and raise me up to something above 
myself; unison is a quality altogether obnoxi- 
ous in conversation, but as our minds fortify 
themselves by the communication of vigorous 
and regular understandings, 'tis not to be ex- 
pressed how much they lose and degenerate by 
the continual commerce and f'requentation we 
have with those that are mean and sickly; 
there is no contagion that spreads like that ; I 
know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth 
a yard. I love to discourse and dispute; but it 
is with but kw men, and for myself; fbr to do 
it as a spectacle and entertainment to great 
persons, and to make a parade of a man's wit 
and power of talking, is, in my opinion, very 
unbecoming a man of honour. 

Folly is a scurvy quality ; but not to be able 
to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is 
another sort of disease, little inferior in trouble- 
BOirieness to folly itself; and this is what I 
would now accuse in myself. I enter into con- 
versation and dispute with great liberty and ease, 
forasmuch as opinion meets in me with a soil 
very unfit tor penetration, or taking any deep 
root; no propositions astonish me, no belief 
offends me, though never so contrary to my own ; 



there is no fancy so frivolous and extravagant 
that does not seem to me a suitable product of 
the human mind. We, who deprive our judg- 
ments of the right of determining, look calmly 
at adverse opinions, and if we incline not our 
judgments to them, yet we easily give them the 
hearing. Where one scale is totally empty, I 
let the other waver under old wives' dreams; 
and I think myself excusable, if I rather choose 
the odd number, Thursday rather than Friday; 
and if I had rather be twelfth or fourteenth 
than thirteenth at table ; if I had rather on a 
journey see a hare run by me than cross my 
way ; and rather give my man my left toot 
than my right, when he comes to dress me. 
All such whimsies as are in use amongst us 
deserve at least to be hearkened unto: for my 
part, they only with me import inanity, but 
they import that. Moreover, vulgar and 
casual opinions are something more than no- 
thing in nature; and he who will not suffer 
himself to proceed so far, perhaps falls into 
the vice of obstinacy, to avoid that of super- 
stition. 

The contradictions of judgments, then, do 
neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and 
exercise me. We evade correction, whereas we 
ought to offer and present ourselves to it, espe- 
cially when it appears in the form of conversa- 
tion, and not of dictation. At every opposition 
we do not consider whether or no it be just, but, 
right or wrong, how to disengage ourselves; 
instead of extending the arms, we thrust out 
our claws. I could suffer myself to be rudely 
handled by my friends: "Thou art a fool: 
thou knowest not what thou art talking about." 
I love stout expressions amongst gallant men, 
and to have them speak as they think: we 
must fortify and harden our hearing against this 
tenderness as to ceremonious sound of words. 
I love a strong and manly familiarity and con- 
verse; a friendship that flatters itself in the 
sharpness and vigour of its communication, as 
love, in biting and scratching ; it is not vigorous 
and generous enough if it be not quarrelsome, if 
civilized and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears 
a shock ; Neque enim disputari sine reprehen- 
sione potest. 1 "For no man can dispute with- 
out reprehending." When any one contra- 
dicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger ; 
I advance towards him that controverts, as to 
one that instructs me : the cause of truth ought 
to be the common cause of both: what will he 
answer! The passion of anger has already con- 
founded his judgment; has usurped the place 
of reason. It were not amiss that the decision 
of our disputes should be a matter of wager: 
that there might be a material mark of our 
losses, to the end we might the better remember 
them, and that my man might tell me: "Your 
ignorance and obstinacy cost you last year, at 
twenty times, a hundred crowns." I embrace 
and caress truth in what hand soever I find it, 



> Cicero, de Finib. i. 8. 



454 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



and cheerfully surrender myself, and extend to 
it my conquered arms, as far off as I can dis- 
cover it; and, provided it be not too imperi- 
ously or ainshly, take a pleasure in being 
reproved, and accommodate myself to my ac- 
cusers, very often more by reason of civility 
than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish 
the liberty of admonition, by my facility of 
submitting to it, even at my own expense. 

Nevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of 
my time to it : they have not the courage to 
correct, because they have not the courage to 
suffer themselves to be corrected, and speak 
always with dissimulation in the presence of 
one another. I take so great pleasure in being 
judged and known, that it is almost indifferent 
to me in which of the two forms I am so; my 
imagination does so often contradict and con- 
demn itself, that 'tis all one to me if another do 
it, especially considering that I give his repre- 
hension no greater authority than what I my- 
self admit. But I break with him who carries 
himself so high, as I know some do, that 
regrets his advice if not believed, and takes it 
for an affront if it be not immediately followed. 
That Socrates always received smilingly the 
contradictions opposed against his arguments, 
it may be said that his strength of reason was 
the cause, and that the advantage being certain 
to fall on his side, he accepted them as matter 
of new victory; yet we see, on the contrary, 
that nothing in argument renders our sentiments 
so delicate as the opinion of the pre-eminence 
and disdain of the adversary ; and that in rea- 
son 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good 
part the opposition that corrects him and sets 
him right. Indeed, I choose the frequenting 
those that ruffle me, rather than those that fear 
me; 'tis a dull and hurtful pleasure to have to 
do with people who admire us, and approve of 
all we say. Antisthenes 1 commanded his chil- 
dren " never to take it kindly or for a favour 
from any man that commended them." lam 
much prouder of the victory I obtain over my- 
self, when, even in the ardour of dispute, I 
make myself submit to my adversary's force of 
reason, than I am pleased with the victory I 
obtain over him through his weakness. In 
short, I receive and admit all manner of hits 
that are direct, how weak soever : but I am too 
impatient of those that are made without form. 
I care not what the subject is, the opinions are 
to me all one, and I am indifferent whether I 
get the better or the worse. I can peaceably 
argue a whole day together, if the argument be 
carried on with order: I do not so much require 
force and subtlety as order; the order which 



i Plutarch, Of False Shame. Montaigne tins confounded 
this Antislheniiis, 01 A litis! hen ens, us the I. a I ill translation 
of Plutarch calls him, with the chief of the Cynic sect, who 
never had the surname of Hercules, which Plutarch gives 
to Antisthenius, and is constantly called Antisthenes. 

a The description which Montaigne gives, from this place 
to the end of the paragraph, of the faults that commonly 
attend our disputes, is very just, and very agreeably ex- 
pressed. Pere Bonhours was so pleased with it, that lie has 



we every day observe in the wrangling of 
shepherds and apprentices, but never amongst 
us. If they start from their subject 'tis an 
incivility, and yet we do ik; but their tumult 
and impatience never put*them out of their 
theme; their argument still continues its course; 
if they anticipate, and do not stay for one an- 
other, they at least understand one another 
very well. Any one answers quite well enough 
for me, if he answers to what I say ; but when 
the dispute is irregular and perplexed, I leave 
the thing, and insist upon the form with anger 
and indiscretion ; and fall into a wilful, mali- 
cious, and imperious way of disputation, of 
which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impos- 
sible to deal fairly with a fool ; my judgment 
is not only corrupted under the hand of so 
impetuous a master, but my conscience also. 

Our disputes ought to be interdicted, and 
punished, as well as other verbal 
crimes. What vice 2 do they not Disputes that 

t , , • r are ill con- 

raise and heap up, being always dllcted ou?nt t0 
governed and commanded by pas- be prohibited ; 



We only learn to dispute that we 
may contradict; and every one contradicting 
and being contradicted, it falls out that the 
fruit of disputation is to lose and nullify truth ; 
and therefore it is that Plato, in his Republic, 3 
prohibits this exercise to weak and ill-descended 
minds. To what end do you go about to en- 
quire of him who knows nothing to purpose t 
A man does no injury to the subject, when he 
leaves it, to seek how he may treat it ; I do not 
mean by an artificial and scholastic way, but 
by a natural one, with a sound understanding. 
What will it be in the end? One flies to the 
east, the other to the west ; they lose the prin- 
cipal, and wander in the crowd of incidents ; 
after an hour of tempest they know not what 
they seek ; one is low, the other high, and a 
third wide ; one catches at a word and a simile ; 
another is no longer sensible of what is said in 
opposition to him, being entirely absorbed in 
his own notions, engaged in following his own 
course, and not thinking of answering you ; 
another, finding himself weak, fears all, refuses 
all, and, at the very beginning, confounds the 
subjects, or, in the very height of the dispute, 
stops short, and grows silent: by a peevish 
ignorance affecting a proud contempt, or an 
unseasonable modest desire to shun debate ; 
one, provided he strikes, cares not how much 
he lays himself open; another counts his words, 
and weighs them for reasons ; another only 
brawls, and makes use of the advantage of his 



inserted il almost verbatim in hook iii, of his Jirt <ie Pen.ier, 
chap. 20, but without directly ascribing the honour of it to 
Montaigne, whom he only points out by the vague character 
of a celebrated author; whereas he ought most certainly to 
have named Montaigne expressly, especially after having 
just criticised him in the same chapter with great severity, 
to call it no worse, when he not only quotes his words, but 
names him without any scruple, 
a Cook vii., towards the end. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



455 



lungs; here's one that learnedly concludes 
against himself, and another that deafens you 
with prefaces and senseless digressions; another 
falls into downright railing, and seeks a ridicu- 
lous quarrel, to disengage himself from further 
contest with wits that press too hard upon his 
own ; and a last man sees nothing in the rea- 
son or" the thing, but draws a line of circum- 
vallation about you of dialectic clauses, and the 
formula of his art. 

Now who would not enter into distrust of 
The strange sciences, and doubt whether he 
ab.;se thin is can reap from them any solid 
made of fruit for the service of life, con- 

sidering the use we put them to"! 
Nihil sanantibus Uteris. 1 " Letters that bring 
no cure." Who has got understanding by his 
logic : Where are all her fair promises] Nee 
ad melius vivendum, nee ad commodius disse- 
rendum? " It neither makes a man live better, 
nor reason more aptly." Is there more noise or 
confusion in the scolding of fish-wives, than in 
the public disputations of men of this profession 1 
I had rather my son should learn to speak in a 
tavern, than to prate in the schools. Take a 
master of arts, converse with him; why does 
he not make us sensible of this artificial excel- 
lence ] Why does he not enchant women and 
ignorant fellows like us with admiration at the 
steadiness of his reasons, and the beauty of his 
order ! Why does he not sway and persuade 
us to what he will'! Why does a man who has 
so great advantage in matter, mix railing, in- 
discretion, and fury, in his disputation? Strip 
him.of his gown, his hood, and his Latin; let 
him not batter our ears with Aristotle, pure 
and crude: you will take him for one of us, or 
worse. Whilst they torment us with this com- 
plication and confusion of words, it fares with 
them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dex- 
terity confounds and imposes upon our senses, 
but does not at all work upon our belief; out 
of this legerdemain they perform nothing that 
is not very ordinary and mean : for being more 
learned they are not the less fools. I love and 
honour knowledge as much as they that have 
it; and, in its true use, 'tis the most noble and 
the most powerful acquisition of men ; but in 
such as I speak of (and the number of them is 
infinite), who build their fundamental sufficiency 
and value upon it, who appeal from their under- 
standing to their memory, sub aliena umbra 
latentes, 3 " crouching under borrowed shade," 
and who can do nothing but by book; I hate 
it, if I may dare to say so, even worse than 
stupidity itself In my country, and in my 
time, learning improves fortunes enough, but 
not minds: if it meet with those that are dull 
and heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, 
leaving them a crude and undigested mass; if 
airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtleizes 
them, even to exinanition. 'Tis a thing of 



almost indifferent quality ; a very useful acces- 
sion to a well-born soul, but hurtful and perni- 
cious to others; or rather, a thing of very 
precious use, that will not suffer itself to be 
purchased under value. In the hand of some 
'tis a sceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble. 

But let us proceed. What greater victory 
can you expect than to make your enemy see 
and know that he is not able to , . 

* i„ r , . It is rnt/t]HM] 

encounter you! When you get andmanage- 
the better of your argument, 'tis mem that give 
truth that wins; when you get * u ~" ** 
the advantage of order and me- 
thod, 'tis then you that win. I am of opinion 
that, in Plato and Xenophon, Socrates disputes 
more in favour of the disputants, than in favour 
of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthyde- 
mus and Protagoras in the knowledge of their 
impertinence, than in the'impertinence of their 
art. He takes hold of the first subject, like 
one that has a more profitable end than to 
explain it, namely, to clear the understandings 
that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise. 
To hunt after truth is properly our business, 
and we are inexcusable if we carry on the 
chace impertinently and ill; to fail of catching 
it is another thing : for we are born to inquire 
after truth ; it belongs to a greater power to 
possess it: it is not, as Democritus said, hid 
in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated 
to an infinite height in the divine knowledge. 4 
The world is but a school of inquisition: it 
is not who shall carry the ring, but who shall 
run the best courses. He may play the fool 
as well who speaks true, as he that speaks 
false; for we are upon the manner, not the 
matter of speaking. 'Tis my humour as much 
to regard the form as the substance, and the 
advocate as much as the cause, as Alcibiades 
ordered we should ; and I every day amuse 
myself with reading authors, without any con- 
sideration of their learning; their method is 
what I look after, not their subject: and just 
so do I hunt after the conversation of an emi- 
nent wit, not that he may teach me, but that 
I may know him ; and, being acquainted, if I 
think him worthy, imitate him. Every man 
may speak truly; but methodically, and pru- 
dently, and with sufficiency, is a talent that 
few men have: thus 'tis that the falsity that 
proceeds from ignorance does not offend me; 
'tis the folly. I have broken off several treaties 
that would have been of advantage to me, by 
reason of the irrelevancies of those with whom 
I treated. I am not moved once in a year at 
the faults of those over whom I have authority, 
but upon the account of the despicable ab- 
surdity and obstinacy of their allegations and 
excuses, we are every day going together by 
the ears: they neither understand what is said 
nor why, and answer accordingly ; 'tis enough 
to drive a man mad. I never feel any hurt 



456 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



upon my head but when 'tis knocked against 
another head, and more easily forgive the vices 
of my servants than their boldness, importunity, 
and folly. Let them do less, provided they 
understand what they do ; you live in hopes to 
warm their affection to you; but there is no- 
thing to be had or to be hoped for from a log. 
But what if I take things otherwise than 
they are? perhaps I do; and 
A great fault in therefore it is that I accuse my 
a man not to be own impatience ; and hold, in the 

able to bear c * 1 »u .. •. • ii 

with the follies nrst place, that it is equally vi- 
of others. cious both in him that is in the 

right, and him that is in the 
wrong; for 'tis always a tyrannic sourness 
not to endure a form contrary to one's own; 
and besides, there cannot in truth be a greater, 
more enduring or more irregular folly, than 
to be moved and angry at the follies of the 
world; for it principally makes us quarrel with 
ourselves; and the old philosopher 1 had never 
wanted occasion for his tears, whilst he con- 
sidered himself. Miso, 2 one of the seven sages, 
of a Timonian and Democritian humour, being 
asked what he laughed at, being alone : " That 
I do laugh alone," answered he. How many 
ridiculous things, in my own opinion, do I say 
and answer every day ! And surely how many 
more, according to the opinion of others. If I 
bite my own lips, what ought others to do? In 
fine, we must live amongst the living, and let 
the river run under the bridge, without our 
troubling ourselves, or at least without our 
alteration. And, in truth, why do we meet 
a man with a hump back, or other deformity, 
without being moved, yet cannot endure the 
encounter of an irregular mind without being 
angry] This vicious sourness relishes more 
of the judge than the crime. Let us always 
have this saying of Plato in our mouths: 
"Do not I think things unsound because 
I am not sound in myself? Am I not myself 
in fault? May not my observation reflect 
upon myself. 1 " A wise and divine saying, 
that lashes the most universal and common 
error of mankind. Not only the reproaches 
that we throw in the faces of one another, but 
our reasons also, our arguments and controver- 
sies are reboundable upon us, and we wound 
ourselves with our own weapons: of which 
antiquity has left me grave examples enough. 
It was ingeniously and home said, by him who 
was the inventor of this sentence : 
Stercus cuique suum bene olet : 
" Every one likes the odour of his own dunghill." 
We see nothing behind us : we mock ourselves 
a hundred times a day, when we deride our 
neighbour: and detest in others the defects 
which are more manifest in us, and wonder at 
them with a marvellous unconsciousness and im- 
pudence. It was but yesterday that I saw a 



man of understanding as pleasantly as justly 
scoffing at the folly of another, who did 
nothing but torment every body with the cata- 
logue of his genealogy and alliances, above 
half of them false (for they are most apt to fall 
into such ridiculous discourses, whose quality is 
most dubious and least sure); and yet, would 
he but have looked into himself, he would have 
discerned himself to be no less intemperate and 
impertinent, in extolling his wife's pedigree. 
Oh ! importunate presumption, with which the 
wife sees herself armed by the hands of her 
husband himself! Did he understand Latin, 
we should say to him : 



Agesis, hffic non insanii 



: sua sponte; instiga:3 



1 Hcraclitns. See Juvenal, X. 

2 Laertius in vita. 



I do not say that no man shall accuse another, 
who is not clean himself; for then no one 
would ever accuse, because none is absolutely 
clean from the same sort of spot ; but I mean 
that our judgment, falling upon another whose 
name is then in question, should not at the same 
time spare ourselves, but sentence us, with an 
inward severe authority. 'Tis an office of cha- 
rity, that he who cannot reclaim himself from 
a vice, should nevertheless endeavour to remove 
it from another, in whom perhaps it may not 
have so deep and malignant a root : neither do 
I think it an answer to the purpose to tell him 
who reproves me for my fault, that he himself 
is guilty of the same. What of that? The 
reproof is notwithstanding true, and of very 
good use. Had we a good nose, our own, or- 
dure ought to stink worse to us, forasmuch as 
it is our own: and Socrates 4 is of opinion that 
whoever should find himself, his son, and a 
stranger guilty of any violence and wrong, 
ought to begin with himself, to present himself 
first to the sentence of justice, and to purge 
himself, implore the assistance of the hand of 
the executioner; in the next place, he should 
proceed to his son, and lastly to the stranger : 
if this precept seems of too high a flight, he 
ought at least to present himself the first to the 
punishment of his own conscience. 

The senses are our proper and first judges, 
which perceive not things but by 
external accidents; and 'tis no strikerour 
wonder, if in all the parts of the senses deter- 
service of our society there is so "^ ° n u t r g . 
perpetual and universal a mixture 
of ceremonies and superficial appearances; in- 
somuch that the best and most effectual part of 
our polities consist therein. 'Tis still man with 
whom we have to do, of whom the condition is 
wonderfully corporeal. Let those who, of these 
late years, would erect for us so contemplative 
and immaterial an exercise of religion, not won- 
der, if there be some who think it had vanished 
and melted through their fingers, had it not 



s Terence, Andria, iv. 2. 9. 
« Plato, Gorgias. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



457 



more upheld itself amongst us as a mark, title, 
and instrument of division and faction, than by 
itself. As in conversation, the gravity, robes, 
and fortune of him that speaks often give weight 
to vain arguments and idle words : it is not to 
be presumed, of course, but that a man so 
attended and feared has in him more than 
ordinary sufficiency; and that he to whom are 
given so many offices and commissions, so super- 
cilious and proud, has not a great deal more in 
him than another that salutes him at so great a 
distance, and who has no employment at all. 
Not only the words, but the airish looks also of 
these people, are considered and put to account; 
every one making it his business to give them 
some fine and solid interpretation. If they 
stoop to common conference, and that you offer 
any thing but approbation and reverence, they 
then knock you down with the authority of 
their experience ; they have heard, they have 
seen, they have done so and so ; you are crushed 
with examples. I should tell them that the 
fruit of a surgeon's experience is not the history 
of his practice, and his remembering that he 
has cured four people of the plague, and three 
of the gout, unless he knows how hence to 
extract something whereon to form his judg- 
ment, and to make us sensible that he is be- 
come more skilful in his art : as in a concert 
of instruments, we do not hear a lute, a spinette, 
or a flute alone, but one entire harmony of all 
together. If travel and offices have improved 
them, 'tis a product of their understanding to 
make it appear. Tis not enough to reckon 
experiences, they must weigh and sort them, 
digest and distil them, to extract the reasons 
and conclusions they carry along with them. 
There were never so many historians as now ; 
it is always good and of use to read them, for 
they furnish us everywhere with excellent and 
laudable instructions from the magazine of their 
memory, of great concern to the relief of life ; 
but 'tis not that we seek for now : we examine 
whether these relators and collectors of things 
are commendable themselves. 

I hate all sorts of tyranny, whether verbal 
or effectual: I am ever ready to oppose these 
vain circumstances that delude our judgments 
by the senses; and whilst I lie upon my guard 
against these extraordinary grandeurs, I find 
that, at best, they are but men, as others are : 

Rarus enim ferine sensus communis in ilia 



" For rarely do we see 
Good common sense in those of liis degree." 

Perhaps we esteem and look upon them as far 
less than they are, by reason they undertake 
more, and more expose themselves: they do 
not answer to the charge they have undertaken. 
There must be more vigour and strength in the 
bearer than in the burden : he who has not 



' Juvenal, viii. 73. 
s Plato, Republic, vi. 

39 



lifted as much as he can, lea\es you 'to guess 
that he has still a strength beyond that, and 
that he has not been tried to the utmost of 
what he is able to do; he who sinks under his 
load makes a discovery of his best, and the 
weakness of his shoulders : this is the reason 
that we see so many silly people amongst the 
learned, so many that they are the majority : 
they would have made good husbandmen, good 
merchants, and good artisans: their natural 
vigour was cut out to that proportion. Know- 
ledge is a thing of great weight ; they faint 
under it : their understanding has neither vigour 
nor dexterity enough to set forth and distribute, 
to employ, or make use of, this rich and power- 
ful matter: it has no prevailing virtue but in a 
strong nature, and such natures i re very rare : 
and the weak ones, says Socrates, 2 spoil the 
dignity of philosophy in the handling; it ap- 
pears useless and vicious, when ill lodged. 
They spoil and make fools of themselves, 

Humani qualis simulatur simius oris. 
Quern puer arridens pretioso stamine serum 
Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit, 
Ludibrium mensis. 3 

"Just like an ape, that in his face does bear 
Of man the counterfeited character, 
Whom wanton boys, the tables' laugh to move. 
Have dizen'd up in richest silk above ; 
But, that the brute more lautjhable may show, 
Have left the buttocks raw and bald below." 

Neither is it enough for those who govern and 
command us, and have all the world in their 
hand, to have a common understanding, and to 
be able to do what he can ; they are very much 
below us if they be not infinitely above us: as 
they promise more, so they are to perform more. 

And yet silence is to them not only a counte- 
nance of respect and gravity, but very often of 
good profit and policy too: for Megabysus, 
going to see Apelles in his painting-room, stood 
a great while without speaking a word, and at 
last began to talk of his paintings, for which 
he received this rude reproof: " Whilst thou 
wast silent, thou seemedst to be something 
great, by reason of thy chains and pomp; but 
now that we have heard thee speak, there is 
not the meanest boy in my shop that does not 
despise thee."* Those magnificent parapher- 
nalia, that mighty state did not permit him to 
be ignorant with a common ignorance, and to 
speak irrelevantly of painting; he ought to 
have maintained, by his silence, this external 
and presumptive knowledge. To how many 
blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn 
behaviour procured the credit of prudence 
and capacity ! 

Dignities and offices are of necessity con- 
ferred more by fortune than upon 
the account of merit ; and we Dignities more 
are to blame to condemn kings )!'r^ 1 '"' l [ '„'an y 
when they are misplaced : on the merit 
contrary, 'tis a wonder they 



s Claud, in Eutrop. i. 303. 

* I'lularch. Uoid to distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



should have such good luck, where there is so 
little skill ; 



for nature has not given them a sight that can 
extend to so many people, to discern which 
excels the rest, nor to penetrate into our bosoms, 
where the knowledge of our wills and real 
value lies : they must choose us by conjecture 
and by groping; by the family, wealth, learn- 
ing, and the voice of the people, which are all 
very feeble arguments. Whoever could find 
out a way that a man might judge by justice, 
and choose men by reason, would in this one 
thing establish a perfect form of government. 

"Ay, but he brought this great affair to a 
very good pass." That is, indeed, to say 
something, but not to say enough, for this 
sentence is justly received: "That we are not 
to judge of counsels by events." 2 The Cartha- 
ginians punished the ill counsels of their cap- 
tains, though the issue was successful; 3 and 
the people of Rome have often denied a triumph 
for great and very advantageous victories, be- 
cause the conduct of the general was not answer- 
able to his good fortune. We ordinarily see 
in the actions of the world that fortune, to 
show us her power in all things, and who takes 
a pride in abating our presumption, seeing she 
could not make fools wise, she has made them 
fortunate, in emulation of virtue, and favours 
those executions most the web of which is most 
purely her own: whence it is that we daily 
see the simplest amongst us bring to pass great 
affairs, both public and private ; and, as Siram- 
nez the Persian 4 answered those who wondered 
that his affairs succeeded so ill, considering that 
his plans were so wise: "That he was sole 
master of his designs, but that success was 
wholly in the power of fortune," these may 
answer the same, but with a contrary bias. 
Most worldly affairs are performed by them- 
selves ; 

Fata viam inveniunt. 
" The fates find out a way." 
The event often justifies a very foolish con- 
duct: our interposition is nothing more than, 
as it were, a routine, and more commonly a 
consideration of custom and example, than of 
reason. Being astonished at the greatness of 
the execution of an affair, I have formerly been 
made acquainted, by those who have performed 
it, with the motives and plans on which they 
proceeded, and have found nothing in them but 
very ordinary counsels; and the most vulgar and 
common-place are also perhaps the most sure and 
convenient for practice if not for show. And 
what if the plainest reasons are the best seated 1 



i Martial, viii. 15. 

2 Ovid, lleroid. ii. 85. 

3 Livy, xxxviii. 48. 

* Plutarch, Mpotkcg. of the Ancient Kings. 

s "Iimondosi gova-naduscstcsso," said Pope Urban VIII, 



the meanest, lowest, and most beaten, most 
adapted to affairs 1 To maintain 
the authority of the councils of r jt y f the" 
kings, 'tis not necessary that pro- counsel* of 
fane persons should participate of pJ"| L ? r y S eu ° be 
them, nor see farther into them 
than the first bar. He that will husband his 
reputation, must be re\erenced upon credit, and 
altogether. My consultation gives a sketch 
first of the matter, and considers it lightly by 
the first face it presents. The stress and main 
of the business 1 have ever referred to heaven: 



" Leave to the gods the rest :" 

good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two 
sovereign powers: 'tis folly to think that 
human prudence can play the part of fortune ; 
and vain is his attempt, who presumes to em- 
brace causes and consequences, and to conduct ) 
by the hand the progress of his design, andj 
most especially vain in the deliberations of war. 
There was never greater circumspection and 
militaryprudence than sometimes is seen amongst 
us ; can it be that men are afraid to lose them- 
selves by the way, that they reserve themselves 
to the end of the game! 1 moreover affirm 
that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, 
for the most part commit themselves to the 
conduct of chance : my will and my reason is 
sometimes moved by one breath, and sometimes 
by another; and many of those movements 
there are that govern themselves without me: 
my reason has uncertain and casual agitations 
and impulsions : 

Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus 
Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat 
Concipiunt.' 



Let a man but observe who are of greatest j 
authority in cities, and who best do their own 
business, we shall find that they are commonly j 
men of the least parts./ Women, children, and 
madmen, have had the fortune to govern great 
kingdoms equally well with the wisest princes; 
and Thueydides says, s that the stupid more 
frequently do it than those of better under- 
standings : ( we attribute the effects of their 
good fortune to their prudence : J 



wherefore I say that, in all sorts of matters, ) 
events are a very poor testimony of our worth \ 
and parts. 

Now I was upon this point, that there needs 
no more, but to see a man promoted to dignity : 

« Horace, Od. i. 9. 9. 

' Virgil, Georgia, i. 420. 

e Book iii. 37, Oration of Cleon. 

a Plautus, Pseudol. ii. 3. 13. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



though we knew him, but three days before, a 
man of no mark, yet an image of grandeur and 
ability insensibly steals into our opinion, and 
we persuade ourselves that, growing in reputa- 
tion and attendants, he is also increased in 
merit: we judge of him not according to his 
value, but, as we do by counters, according to 
the prerogative of his place. If it happens so 
that he falls again, and is mixed with the com- 
mon crowd, every one enquires with wonder 
into the cause of his having been hoisted so 
high: "Is it he!" say they: "did he know 
no more than this when he was in place 7 Do 
princes satisfy themselves with so little] Truly 
we were in good hands." This is a thing that 
I have often seen in my time : nay, so much 
as the very disguises of grandeur, represented 
in our comedies, in some sort move and deceive 
us. That which I myself adore in kings is the 
crowd of their adorers : all reverence and sub- 
mission is due to them, except that of the 
understanding: my reason is not to bow and 
bend ; 'tis my knees. Melanthius, being asked 
what he thought of the tragedy of Dionysius: 
"I could not see it," said he; "it was so 
clouded with language :" ' so the most of those 
who judge of the discourses of great men ought 
to say: "I did not understand his words; he 
was so clouded with gravity, majesty, and 
greatness." Antisthenes 2 one day entreated 
the Athenians to give order that their asses 
might be employed in tilling the ground as well 
as the horses: to which it was answered that 
those animals were not destined for such a ser- 
vice: "That's all one," replied he; "it only 
sticks at your command; for the most ignorant 
and incapable men you employ in your com- 
mands of war immediately become worthy 
enough, because you employ them." To which 
the custom of so many people who canonize the 
kings they have chosen out of their own body, 
and are not content only to honour, but adore 

them, comes very near. Those 
Deification and f Mexico, after the ceremonies 
theKing"of ot " t '"'' r king's coronation are 
Mexico." finished, dare no more presume 

to look him in the face ; but, as 
if they had deified him by his royalty, among 
the oaths they make him take to maintain 
their religion and laws, to be valiant, just, and 
mild, he moreover swears to make the sun run 
his course in his wonted light, to drain the 
clouds at a fit season, to confine rivers within 
their channels, and to cause all things necessary 
for his people to be borne by the earth. 3 

I differ from this common fashion, and am 
more apt to suspect capacity when I see it 
accompanied with grandeur of fortune and pub- 
lic applause: we are to consider of what ad- 
vantage it is to speak when he pleases, to 
choose the subject he will speak of, to interrupt 
or change other men's arguments with a magis- 



terial authority, to protect himself from the 
opposition of others by a nod, a smile, or 
silence, in the presence of an assembly that 
trembles with reverence and respect. A man 
of a prodigious fortune, coming to give his 
judgment upon some slight dispute that was 
foolishly set on foot at his table, began in 
these words: "It can be only a liar or a 
fool that will say otherwise than so and so." 
Pursue this philosophical point with a dagger 
in your hand. 

There is another observation I have made, 
from which I draw great advantage : which is, 
that, in conferences and disputes, every word 
that seems to be good is not immediately to be 
accepted. Most men are rich in borrowed 
words : a man may very probably say a good 
thing without comprehending the force of it 
himself. That a man does not perfectly under- 
stand all he borrows, may perhaps be verified 
in myself. A man must not always presently 
yield, what truth or beauty soever may seem 
to be in the argument; either a man must 
stoutly oppose it, or draw back, under colour 
of not understanding it, to try on all parts how 
it is lodged in the author, or it may happen 
that we may aid the point, and carry it beyond 
its proper reach. I have sometimes, in the 
necessity and heat of the combat, employed 
sudden whisks, that have gone through and 
through, beyond my expectation and design: 
I only gave them in number; they were re- 
ceived in weight. As when I contend with a 
vigorous man, I please myself with anticipating 
his conclusions, I ease him of the trouble of 
explaining himself; I strive to prevent his 
imagination, whilst it is yet springing and im- 
perfect ; the order and pertinency of his under- 
standing warns and threatens me afar off; I 
deal quite contrary with these; I must under- 
stand and pre-suppose nothing but by them. 
If they determine in general words: "This is 
good, that is not," and that they happen to be 
in the right, see if it be not fortune that hits it 
off tor them. Let them a little circumscribe 
and limit their judgment, why or how it is so. 
These universal judgments, that I see so com- 
mon, signify nothing; these are men that 
salute a whole people in a crowd together ; 
they who have real acquaintance take notice of 
and salute them particularly and by name; 
but 'tis a hazardous attempt; from which I 
have more than every day seen it tiill out that 
weak understandings, having a mind to appear 
ingenious in taking notice, as they read a book, 
of that which is best, and most to be admired, 
fix their admiration upon something so very ill 
chosen that, instead of making us discern the 
excellency of the author, they make us see 
their own ignorance. This exclamation is safe 
enough: "This is fine !" after having heard a 
whole page of Virgil ; and by that the cunning 



460 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sort of fools save themselves ; but to undertake 
to follow him line by line, and with an expert 
and approved judgment to observe where a 
good author excels himself, weighing the words, 
phrases, inventions, and various excellences, 
one after another : take heed of that. Viden- 
dum est, non rnodo quid quisque loquatur, sed 
etiam quid quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de 
causa quisque sentiat. 1 "A man is not only 
to examine what every one says, but also what 
every one thinks, and for what reason every 
one thinks." I every day hear fools say 
things that are by no means foolish : they say 
a good thing; let us examine how far they 
understand it, whence they have it, and what 
they mean by it. We help them to make use 
of this fine expression, and this fine reason, 
which is none of theirs, they only have it in 
keeping ; they have let it out at a venture ; we 
bring it for them into credit and esteem. You 
lend them a hand: to what purpose 1 They 
do not think themselves obliged to you for it, 
and become more fools still. Never take their 
part, let them alone; they will handle the 
matter like people who are afraid of burning 
their fingers; they neither dare change its seat 
nor light, nor break into it; shake it never so 
little, it slips through their fingers; they give 
up their cause, be it never so strong or good 
soever; these are fine arms, but ill mounted. 
How many times have I seen the experience of 
this ! Now, if you come to explain anything 
to them, and to confirm them, they presently 
catch at it, and rob you of the advan- 
tage of your interpretation: "It was what 
I was about to say; it was just my thought; 
and if I did not express it so, it was only for 
want of language." Very pretty! Malice 
itself must be employed to correct this proud 
ignorance. Hegesias's doctrine, 2 that we are 
" Neither to hate nor accuse, but instruct," 
has reason elsewhere; but here 'tis injustice 
and inhumanity to relieve and set him right 
who stands in no need on't, and is the worse 
for't. I love to let him step deeper into the 
dirt; and so deep that, if it be possible, they 
may at least discern their error. 

Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by 

bare admonition; and what Cyrus 

Folly not to be answered to him who importuned 

cured by adino- . • . , , • r 

nition. mm t0 harangoe his army, upon 

the point of battle, " that men do 
not become valiant and warlike upon a sudden, 
by a fine oration, no more than a man becomes 
a good musician by hearing a fine song," 3 may 
properly be said of such an admonition as this. 
These are apprenticeships that are to be served 
beforehand, by a long and continued education. 
We owe this care, and this assiduity of correc- 
tion and instruction, to our own; but to go 



i Cic. Offie. i. 41. 
» Laertius, in vita. 



preach to the first passer-by, and to lord it over 
the ignorance and folly of the first we meet, is 
a thing that I abhor. I rarely do it, even in 
my own particular conferences, and rather sur- 
render my cause than proceed to these super- 
cilious and magisterial instructions; my humour 
is unfit either to speak or write for beginners; 
but for things that are said in common discourse, 
or amongst other things, I never oppose them, 
either by word or sign, how false or absurd 
soever. 

As to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in 
folly, as that it pleases itself more than any 
reason can reasonably please itself. 'Tis un- 
lucky that prudence forbids us to satisfy and 
trust in ourselves, and always dismisses us 
timorous and discontented; whereas obstinacy 
and temerity fill those who are possessed wiih 
them, with joy and assurance. 'Tis for the 
ignorant to look at other men over the shoulder, 
always returning from the combat full of joy 
and triumph ; and moreover, for the most part, 
this arrogance of speech, and gaiety of counte- 
nance, gives them the better of it in the opinion 
of the audience, which is commonly ignorant, 
and incapable of well judging, and 
discerning the real advantage. Obstinacy a 
Obstinacy of opinion and heat in fo ii t y ' n °" y 
argument are the surest proofs of 
folly: is there any thing so assured, resolute, 
disdainful, contemplative, serious, and grave as 
an ass? 

May we not mix with the subject of conver- 
sation and communication, the quick and sharp 
repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce 
amongst friends, pleasantly and wittingly jest- 
ing with one another] an exercise for which 
my natural gaiety renders me fit enough ; and 
if it be not so extended and serious as the other 
I just spoke of, 'tis no less smart and ingenious, 
nor of less utility, as Lycurgus thought. 4 For 
my part I contribute to it more liberty than 
wit, and have therein more of luck than inven- 
tion ; but I am perfect in suffering, for I endure 
a retort that is not only sharp, but indiscreet to 
boot, without being moved at all: and what- 
ever attack is made on me, if I have not an 
answer immediately ready, I do not take up 
the time in pursuing the point with a tedious 
and impertinent contest, bordering upon obsti- 
nacy, but let it pass, and, laughingly lowering 
my flag for the time, defer my revenge for a 
luckier occasion: there is no merchant that 
always gains. Most men change their coun- 
tenance and their voice where their wit fails ; 
and, by an unseasonable fit of anger, instead of 
revenging themselves, accuse at once their own 
folly and impatience. In this pastime, we 
sometimes pinch the private strings of our im- 
perfections, which, at another time, when more 



Xenophon, Cyrop. iii. 3. 23. 
Plutarch, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



461 



temperate, we cannot touch without offence, 
and profitably give one another a hint of our 
defects. 

There are other sports, practical jokes, rude 
and indiscreet, after the French manner, 
that I mortally hate; my skin is very tender 
and sensible; I have in my time seen two 
princes of the blood interred upon that very 
account. 'Tis unhandsome to fall out and fight 
in play. 

As to the rest, when I have a mind to judge 
of any one, I ask him how much he is satisfied 
with himself, to what degree his speaking or 
his work pleases him. I will have none of 
these fine excuses: "I did it only to amuse 
myself; 

Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud ; > 
" This work unfinish'd from the anvil came." 

I was not an hour about it: I have never 
looked at it since." Well, then, say I, lay 
these aside ; and give me a perfect one, such a 
'one as you would be measured by ; and then, 
what do you think is the best thing in your 
work; is it this part or that 1 the grace or the 
matter, the invention, the judgment, or the 
learning'! For I find that men are commonly 
as wide of the mark in judging of their own 
works, as those of others ; not only by reason 
of the kindness they have for them, but for 
want of capacity to know and distinguish them. 
The work, by its own fairness and fortune, may 
second the workman, and sometimes outstrip 
him, beyond his invention and knowledge. 
For my part, I do not judge of the value of 
other men's works more obscurely than of my 
own; and prize my Essays now high, now low, 
with great doubt and inconstancy. There are 
several books that are useful upon the account 
of their subjects, from which the author derives 
no praise : and good books, as well as good 
works, that shame the workman. I may write 
the manner of our feasts, and the fashion of our 
clothes, and may write them ill; I may publish 
the edicts of my time, and the letters of princes 
that pass from hand to hand ; I may make an 
abridgment of a good book (and every abridg- 
ment of a good book is a foolish abridgment), 
which book shall come to be lost, and so on. 
Posterity will derive a singular utility from 
such compositions; but what honour shall I 
have, unless by great good fortune? A great 
part of the most famous books are in this 
condition. 

When I read Philip de Comines, several 
years ago, doubtless a very good author, I there 
took notice of this for no vulgar saying: "That 
a man must have a care of doing his master 
such great service that at last he will not know 
how to give him his just reward ;" I ought to 



' Ovid, TVisr.. i. 6, 29. 

'Comines does not take the merit of this npothesm to 
himself, but says he had it from his master (I.oiiis XI.), 
who mentioned the name of its author. Memoir*, iii. L>. 



commend the inventor, not him, 2 for I met with 
it in Tacitus, not long since : Beneficia eo usque 
lasta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse ,• uln /nul- 
lum antevenere, pro gratia odium reddilur ; 3 
" Benefits are so far acceptable, as they are in 
a capacity of being returned ; but once exceed- 
ing that, hatred is returned instead of thanks;" 
and Seneca boldly says: Nam qui putat esse 
turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat ,• 4 
"For he who thinks it a shame not to requite, 
would not have that man live to whom he owes 
return;" and Cicero, more faintly: Qui se non 
putat salisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo po- 
test. 5 "Who thinks himself behindhand in 
obligation, can by no means be a friend." The 
subject, according to what it is, may make a 
man be looked upon as learned, and of goo. 1 , 
memory; but to judge in him the parts more 
his own and more worthy, the vigour and 
beauty of his soul, we must first know what is 
his own, and what is not; and in that which is 
not his own, how far we are obliged to him for 
the choice, disposition, ornament, and language 
he has there presented us with. What if he 
has borrowed the matter, and spoiled the form, 
as it oft falls out! 

We, who are little read in books, are in 
this strait, that when we meet with some fine 
fancy in a new poet, or some strong argument 
in a preacher, we dare not nevertheless com- 
mend it, till we have first informed ourselves of 
some learned man if it be their own, or bor- 
rowed from some other; until that, I always 
stand upon my guard. I lately came from 
reading the history of Tacitus right through 
(which but seldom happens to me, it being 
twenty years since I have stuck to any one 
book an hour together); and I did it at the. 
instance of a gentleman for whom France has 
great esteem, as well for his own particular 
worth, as upon the account of a constant form 
of capacity and virtue, which runs through a 
great many brothers of them. I do not know 
any author that in a public narration mixes so 
much consideration of manners and particular 
inclinations; and it seems to me quite contrary 
to his opinion, 6 that beinp; espe- 
cially to follow the lives of the JM^ 
emperors of his time, so various 
and extreme in all sorts of forms, and so many 
notable actions, as their cruelty particularly 
produced in their subjects, he had a stronger 
and more attractive matter to treat of, than if 
he had had to describe battles and universal 
commotions; so that I oft find him sterile, run- 
ning over those brave deaths, as if he feared to 
trouble us with their multitude and length. 
This form of histories is by much the most 
useful; public commotions depend most upon 
the conduct of fortune, private ones upon our 
own. 'Tis rather a judgment than a deduction 



3 Jilinal. iv. 18. 

« F.i>isl.8\. 

» ft. Cicero, de Pet. Consul, 

1 Annal. xvi. 1C. 



462 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



of history ; there are in it more precepts than 
stories; it is not a book to read, 'tis a book to 
study and learn; 'tis so full of sentences that, 
right or wrong, they are everywhere in muster ; 
'tis a nursery of ethics and political discourses, 
for the use and ornament of those who have 
any place in the government of the world. He 
always pleads by strong and solid reasons, after 
a pointed and subtle manner, according to the 
affected style of that age, which was so in love 
with swelling periods, that, where quickness 
and subtlety were wanting in things, they sup- 
plied them with words. It is not much unlike 
the style of Seneca. I look upon Tacitus as 
more sinewy, and Seneca more sharp. His pen 
seems most proper for a troubled and sick estate, 
as ours at present is : you would often say that 
he depicts and points at us. 

They who doubt of his fidelity sufficiently 
accuse themselves of being his enemy upon 
some other account. His opinions are sound, 
and lean for the most part towards the right 
side in Roman affairs. And yet I am angry at 
him for judging more severely of Pompey, than 
is borne out by the opinion of those worthy 
men that lived in the same time, and treated 
with him; and for putting him on a level with 
Marius and Sylla, excepting that he was more 
close. 1 Other writers have not acquitted his 
intention in the government of affairs, from am- 
bition and revenge; and even his friends were 
afraid that his victory would have transported 
him beyond the bounds of reason, but not to 
so immeasurable a degree ; there is nothing in 
his life that has threatened us with so express 
cruelty and tyranny. Neither ought we to 
weigh suspicion against evidence; and there- 
fore I do not believe him here. That his narra- 
tives are ingenuous and straight-forward, may 
be argued from this very thing, that they ai 



Tiberius: at least, when I was in the same 
condition, I perceived no such thing. 

And this also seemed to me a little mean in 
him, that having to say he had borne honourable 
office in Rome, he excuses himself that he does 
not speak it out of ostentation; 3 this seems 
somewhat mean for such a soul as his ; for not 
to speak roundly of a man's self, implies some 
want of courage; a firm and lofty judgment, 
and that judges soundly and surely, makes use 
of his own example upon all occasions, as well 
as those of others; and gives evidence as freely 
of himself as of a third person. We are to pass 
by these common rules of society in favour of 
truth and liberty. I dare not only speak of 
myself, but to speak only of myself; when I write 
of any thing else, I miss my way, and wander 
from my subject. I am not so indiscreetly ena- 
moured of myself, that I cannot distinguish and 
consider myself apart, as I do a neighbour or a 
tree ; 'tis equally a fault not to discern how far 
a man's worth extends, and to say more than a 
man discovers in himself. We owe more love 
to God than to ourselves, and know him less; 
and yet speak of him as much as we will. 

If the writings of Tacitus relate any thing 
true of his qualities, he was a great man, up- 
right and bold, not of a superstitious, but of a 
philosophical and generous virtue. Some may 
think him a little too bold in his relations; as 
where he tells us of a soldier, carrying a bur- 
den of wood, whose hands were so frozen, and 
so stuck to the load, that they there remained 
closed and dead, being severed from his arms. 4 
I always in such things submit to the authority 
of such great witnesses. 

What he says also, that Vespasian, by the 
favour of the god Serapis, cured in Alexandria 
a blind woman, by anointing her eyes with his 
spittle and some other miracle, I forget what, 5 



not always applied to the conclusions of his | he does by the example and duty of all good 
judgments, which he follows according to the j historians. He records all events of import- 
inclination he has taken, very often beyond the 'ance; and amongst public matters, also, the 
matter he shows us, which he will not deign to common rumours and opinions. 'Tis their part 
look upon with so much as one glance. He to recite common beliefs, not to regulate them ; 
needs no excuse for having approved the reli- that part concerns divines and philosophers, 
gion of his time, according as the laws enjoined, who are the guides of conscience. And there- 
and to have been ignorant of the true; this was fore it was that this companion of his, and as 
his misfortune, not his fault. great a man as himself, very wisely said : Equi- 

I have principally considered his judgment, dem plura transcribo quam credo; nam nee 
and am not very well satisfied throughout; as ! qffi.rm.are sustineo fie quibus dubito, nee subdu- 
at these words in the letter, that Tiberius, being ! cere quse accept; 6 "Truly, I set down more 
old and sick, sent to the senate: 2 " What shall | things than I believe, for I can neither endure 
I write to you, sirs, or how shall I write to to affirm things whereof I doubt, nor suppress 
you, or what shall I not write to you, at this j what I have heard ;" and this other : Hxc 
time? May the gods and the goddesses lay a j neque offirmare, neque refellere operaz pretium 
worse punishment upon me than I am every 'est - - -,• famse rervm standum est.'' "'Tis 
day tormented with, if I know. ' I do not see neither worth the while to affirm nor to refute 



t'hy he should so positively apply these to a 
sharp remorse, tormenting the conscience of 



1 Hist. ii. 38. 

2 Tacitus, Annal. vi. 
c. 67. 

3 Annal. xi. 11. 



6. Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 



these things; we must stand to report." And 
writing in an age wherein the belief of prodi- 



Jlnnal. xiii. 35. 
- Hist. iv. 81. 
i Uuint. Curt. ix. 1. 

Livy, i. Prof, and viii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



gies began to decline, he says he would not, 
nevertheless, forbear to insert in his annals, 
and to give a relation of tilings received by so 
many worthy men, and with so great reverence 
of antiquity ; which is very well said. Let 
them deliver us history, more as they receive 
it than as they believe it. I, who am monarch 
of the matter whereof I treat, and who am 
accountable to none, do not, nevertheless, al- 
ways believe myself; I often hazard sallies of 
my own fancy, which I very much suspect, and 
certain quibbles, at which I shake my ears; but 
I let them go at a venture. I see that others 
get reputation by such things; 'tis not for me 
alone to judge. I present myself standing, and 
lying on my face, my back, my right side, and 
my left, and in all my natural postures. Minds, 
though equal in force, are not equal in taste and 
application. 

This is what my memory has presented me 
in gross, and with uncertainty enough ; all 
judgments in gross are weak and imperfect. 



CHAPTER IX. 



There is not, perhaps, a more manifest vanity 
than to write so vainly about it. 1 That which 
divinity has so divinely expressed to us, ought 
to be carefully and continually meditated by 
understanding men. Who does not see that I 
have taken a road, in which, incessantly and 
without labour, I shall proceed, so long as there 
shall be ink and paper in the world? I can 
give no account of my life by my actions; for- 
tune has placed them too low; I must do it by 
fancies. And yet I have seen a gentleman that 
only communicated his life by the working's of 
his belly; you might see in his house a show of 
a row of basons of seven or eight days' stools; 
that was all his study, all his discourse; all 
other talk stunk in his nostrils. These here, 
somewhat more presentable, are the excre- 
ments of an old mind, sometimes thick, some- 
times thin, and always indigested. And when 
shall I have done representing the continual 
agitation and change of my thoughts, as they 
come into my head, seeing that Diomedes 2 filled 
six thousand books upon the sole subject of 
grammar] What must prating produce, since 
prating, and the first beginning to speak, 
stuffed the world with such' a horrible load of 
volumes? So many words about words only. 
O Pythagoras, why didst not thou allay tlic 
tempest? They accused one Gnlba of old for 
living idly; he made answer, "That every one 
ought to give account of his actions, but not of 
his leisure." He was mistaken, for justice has 



cognizance and jurisdiction even over those that 
do nothing, or only play at working. 
i But there should be some restraint of law 
against foolish and impertinent scribblers, as 
; well as. against vagabonds and idlers; which, 
if there was, both I and a hundred others 
would be banished the kingdom. I do not 
speak this in jest; scribbling seems to be a sign 
! of a disordered age: when did we write so 
| much as since our civil wars? when the Romans 
j so much, as when they were going to ruinT 
i Besides that the refining of wits does not make 
| people wiser in a government; this idle employ- 
ment springs from this, that every one applies 
] himself negligently to the duty of his vocation, 
| and debauches in it. The corruption of the age 
j is made up by the particular contributions of 
every individual man; some contribute trea- 
chery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, 
avarice, and cruelty, according as they have 
power; the weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, 
and idleness; and of these I am one. It seems 
as if it were the season for vain things when 
the hurtful oppress us; in a time when doing ill 
is common, to do nothing but what signifies 
nothing, is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my 
comfort that I shall be one of the last that shall 
be called in question ; and whilst the greater 
offenders are calling to account, I shall have 
leisure to amend ; for it would, methinks, be 
against reason to punish the less troublesome 
whilst we are infested with the greater. As 
the physician Philotimus said to one who pre- 
sented him his finger to dress, and who he per- 
ceived, both by his complexion and his breath, 
had an ulcer in his lungs: "Friend," said he, 
" it is not now time to concern yourself about 
your fingers' ends." 3 

And yet I saw, some years ago, a person 
whose name and memory I have in very great 
esteem, in the very height of our great dis- 
orders, when there was neither law nor justice 
put in execution, nor magistrate that performed 
his office, no more than there is now, publish 
I know not what pitiful reformations about 
clothes, cookery, and law chicanery. These 
are amusements wherewith to feed a people 
that are ill used, to show that they are not 
totally forgotten. These others do the same, 
who insist upon stoutly defending the forms 
of speaking, dances, and games, to a people 
totally abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices. 
'Tis no time to bathe and clean a man's self 
when he is seized by a violent fever; 'tis for 
the Spartans only to fall to combing and curling 
themselves, when they are just upon the point 
of running headlong into some extreme danger 
of their lives. 

For my part, I have yet a worse custom, that 
if my shoe go awry, I let my shirt and my 
cloak do so too: Tscorn to mend myself by 



i " Vanity of vanities, nil is vanity." Eccles. i. 8, 
> Didymus, no] Diomedes; and four thousand, nol sir 
thousand. See Seneca, Epint. c'c. The grammarian JDio- 



moibs is not known to have wriilrn inor. ■ than one work, 
in three boohs, "On the LBtin Lanpuaie and Versification." 
a Plutarch, How to discern a Flatterer. 



464 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



halves: when I am out of order, I feed on mis- 
chief; I abandon myself through despair, and let 
myself go towards the precipice, and a3 the say- 
ing is, throw the helve after the hatchet. I am 
obstinate in growing worse, and think myself 
no more worth my own care ; I am either good 
or ill throughout. "Pis favourable to me that 
the desolation of this kingdom falls out in the 
desolation of my age. I better suffer that my 
ills be multiplied, than if my goods had been 
disturbed. The words I utter in mishap, are 
words of spite ; my courage sets up its bristles 
instead of letting them down; and, contrary 
to others, I am more devout in good than in 
evil fortune, according to ihe precept of Xeno- 
phon, 1 if not according to his reason, and am 
more ready to turn up my eyes to heaven to 
return thanks than to crave. I am more soli- 
citous to improve my health when I am well, 
than to restore it when I am sick. Prosperity 
is the same discipline and instruction to me, 
that adversity and persecution are to others. As 
if good fortune were a thing incompatible with 
good conscience, men never grow good but in 
evil fortune. Happiness is to me a singular 
spur to modesty and moderation : entreaty wins, 
a threat checks me; favour makes me bend, 
fear stiffens me. 
Amongst human conditions this is common 
enough, to be better pleased with 
ing 3 to e men aS " strange things than our own, and 
to love motion and change. 

Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu, 
Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis;s 



I have my share of this. Those who follow 
the other extreme of agreeing with themselves 
to value what they have above all the rest, and 
to conclude no beauty can be greater than what 
they see, if they are not wiser than we, are 
really more happy. I do not envy their wis- 
dom, but their good fortune. 

This greedy humour of new and unknown 
things helps to nourish in me the desire of 
travel ; but a great many more circumstances 
contribute to it. I am very willing to run 
away from the government of my house. There 
is, I confess, a kind of convenience in command- 
ing, though it were but in a barn, and to be 
obeyed by one's servants; but 'tis too uniform 
and languishing a pleasure, and is moreover 
of necessity mixed with a thousand vexatious 
thoughts: one while the poverty and the op- 
pression of your tenants, another, quarrels 
amongst your neighbours, another, the tres- 
they make upon you, afflict you ; 



Aut verberatae grandine vines, 
Fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas 

Culpante, nunc torrentia agros 

Sidera, nunc hiemes iniquas ; » 

"Whether his vines be smit with hail, 
Whether his promised harvests fail, 

Perfidious to his toil ; 
Whether his drooping trees complain 
Of angry winter's chilling rain, 

Or stars, that turn the soil ;" 

and that God scarce in six months sends a sea- 
son wherewith your bailiff is satisfied, or that if 
it serves the vines, spoils the meadows ; 

Aut niniiis torret fervoribus setherius sol, 
Aut subiti perimunt iinbres, gelidffique pruinse, 
Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant: * 

" The scorching sun, with his too busy beams, 
Burns up the fruits, or clouds do drown the streams: 

. Or, chill'd by too much snows, they soon decay ; 
Or storms blow them and all our hopes away :" 

to which may be added the new and neat-made 
shoe of the man of old, that hurts your foot; 5 
and that a stranger does not understand how 
much it costs you, and what you contribute to 
maintain that show of order that is seen in your 
family, and that perhaps you buy too dear. 

I came late to the government of a family ; 
they whom nature sent into the 
world before me long eased me of ™n t g o7™" 
that trouble; so that I had already family more 
taken another bent more suitable J™^ 1 ^™ 6 
to my humour. Yet, for so much 
as I have seen, 'tis an employment more trou- 
blesome than hard. Whoever is capable of any 
thing else will easily do that. Had I a mind 
to be rich, that way would seem too long; I 
had served kings, a more profitable traffic than 
any other. Since I pretend to nothing but the 
reputation of having got nothing, any more 
than wasted nothing, conformable to the rest of 
my life, improper either to do good or ill of any 
moment, and that I only desire to pass on, I can 
do it, thanks be to God, without any great 
attention. At the worst, evermore prevent 
poverty by lessening your expense; 'tis that 
which I make my great concern, and doubt not 
but to do it before I shall be compelled. As to 
the rest, I have sufficiently settled my thoughts 
to live upon less than I have, and live content- 
edly : Non eestimatione census, verum victu 
atque cullu, terminalur pecuniae modus. 6 " 'Tis 
not in the value of possessions, but in our diet 
and clothing, that our riches are truly limited." 
My real need does not so wholly take up all I 
have, that fortune has not whereunto to fasten 
her teeth without biting to the quick. My 
presence, as unknowing and disdainful as it is, 
does me great service in my domestic affairs. 
I employ myself in them, but it goes 



i Cyropedia, i. 6, 3. Plutarch, On Contentment of 
Mind. 

2 Petrnnius, Frag. p. 678. 

s Horace, Od. iii. 1, 29. , 

« Lucret. v. 2)6. 

a Montaigne here probably refers to his wife, and the pa- 
raphrase allude* 1 to in Plutarch, Life of Paulus JEmilius, 



c. 3, will explain what he means. "A Roman having re- 
pudiated his wife, his friends reproached him, remonstrat 
ing that she was fair and good, and had fine children. To 
which the husband replied by showing his foot, and say- 
ing: 'This shoe is new, and well made; but none of you 
know where it pinches: I do.' " 
6 Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



4G5 



the hair; considering moreover that I have this 
in my house, that though I burn my candle at 
one end by myself, the other is not spared. 

Journeys do me no harm but only by their 
expense, which is great and more than I am 
well able to bear ; being always wont to travel 
with not only a necessary, but a handsome 
equipage, I must make them so much shorter 
and fewer, wherein I spend but the froth, and 
what I have reserved for such uses, delaying 
and deferring my motion till that be ready. I 
will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil 
my pleasure when returned home; on the 
contrary, 1 would have them nourish and favour 
one another. Fortune has assisted me in this, 
that since my principal profession in this life 
was to live at ease, and rather idly than busily, 
she has deprived me of the necessity of growing 
rich to provide for the multitude of my heirs. 
If there be not enough for one, of that whereof 
I have had so plentifully enough, at his peril 
be it; his imprudence will not deserve that I 
should wish him more. And every one, accord- 
ing to the example of Phocion, 1 provides suffi- 
ciently for his children, who so provides for 
them as to leave them as much as was left him. 
I should by no means like Crates' way: 2 he 
left his money in the hands of a banker, with 
this condition : that if his children were fools, he 
should then give it to them ; if witty, he should 
then distribute it to the greatest fools of the 
people. As if fools, being less capable of living 
without riches, were more capable of using 
them ! 

So it is that the damage which is occasioned 
by my absence seems not to deserve, so long as 
I am able to support it, that I should waive the 
occasions of diverting myself from that trouble- 
some assistance. 

There is always something that goes amiss. 
The affairs one while of one house and then of 
another will tear you to pieces; you pry into 
every thing too near; your perspicacity does 
you hurt here as well as in other things. I 
steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and 
turn from the knowledge of things that go 
amiss, and yet cannot I so order it but that 
every hour I jostle against something or other 
that displeases me, and the tricks that they most 
conceal from me are those that I the soonest 
come to know ; some there are that a man does 
well himself to help to conceal. Vain vexations, 
vain sometimes, but always vexatious. The 
smallest and slightest impediments are the most 
piercing, and as small print most tires the eyes, 
so do little affairs the most disturb us. A rout 
of little ills more offends than one, how great 
soever. By how much these domestic thorns 
are numerous and loose, by 'so much they prick 
deeper, and without warning, easily surprising 
us when least we suspect them. I am no phi- 



I Nepos, in vitu, c. 
1 [.ii'i-tius, in vila. 
Seneca, Epist. 13. 



losopher; evils oppress me according to their 
weight, and they weigh as much according to 
the form as the matter, and very often more. 
If I have therein more perspicacity than the 
vulgar, 1 have also more patience; in short, 
they weigh with me, if they do not hurt me. 
Life is a tender thing, and easily molested. 
Since my age has made me grow more pensive 
and morose. Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum 
ceperit impelli? "No man resists himself 
after he once begins to decline," for the most 
trivial cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, 
which afterwards nourishes and exasperates 
itself of its own accord; attracting and heaping 
up matter upon matter whereon to feed : 

Stillicidi casus Iapidem cavat :* 
" A falling drop at last will cave a stone : " 

these continual trickling drops make ulcers in 
me. Ordinary inconveniences are never light; 
they are continual and irreparable, especially 
when they spring from the members of one's 
family, continual and inseparable. When I 
consider my affairs at distance and in gross, 
I find, because perhaps my memory is none of 
the best, that they have gone on hitherto im- 
proving, beyond my reason or expectation. 
Methinks my revenue is greater than it is; its 
prosperity betrays me. But when I pry more 
narrowly into the business, and see how all 
details go, 

Turn vero in cura animum diducimus omncs : 6 



I find a thousand things to desire and to fear. 
To give them quite over is very easy for me to 
do: but to look after them without trouble is 
very hard. 'Tis a miserable thing to be in a 
place where every thing you see employs and 
concerns you, and I fancy that I more cheer- 
fully enjoy the pleasures of another man's 
house, and with greater and purer relish, than 
those of my own. Diogenes, according to my 
humour, answered him well, who asked what 
sort of wine he liked the best, " Another man's," 
said he. 6 

My father took a delight in building at 
Montaigne, where he was born ; and in all the 
government of domestic affairs, I love to follow 
his example and rules, and shall engage those 
who are to succeed me, as much as in me lies, 
to do the same. Could I do better for him, I 
would. I am proud that his will is still per- 
forming and acting by me. God forbid that 
in my hands I should ever suffer any image of 
lite, that 1 am able to render to so good a father, 
to tail ! And where I have taken in hand to 
finish some old piece of wall, and to complete 
some building, truly I have done it more out of 



Lucret. i. .in. 

Jftncut, v. 7J0. 
Lacrlins, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



respect to his design than to ray own satisfac- 
tion ; and am angry at my own idleness that 
I have not proceeded further to finish the few 
beginnings he has left in his house; and so 
much the more, because I am very likely to be 
the last possessor of my race, and to give the 
last hand to it; for, as to my own particular 
application, neither the pleasure of building, 
which they say is so bewitching, nor hunting, 
nor gardens, nor the other pleasures of a retired 
life, much amuse me. And it is what I am 
angry at myself for, as I am for all other opi- 
nions that are incommodious to me ; I do not 
so much care to have them vigorous and learned, 
as I would have them easy and convenient for 
life : they are true and sound enough, if they 
are profitable and pleasing. Such as, hearing 
me declare my ignorance in domestic and hus- 
bandry matters, whisper in my ear that it is 
disdain, and that I neglect to know the instru- 
ments of husbandry, its seasons, and order ; 
how they order my vines, how they graft, and 
to know the names and forms of herbs and 
fruits, and the dressing the meat by which I 
live, with the names and prices of the stuffs 
I wear, because I have set my heart upon some 
higher knowledge, destroy me. 'Tis folly, and 
rather imbecility than glory ; I had rather be 
a good horseman than a good logician : 



We busy our thoughts about the general con- 
cern, and about universal causes and conducts, 
which will very well carry on themselves with- 
out our care; and lay aside our own business 
and ourselves, which are more our affair than 
man. Now I am indeed for the most part at 
home ; but I would be more pleased there 
than anywhere else : 

Sit ineEB sedes utinam senectffi, 
Sit modus lasso maris, et viarum, 
Militia;r[ue! 2 

•' May Tiber's walls, the Argean scat, 
Afford my age a calm retreat ! 
There, worn with journeys, wars, and seas, 
May I enjoy unenvied ease. 

I know not whether or no I shall bring it 
about. I could wish that, instead of some 
other portion of his succession, my father had 
resigned to me the passionate affection he had 
in his old age to his household affairs ; he was 
very happy in that he could accommodate his 
desires to his fortune, and satisfy himself with 
what he had. Political philosophy may, as 
much as it will, condemn the meanness and 
sterility of my employment, if I can once come 
to relish it as he did. I am quite of opinion 
that the most honourable calling is to serve the 
public, and to be useful to many: Fructus 



enim mgenii et virlutis, omnisque preestantia: 
turn maximus capilur, quum in proximum 
quemque confertur 3 "We then reap the most 
wit, virtue, and all sorts of merit, when they 
are conferred upon every one of our nearest 
relations." For my part, I disclaim it; partly 
out of conscience (for where I see the weight 
that lies upon such employments, I perceive 
also the little means. I have to contribute to 
them; and Plato, who was a master in all 
sorts of government, did not nevertheless for- 
, bear to abstain from them), and partly out of 
cowardice. I content myself with enjoying 
the world without bustle, only to live an irre- 
proachable life, and such a one as may neither 
be a burden to myself, nor to any other. 

Never did any man more faintly and negli- 
gently suffer himself to be governed by a third 
person than I should do, had I any one to 
whom to intrust myself. One of my wishes at 
this time should be to have a son-in-law that 
could comfortably cherish my old age, and to 
rock it asleep; into whose hands I might de- 
posit, in full sovereignty, the management and 
use of all my goods, that he might dispose of 
them as I do, and get by them what I get, pro- 
vided that he on his part were truly acknow- 
ledging, and a friend. But we live in a world 
where loyalty in one's own children is unknown. 

He that has the charge of my purse upon 
travel has it purely, and without control, and 
might deceive me in reckoning; but, if he is 
not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with 
me by so entire a trust. Multifallere docue- 
runl dum timent falli, et uliis jus peccandi 
suspicando fecerunt.* " Many have taught 
others to deceive by fearing to be deceived, and 
[ by suspecting them have given them a just 
title to do ill." The most common security I 
take of my people is ignorance; I never pre- 
sume any to be vicious till I have first found 
them so; and repose the most confidence in the 
younger sort, thSt I think are least spoiled by 
example. I had rather be told at two months' 
end that I have spent four hundred crowns, 
than to have my ears battered every night with 
"three, five, seven;" and yet I have been this 
way as little robbed as another. It is true I 
am willing enough not to see it; I inten- 
tionally, indeed, harbour a kind of perplexed, 
uncertain knowledge of my money; for, to a 
certain proportion, I am content to doubt. 
One must leave a little room for the infidelity 
or indiscretion of a servant; if you have enough 
left in gross to do your business, let the over- 
plus of fortune's liberality run a little more 
freely at her mercy ; 'tis the gleaner's portion. 
After all, I do not so much value the fidelity 
of my people as I despise their injury. Oh ! 
what a mean and ridiculous thing it is for a 
man to study his money, to delight himself 
with handling and telling it over and over! 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



'tis by such ways that avarice makes its 
approaches ! 

Since eighteen years that I have had my 
estate in iny own hands, I could never prevail 
with myself either to read over my deeds or 
examine my principal affairs, which ought of 
necessity to pass through my knowledge and 
inspection. 'Tis not a philosophical disdain of 
worldly and transitory things; my taste is not 
purified to that degree, and I value them at as 
great a rate, at least, as they are worth ; but 
'tis, in truth, an inexcusable and childish lazi- 
ness and negligence. What would not I rather 
do than read a contract, tumble over a com- 
pany of old musty writings, a slave to my own 
business, or, which is worse, to those of another 
man, as so many do now-a-days to get money 1 
I have nothing dear but care and trouble, and 
endeavour nothing so much as to be careless 
and at ease. I had been much fitter, I believe, 
could it have been without obligation and servi- 
tude, to have lived upon another man's fortune I 
than my own ; and do not know, when I ' 
examine it nearer, whether, according to my j 
humour, what I have to suffer from my affairs 
and servants, has not in it something more 
abject, troublesome, and tormenting, than there 
would be in serving a man better born than 
myself, that would govern me with a gentle 
rein and a little at my case : Servitus obedien- 
tial est frncli animi el abjreti, arbitrio carentis 
swo. 1 " Servitude is the obedience of a sub- 
dued and abject mind, wanting its own free 
will." Crates did worse, who threw himself 
into the liberty of poverty only to rid himself 
of the inconveniences and care of his house. 
This is what I would not do; I hate poverty 
equally with pain ; but I could be content to 
change the kind of life I live for another, that 
was meaner and had fewer affairs. 

When absent from home, I strip myself of all 
these thoughts, and should be less concerned 
for the ruin of a tower, than I am, when pre- 
sent, at the fall of a tile. My mind is easily 
composed at a distance, but suffers as much as 
the meanest peasant when I am on the spot. 
The reins of my bridle being wrong put on, or 
a strap flapping against my leg, will keep me 
in check a whole day. I raise my courage 
well enough against inconveniences; lift up 
my eyes I cannot. 

Sensus! O superi, sensus! 
" The senses ! O ye gods, the senses I" 

I' am at home responsible for whatever goes 
amiss. Few masters (I speak of those of the 
middling condition, such as mine), if there 
be any such, they are the happier, can rely 
so much upon another but that the greatest 
part of the burthen will still lie upon their own 
shoulders. This takes much from my grace in 
entertaining strangers, so that I have perhaps 



detained some rather out of expectation of a 
good dinner than by my own behaviour, and 
lose much of the pleasure I ought to reap at 
my own house from the visits and assembling 
of my friends. The most ridiculous carriage of 
a gentleman, in his own house, is to see him 
bustling about the business of the house, whisper- 
ing one servant, and looking an angry look at 
another ; it ought insensibly to slide along, and 
to represent an ordinary current; and I think 
it equally awkward and unhandsome to talk 
much to one's guests of their entertainment, 
whether by way of bragging or excuse. I love 
order and cleanliness, 

Et cantharus et lanx 
Ostendunt mini mc, a 
"Glasses well rins'd my table always grace. 
And dishes shine, in which I see my face," 

more than abundance: and at home have an 
exact regard to necessity, little to show. If a 
footman falls to cufi's at another man's house, 
or stumbles and throws down a dish, you only 
jest and make a laugh on't: you sleep, whilst 
the master of the house is arranging a bill of 
fare, with his steward, for your morrow's enter- 
tainment. I speak according as I do myself; 
not disesteeming, nevertheless, good husbandry 
in general, nor unconsidering how pleasant a 
quiet and thrifty management, carried regularly 
on, is to some natures ; and not willing to annex 
my own errors and inconveniences to the thing, 
nor to controvert Plato, who looks upon it as 
the most pleasant employment to every one, 
"to do his particular affairs, without wrong to 
another." 3 

When I travel, I have nothing to care for 
but myself, and the laying out my money ; 
which is disposed of by one single precept; too 
many things are required to the raking it to- 
gether; in that I understand nothing. In 
spending it, I understand a little, and how to 
get some credit for my expenditure, which is 
indeed its principal use ; but I rely too proudly 
upon it which renders it unequal and out of 
form, and moreover immoderate, in both the 
one and the other point of view. If it makes 
a show, if it serves the turn, I indiscreetly let it 
run, and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings, 
if it does not shine and please me. Whatever 
it be, whether art or nature, that imprints in 
us the condition of living with reference to 
others, it does us much more harm than good : 
we deprive ourselves of our proper utilities, to 
accommodate appearances to the common opi- 
nion ; we care not so much what our being is, 
as to us, and in reality, as what it is to the 
public observation. Even the goods of the 
mind, wisdom itself, seems even fruitless to ns, if 
only enjoyed by ourselves, and if it produce not 
itself to the view and approbation of others. 
There are some men whose gold runs in large 
streams imperceptibly under ground ; while 



■ Cicero, Paradox, v. 1. 
* Horace, Epist. i. 5, 23. 



3 Letter 9. to Archytas. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



others expose it all in plates and branches ; so 
that in the one farthings are worth crowns, 
and in the others the converse, the world 
esteeming its use and value, according to the 
show. All curious solicitude about riches smells 
of avarice ; even the very disposing of it, with 
a too punctual and artificial liberality, is not 
worth a painful solicitude : he that will order 
his expense to just so much, makes it too 
pinched and narrow. The keeping or spending 
are of themselves indifferent things, and receive 
no colour of good or ill, but according to the 
application of our will. 1 

The other cause that tempts me out on these 
journeys, is unsuitableness to the present man- 
ners of our state. I could easily console my- 
self with this corruption, in reference to the 
public interest; 

Pejoraque saecula ferri 
Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa 
Nomen, et a nullo possuit natura metallo ; 2 



but not to my own: I am, in particular, too 
much oppressed ; for in my neighbourhood we 
are of late, by the long libertinage of our civil 
wars, grown old in so riotous a form of state, 

Q.uippe ubi fas versum atque nefas.a 
" Where right and wrong in mad confusion hurl'd," 

that, in earnest, 'tis a wonder how it can 



Armati terram exercent, semperque recentes 
Convectare juvat prsedas, et vivere rapto. 1 



In fine, I see, by our example, that the society 
of men is maintained and held together at what 
price soever; in what condition soever they 
are placed, they will still close and stick toge- 
ther, moving and heaping up themselves; as 
uneven bodies, that, shuffled together without 
order, find of themselves means to unite and 
settle, often better than they could have been 
disposed by art. King Philip mustered up a 
rabble of the most wicked and incorrigible 
rascals he could pick out, and put them all 
together into a city he had built for that pur- 
pose, which bore their name;' I believe that 
they, even from vices themselves, erected a 
government amongst them, and a commodious 
and just society. 6 I see not one action, or 
three, or a hundred, but manners, in common 
and received use, so atrocious, especially in 
inhumanity and treachery, which are to me the 
worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to 



think of them without horror; and almost as 
much admire at, as I detest them : the exercise 
of these signal villanies carries with it as great 
signs of vigour and force of soul as of error and 
disorder. Necessity reconciles and brings men 
together; and this accidental connexion after- 
wards forms itself into laws; for there have 
been as savage ones as any human opinion could 
produce, which nevertheless have maintained 
their body, with as much health and length of 
life, as any Plato or Aristotle could invent ; and 
certainly all these descriptions of polities feigned 
by art, are found to be ridiculous and unfit to 
be put in practice. 

These great and tedious debates about the 
best form of society, and the most commodious 
rules to bind us, are debates only proper for the 
exercise of our wits ; as in the arts, there are 
several subjects which have their being in agi- 
tation and controversy, and have no life but 
there. Such an idea of government might be 
of some value in a new world; but we take a 
world already made, and formed to certain 
customs; we do not beget it, as Pyrrha or 
Cadmus did. By what means soever we may 
have the privilege to rebuild and reform it 
anew, we can hardly writhe it from its wonted 
bent, but we shall break all. Solon, being 
asked whether he had established T))e (awg of 
the best laws he could for the soion. 
Athenians; " Yes," said he, 7 " the 
best they would have received." • Varro 8 excuses 
himself after the same manner : " that if he had 
to begin to write of religion, he would say what 
he believed ; but being it was already received, 
he would write more according to custom than 
according to nature." 

Not by opinion, but in truth and reality, 
the best and most excellent 
government, for every nation, is What is the 

s , > . , >'. '. best govern- 

that under which it has main- ment , or every 
tained itself. Her form and es- nation, 
sential commodity depends upon 
custom. We are apt to be displeased at the 
present condition ; but I do nevertheless main- 
tain that to desire the command of a few in a 
republic, or another sort of government in 
monarchy, than that already established, is both 
vice and folly. 

Ayme I'estat, tel que tu le veois estre : 
S'il est royal ayme la royal ayme la royaute ; 
S'il est de peu, ou bitm communaute, 
Ayme l'aussi ; car Dieu t'y a fait naistre.' 
" The government approve, be't what it will, 

If it be royal, then love monarchy; 
If a republic, yet approve it still, 

For God himself thereto subjected thee." 

So wrote the good M. de Pibrac, whom we 



1 In his yearly account of his expenditure, Montaigne put 
down : "Item, for my idle humour, a thousand livres." — 
Mcnagiana. 

2 Juvenal, xiii. 28. 

8 Virgil, Ocorgie. i. 504. 
* JEneid, vii. 748. 

5 XlovtiponoXis, the city of the wicked. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 
i. v. 11. Plutarch, on Curiosity. 



« " Si j'avais des citoyens a persuader de la necessite des 
Iois, je leur ferais voir qu'il y'en a partout, meme an jeu, 
qui est un commerce de fripons ; meme chez lea voleurs. 
Hanno lor Oiove i malancrini ancora." Voltaire, Lettre a 
aVMembert. 1st March, 1764. 

' Plutarch, in vita. 

8 St. Augustin, de Civit. Dei, v. 4. 

9 Guy du Faur, Seigneur de Pibrac, Quatrains contenant 
preceptes et enseignements utiles pour la vie de I'homme. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



have lately lost,' a man of such excellent wit, 
such sound opinions, and such gentle manners. 
This loss, and that, at the same time, which we 
have had of M. de Foix, 2 are of great import- 
ance to the crown. I do not know whether 
there is another couple in France worthy to 
supply the room of these two Gascons, in sin- 
cerity and wisdom, in the King's council. They 
were both great men in different ways, and 
certainly, according to the age, rare and excel- 
lent, each of them in his kind ; but what 
destiny placed them in these times, men so 
unsuited and so disproportioned to our corrup- 
tion and intestine tumults] 

Nothing presses so hard upon a state as 
innovation; change only gives form to injustice 
and tyranny. When any piece is out of order, 
it may be propped ; one may prevent and take 
care that the decay and corruption natural to all 
things do not carry us too far from our begin- 
nings and principles : but to undertake to found 
so great a mass anew, and to change the foun- j 
dations of so vast a building, is for them to do, j 
who, to make clean, efface ; who would reform i 
particular defects by a universal confusion, and | 
cure diseases by death : Non turn commutan- i 
durum, quam everlendarum rerum cupidi. 3 1 
" Not so desirous of changing as of overthrow- 
ing things." The world is unapt for curing I 
itself; it is so impatient of anything that presses j 
it, that it thinks of nothing but disengaging j 
itself, at what price soever. We see, by a J 
thousand examples, that it generally cures itself : 
to its cost. The discharge of a present evil is i 
no cure, if a general amendment of condition 
does not follow ; the surgeon's end is not only | 
to cut away the dead flesh ; that is but the pro- 
gress of his cure ; he has a care, over and above, 
to fill up the wound with better and more 
natural flesh, and to restore the member to its 
due state. Whoever only proposes to himself 
to remove that which offends him, falls short; 
for good does not necessarily succeed evil; an- 
other evil may succeed, and a worse, as it 
happened to Caesar's killers, who brought the 
republic to such a pass that they had reason 
to repent their meddling with it. The same 
has since happened to several others, down to 
our own times; the French, my contemporaries, 
know it well enough. All great mutations 
shake and disorder a state. 

Whoever would aim directly at a cure, and 
would consider of it before he began, would 
be very willing to withdraw his hands from 
meddling in it. Pacuvius Calavius corrected 
the vice of this proceeding, by a notable ex- 
ample. His fellow-citizens were in mutiny 
against their magistrates; he, being a man of 
great authority in the city of Capua, tound 
means one day to shut up the senators in the 



i He died <2?th May, 15H4, aged 55. 

» Privy counsellor to tin; Kim;, anil ambassador from 
France to Venice, h was to him that Montaigne dedicated 
his edition of lioctiits, P'irs Francai*. 

•Cicero, Offic. ii. 1. 



palace, and calling the people together in the 
market-place, he told them that the day was 
now come wherein, at full liberty, they might 
revenge themselves on the tyrants, by whom 
they had been so long oppressed, and whom he 
had now, all alone and unarmed, at his mercy ; 
and advised that they should call them out one 
by one by lot, and should particularly deter- 
mine of every one, causing whatever should be 
decreed to be immediately executed ; with this 
caution, that they should at the same time de- 
pute some honest man in the place of him that 
was condemned, to the end there might be no 
vacancy in the senate. They had no sooner 
heard the name of -one senator, but a great cry 
of universal dislike was raised up against him : 
" I see," says Pacuvius, 4 " we must get rid of 
him; he is a wicked fellow: let us look out a 
good one in his room." Immediately there was 
a profound silence, every one being at a stand 
who to choose. But one, more impudent than 
the rest, having named his man, there arose yet 
a greater concert of voices against him, a hun- 
dred imperfections being laid to his charge, and 
as many just reasons being presently given why 
he should not stand. These contradictory hu- 
mours growing hot, it fared worse with the 
second senator and the third, there being as 
much disagreement in the election of the new, 
as consent in the putting out of the old. In the 
end, growing weary of this bustle to no pur- 
pose, they began, some one way and some 
another, to steal out of the assembly; every 
one carrying back this resolution in his mind, 
that the oldest and best known evil was ever 
more supportable than one that was new and 
untried. 

To see how miserably we are torn in pieces, 
(for what have we not done] 



Eheu ! cicalrictim et sceleris piidet, 
Fratrunique : quid nos dura refugimus, 

vEtas? Quid intactum nefasti 
Liquitnus ? Undo manus inventus 
Mrtu deorum continuit ? quibus 
Pepercil aris? 5 

" flow oft have Roman youth emhru'd 
Their savage bands in social blood! 
What has this iron age not dar'd ? 
What gods rever'd ? What altars spar'd ? 

I do not presently conclude : 

Ipsa si velit Salus, 
Servare prorsus non potest banc fatniliam: 



we are not, however, perhaps at the last gasp. 
The conservation of slates is a thing that in all 
likelihood surpasses our understanding; a civil 
government is, as Plato says, 7 a mighty and 
powerful thing, and hard to be dissolved; it 



* Livy, xxiii. 3. 
'Horace, Od.i. 35,33. 
c Terence, Melph. iv. 7. 43. 
' Republic, viii. ■■>. 



470 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



endures against mortal and intestine diseases, 
against the injury of unjust laws, against 
tyranny, the corruption and ignorance of ma- 
gistrates, and the licence and sedition of the 
people. We compare ourselves in all our for- 
tunes to what is above us, and still look towards 
the better; but let us measure ourselves with 
what is below us, and there is no condition so 
miserable, wherein a man may not find a thou- 
sand examples that will administer consolation. 
'Tis our vice that we more unwillingly look 
upon what is above, than willingly on what is 
below. Solon used to say, 1 that " whosoever 
would make a heap of all the ills together, there 
is no one would not rather choose to bear away 
the ills he has, than to come to an equal divi- 
sion with all other men, from that heap, and 
take with him thence so much as would, upon 
the dividend, fall to his particular share." Our 
government is indeed very sick ; but there have 
been others sicker, without dying. The gods 
play at tennis with us, and bandy us every 
way: 

Enimvcro dii nos homines quasi pilas habent.s 

The stars have fatally destined the state of 
Rome for an example of what 
The state of they could do in this kind: in it 
divCTBe/orms! ' s comprised all the forms and 
adventures that affect a state; 
all that order or disorder, good or evil fortune 
can do. Who, then, can despair of his condi- 
tion, seeing the shocks and commotions where- 
with she was tumbled and tossed, and yet 
withstood them all 1 If the extent of dominion 
be the health of a state (which I by no means 
think it is), and Isocrates pleases me, when he 
instructs Nicocles not to envy princes who have 
large dominions, but those who know how to 
preserve these which have fallen to them, that 
of Rome was never so sound as when it was 
most sick. The worst of her forms was the 
most fortunate: one can hardly 
The horrible discern any image of government 
confusion under „ n( ] er t \ )e fj rst emperors; it was 

the first empe- , , r . ' ,, 

rors . the most horrible and tumultuous 

confusion that can be imagined; 
it endured it, notwithstanding, and therein con- 
tinued, not only preserving a monarchy limited 
within its own bounds, but so many nations, so 
differing, so remote, so ill affected, so confusedly 
commanded, and so unjustly conquered: 

Nee gentibus ullis 
Commodat in popnlum, tej-rce pelagique potentem, 
Invidiam fortuua suaui. 3 

" But to no foreign amis would Fortune yet 
Lend her own envy against Rome so great, 
That over nations and mighty kiiiers, 
O'er lauds and seas, she stretch'd her eagle's wings." 

Every thing that totters does not fall. The 
contexture of so great a body holds by more 



i Val. max. vii. 2. Ext. 2. 

» Plautus, Captivi, Prologue, verse 22. 

3 Luoan, i. 82. 



nails than one ; it holds even by its antiquity, 
like old buildings, from which the foundations 
are worn away by time, without rough-cast or 
cement, which yet live and support themselves 
by their own weight, 



"Like an old lofty oak, that heretofore 
Great conqueror's spoils and sacred trophies bore, 
Stands firm in his own weight." 

Moreover, 'tis not rightly to go to work to recon- 
noitre only the flank and the fosse, to judge of 
the security of a place ; it must be examined 
which way approaches can be made to it, and 
in what condition the assailant is : few vessels 
sink with their own weight, and without some 
exterior violence. Let us every way cast our 
eyes; every thing about us totters; in all the 
great states both of Christendom and elsewhere, 
that are known to us. if you will but look, you 
will there see evident threats of alteration and 
ruin: 



Tempestas. 



illis incommoda, parque per omnes 



Astrologers may very well, as they do, warn us 
of great revolutions and imminent mutations ; 
their prophecies are present and palpable, they 
need not go to heaven to foretel this. There is 
not only consolation to be extracted from this 
universal combination of ills and menaces, but, 
moreover, some hopes of the continuation of 
our state, forasmuch as naturally nothing falls, 
where all does : an universal sickness is parti- 
cular health ; conformity is a quality antagonist 
to dissolution. For my part I despair not, and 
fancy that I perceive ways to save us : 



Who knows but God will have it happen, as it 
does in human bodies that purge and restore 
themselves to a better state by long and griev- 
ous maladies, which give them a more entire 
and perfect health than what they took from 
them 1 That which weighs the most with me, is 
that in reckoning the symptoms of our ill, I 
see as many natural ones, and those which 
heaven sends us and properly its own, as of 
those that our disorder and human imprudence 
contribute to it: the very stars seem to declare 
that we have already continued long enough, 
and beyond the ordinary term. And this, too, 
afflicts me, that the mischief which most 
threatens us is not an alteration in the entire 
and solid mass, but its dissipation and divul- 
sion ; the thing most to be feared. 



' Lucan, i. ]38. 

• Horace, Epod. xiii. 7. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



471 



I fear, in these reveries of mine, the trea- 
chery of my memory, lest by inadvertence, 
it should make me write the same thing 
twice. I hate to examine myself, and never 
review, but very unwillingly, what has once 
escaped my pen. Now I here set down nothing 
new ; these are common thoughts ; and having 
peradventure, conceived them a hundred times, 
I am afraid I have set them down somewhere 
else already. Repetition is every 
troubVesmne. where troublesome, though it 
were in Horner ; but 'tis ruinous 
in things that have only a superficial and tran- 
sitory show. I do not love inculcation even in 
the most profitable things, as in Seneca; and 
the practice of his Stoical school displeases me, 
of repeating, upon every subject, and at length, 
the principles and pre-suppositions that serve in 
general, and always to re-allege anew common 
and universal reasons. 

My memory grows worse and worse every 
day: 

Pocula Letteos ut si ducentia somnos 
Areute fauce 



I must be fain for the time to come (for hitherto, 
thanks be to God, nothing has happened much 
amiss), whereas others seek time and opportu- 
nity to think of what they have to say, to 
avoid all preparation, for fear of tying myself 
to some obligation upon which I must be forced 
to insist. To be tied and bound to a thing puts 
me quite out, and especially where I have to 
depend upon so weak an instrument as my 
memory. I never could read this story without 
being offended at it, with, as it were, a personal 
and natural resentment: Lyncestes, accused of 

conspiracy against Alexander, the 
knieTwfui oa y t,lat he was brought out be- 

tiirusts of pikes fore the army, according to the 
by Alexander's cus t m, to be heard in his defence, 

had prepared a studied speech, 
of which, haggling and stammering, he pro- 
nounced some words. As he was becoming 
more perplexed, and struggling with his me- 
mory, and trying to recollect himself, the sol- 
diers, that stood nearest, killed him with their 
spears, looking upon his confusion and si- 
lence as a confession of his guilt; 2 for having 
had so much leisure to prepare himself in prison, 
they concluded that it was not his memory that 
failed him, but that his conscience tied up his 
tongue and stopped his mouth : very fine, in- 
deed ! The place, the spectators, the expecta- 
tion, would astound a man, even were there no 
object in his mind but the ambition to speak 



Horace, F.potl. xiv. 3. 



• Yet the various editions of the Rssays, printed under 
the superintendence of Montaigne, present an infinite va- 
riety of readings, and the two corrected copies he left be- 



well ; but what, when 'tis an harangue upon 
which his life depends"! 

For my part, the very being tied to what I 
am to say, is enough to loose me from it. When 
I wholly commit and refer myself to rny memory, 
I lay so much stress upon it that it sinks under 
me; and I overwhelm it with the burden. The 
more I trust to it, the more do I put myself out of 
my own power, so much as to find it in my own 
countenance ; and have sometimes been very 
much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein 
I was bound ; whereas my design is to manifest 
in speaking a perfect nonchalance, both of face 
and accent, and casual and unpremeditated 
motions, as rising from present occasions, choos- 
ing rather to say nothing to purpose, than to 
show that I came prepared to speak well, a 
thing especially unbecoming a man of my pro- 
fession, and of too great obligation on him that 
cannot retain much. The preparation begets a 
great deal more expectation than it will satisfy : 
a man often very absurdly strips himself to. his 
doublet, to leap no further than he would have 
done in his gown : Nihil est his, qui place.re 
vohtnt, tarn advrrsarium quam expectatio. 3 
"Nothing is so great an adversary to those who 
make it their business to please, as expectation." 
It is recorded of the orator Curio, that when he 
proposed the division of his oration into three 
or four parts, it often happened either that he 
forgot some one, or added one or two more. 4 
I have always avoided falling into this incon- 
venience, having always hated these promises 
and announcements, not only out of distrust 
of my memory, but also because this method 
relishes too much of the artificial : Simpliciora 
militares decent. 5 "Simplicity becomes war- 
riors." 'Tis enough that I have promised, to 
myself, never to take upon me to speak in a 
place where I owe respect; for as to that sort 
of speaking, when a man reads his speech, 
besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty 
disadvantage to those who naturally could give 
it a grace by action; and to rely upon the 
mercy of the readiness of my invention, I will 
much less do it : 'tis heavy and perplexed, and 
such as would never furnish me in sudden and 
important necessities. 

Permit, reader, this essay its course also, and 
this third sitting to finish my picture. I add, 
but I correct not; 6 first because I conceive that 
a man having once parted with his labours to 
the world, has no farther right to them; let 
him do better if he can, in some new under- 
taking, but not adulterate what he has already 
sold. Of sucli dealers nothing should be bought, 
till after they are dead. Let them well consider 
what they do before they produce them to light; 



hind him have in every chapter alterations, omissions, and 
additions, differing not only from the printed copies, lint 
from each other, in material respects. Indeed, he himself 



lie scats ce (pie j'ny voulii dire ; el m'csrliauMe souvent a 
corriger et y mettre nn nouveau sens, pour avoir perdu le 
premier, qui valoit miculi." 



472 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



who hurries them? My book is always the 
same, saving that upon every new edition, that 
the buyer may not go away quite empty, I 
take leave to add, which I can easily do, for 
'tis but a piece of ill-pointed mosaic-work, some 
few insignificant bits, over and above : these are 
but over weight, that do not damage the origi- 
nal form of these Essays, but, by a little ambi- 
tious subtlety, give a kind of particular value 
to every one of those that follow. Thence, 
however, there will easily happen some trans- 
position of chronology ; my stories taking their 
place according to their patness, and not always 
according to trie age. 

Secondly, because that, for what concerns 
myself, I fear to lose by the change; my under- 
standing does not always go forward, it goes 
backward too. I do not much less suspect my 
fancies for being the second or the third, than 
for being the first, or present, or past. We often 
correct ourselves as foolishly as we do others. 
I am grown older by a great many years, since 
my first publication, which was in the year 
1580;' but I very much doubt whether I am 
grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, 
are two several persons; but whether the 
better now, or anon, I am not able to determine. 
It were a fine thing to be old, if we only tra- 
velled towards improvement; but 'tis a drunken, 
stumbling, reeling, ill-favoured motion, like 
that of reeds, which the air casually waves 
to and fro at pleasure. Antiochus in his 
youth vigorously wrote in favour of the Aca- 
demy; in his old age he wrote against it. 
Would not which of these two soever I should 
follow, be still Antiochus? After having esta- 
blished the uncertainty, to go about to establish 
the certainty, of human opinions, was it not to 
establish doubt, and not certainty? and to pro- 
mise that, if he had yet another age to live, 
he would be always upon the terms of altering 
his judgment, not so much for the better, as for 
a change ? 

The public favour has given me a little more 
confidence than I expected; but what I most 
fear is lest I should overgorge the world : I 
had rather of the two nettle my reader than 
tire him, as a learned man of my time has done. 
Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom 
or upon what account it will; yet ought a 
man to understand why he is commended, that 
he may know how to keep up the same reputa- 
tion still. Even imperfections may meet with 
commendation from some one or other; the 
vulgar and common esteem seldom hits right ; 
and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writ- 
ings of my time, the worst are not those which 
have most gained the popular applause. For 
my part, I confess my thanks to those good- 
natured men who deign to take my weak en- 
deavours in good part; the faults of the work- 
manship are nowhere so apparent as in a 



i The edition of ]582 lias it: "I am grown older by eight 
years since my first publication ; but I doubt," &c. 



matter which of itself has no recommendation. 
Blame not me, reader, for those that slip in 
here by the fancy or inadvertency of others; 
every hand, every artizan, contribute their 
own materials. I neither concern 
myself with orthography (and Orthography 

■". , • £■ i , i andpoml ing 

only care to have it after the old despised, 
way) nor punctuation, being very 
inexpert both in the one and the other. Where 
they wholly break the sense, I am very little 
concerned, for they at least discharge me; but 
where they substitute a false one, as they so 
often do, and wrest me to their conception, 
they ruin me. Therefore, when a sentence is 
not strong enough for my proportion, my 
readers ought, in civility, to reject it as none 
of mine. Whoever shall know how lazy I am, 
and how indulgent to my own humour, will 
easily believe that I had rather write as many 
more essays, than be bound to revise these over 
again for so childish a correction. 

I was saying just now, that, being planted 
in the very depth of this new religion, I am 
not only deprived of any great familiarity with 
men of other kind of manners than my own, 
and of other opinions, by which they hold 
together, as by a tie that supersedes all other 
obligations ; but, moreover, I do not live with- 
out danger amongst men to whom all things 
are equally lawful, and of whom the most part 
cannot offend the laws more than they have 
already done ; whence the extremest degree of 
licence proceeds. All the particular circum- 
stances respecting me being summed up toge- 
ther, I do not find one man of my country who 
pays so dear for the defence of our laws, both 
in costs and damages (as the lawyers say), as 
myself; and some there are who vapour and 
brag of their zeal and constancy, that, if things 
were justly weighed, do much less than I. My 
house, as one that has ever been open and free 
to all comers, and civil to all (for I could never 
persuade myself to make a garrison of war of 
it, a condition I would keep as far from my 
own neighbourhood as possible), has sufficiently 
merited a popular kindness, and so that it 
would be a hard matter to insult over me upon 
my own dung-hill ; and I look upon it as a won- 
derful and exemplary thing, that it yet con- 
tinues a virgin from blood and plunder during 
so long a storm, and so many neighbouring 
revolutions and tumults. For, to confess the 
truth, it had been possible enough for a man of 
my complexion to have shaken hands with any 
one constant and continued form whatever; 
but the contrary invasions and incursions, alter- 
nations and vicissitudes of fortune round about 
me, have hitherto rather exasperated than 
calmed and mollified the humour of the country, 
and involve me in invincible difficulties and 
dangers. 

I escape, 'tis true, but am annoyed that it is 
more by chance, and something of my own 
prudence, than by justice, and am not satisfied 
to be out of the protection of the laws, and 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



473 



under any other safe-guard than theirs. As 
matters stand, I live above one half by the 
favour of others, which is an untoward obliga- 
tion. I do not like to owe my safety, either to 
the generosity or affection of great persons, who 
are content to allow me my liberty, or to the 
obliging manners of my predecessors, or my 
own ; for what if I was another kind of manl 
If my deportment, and the frankness of my 
conversation or relationship, oblige my neigh- 
bours, 'tis cruel that they should acquit them- 
selves of that obligation in only permitting me 
to live, and that they may say, "We allow 
him the free liberty of having divine service 
read in his own private chapel, when all 
churches round about are deserted by us, and 
allow him the use of his goods, and the fruition 
of his life, as one that protects our wives and 
cattle in time of need." For my house has 
for many descents shared in the 
Lycurgus the reputation of Lycurgus the Athe- 

general trustee j 1 n tn general feoffee 

for all Ins fel- ' ,. „.. <= c , . 

low-citizens. and guardian of the purses of his 
fellow-citizens. Now I hold that 
a man should live as a matter of right, and by 
authority, and not either by recompence or fa- 
vour. How many gallant men have rather 
chosen to lose their lives than to abandon their 
duty ! I hate to subject myself to any sort of 
obligation, but, above all, to that which binds 
me by the duty of honour. I think nothing so 
dear as what is given me, and that because my 
will lies at pawn under the title of gratitude, 
and more willingly accept of services that are 
to be sold, being of opinion that for the last I 
give nothing but money, while for tho other I 
give myself. 

The knot that binds me by the laws of cour- 
tesy pinches me more than that of legal con- 
straint, and I am much more at ease when 
bound by a scrivener than by myself. Is it not 
reason that my conscience should be much 
more engaged when men rely simply upon it? 
In a bond, my faith owes nothing, because it 
has nothing lent it. Let them trust to the 
security they have taken, out of me; I had 
much rather break the wall of a prison, and 
the laws themselves, than my own word. I 
am nice, even to superstition, in 
'.•' '"n.'u '° keeping my promises, and there- 
unsruLd/ fore upon all occasions have a 

care to make them uncertain and 
conditional. To those of no great moment I 
add the jealousy of my own rule, to make them 
weight; it racks and oppresses me with its 
own interest. Even in actions that are wholly 
my own, and free, if I once say it, I conceive 
that I have bound myself, and that delivering 
it to the knowledge of another I have positively 
enjoined it my own performance; methinks I 
promise it if I but say it, and, therefore, I am not 



' Plutarch, in vitu. 
! Oloero, it offk. i. 9. 

s Terence, Mtlph. iii. 5. 44. The text has, Quod vos ju$ 
cogit, vix vo/untate imaUret. 

40* 



apt to say much in that way. The sentence 
that I pass upon myself is more severe than 
that of a judge who only considers the com- 
mon obligation; but rny conscience looks upon 
it with a more severe and penetrating eye. I 
lag in those duties to which I should be com- 
pelled if I did not go: Hoc ipsum, ita justum 
est, quod rede fit, si est voluntarium. 2 " Even 
that which is well done is only just, when 'tis 
voluntary." If the action has not some splen- 
dour of liberty, it has neither grace nor honour : 

CAuod me jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent; ' 



where necessity draws me, I love to let my 
will take its own course : Quia quidquid im- 
perio cogitur, exigenti magis quam prasstanti 
acceptum refertur.* "For whatever is com- 
pelled by power is more imputed to him that 
exacts than to him that performs." I know 
some who follow this notion even to injustice, 
who will sooner give than restore, sooner lend 
than pay, and will do them the least good to 
whom they are most obliged. I do not go such 
lengths. 

I so much love to disengage and disobligate 
myself, that I have sometimes looked upon in- 
gratitude, affronts, and indignities, which I have 
received from those to whom, either by nature 
or accident, I was bound in some duty of friend- 
ship, as an advantage, taking this occasion of 
[ their ill usage, for an acquittance and discharge 
I of so much of my debt. And though I still con- 
tinue to pay them all the outward offices of 
public reason, I, notwithstanding, find a great 
saving in doing that upon the account of justice 
I which I did upon the score of affection, and in 
j a little easing myself of the former solicitude 
and attention of my inward will: Est prudenlis 
svslinere, ul currurn, sic impetum benevolentix? 
j "'Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curb, as 
I upon a swift chariot, upon the precipitation of 
| his benevolence," which is in me too urging 
and pressing where 1 take, at least for a man 
who loves not to be strained at all ; and this 
husbanding my friendship serves me for a sort 
of consolation in the imperfections of those in 
whom I am concerned. I am sorry they are 
not so much what I could wish they were ; but 
I so it is, that I save something in my application 
I and engagement towards them. I admit of a 
I man's being less fond of his child, for having a 
I scald-head, or being crooked, and not only when 
he is ill-conditioned, but also when he is unfor- 
tunate and ill-formed, (for God himself has 
abated that from his value and natural estima- 
tion), provided he carry himself in this coldness 
of affection with moderation and exact justice. 
Proximity lessens not defects with me, but ra- 
ther makes them greater. 

* Val. Max. ii. 2. 6, 

• Cicero, do Amicil. c. 7. 



474 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



After all, according to what I understand of 
ihe science of benefit and gratitude, which is a 
subtle science and of great use, I know no per- 
son more free and less indebted than I am at 
this hour. What I do owe is simply to common 
and natural obligations: as to any thing else, 
no man is more absolutely clear ; 

Nee sunt mini nota potentum 
Munera.i 

"The gifts of great men are to me unknown." 

Princes give me a great deal, if they take no- 
thing from me; and do me good enough, if 
they do me no harm : that's all I ask. Oh, 
how I am obliged to Almighty God that it has 
pleased him I should receive all I have imme- 
diately from his bounty, and that he has reserved 
all my obligation particularly to himself! How 
constantly do I beg of his holy compassion that 
I may never owe any essential thanks to any 
one ! O happy liberty wherein I have thus far 
lived ! May it continue with me to the last ! 
I endeavour to have no need of any one: In 
me omnis spes est mlhi ; 2 "All my hope is in 
myself;" 'tis what every one may do in him- 
self, but more easily they whom God has placed 
in a condition exempted from natural and urgent 
necessities. It is a wretched and dangerous 
thing to depend upon others. Ourselves, which 
is the most just and safest refuge, are not suffi- 
ciently assured. I have nothing mine but myself; 
and yet the possession is in part defective and 
borrowed. I fortify myself both in courage, 
which is the strongest assistant, and also in for- 
tune, therein to have wherewith to satisfy my- 
self, though every thing else should forsake me. 
Eleus Hippias 3 did not merely furnish himself 
with knowledge, that he might at need cheer- 
fully retire from all other company to enjoy the 
Muses; not merely with the knowledge of 
philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented 
with itself, and bravely to dispense With out- 
ward conveniences, when fate would have it 
so; he was moreover so careful as to learn 
cookery, to shave himself, to make his own 
clothes, his own shoes, and drawers, to provide 
for all his necessities in himself, and to make 
himself independent of the assistance of others. 
One more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed 
conveniences, when it is not an enjoyment forced 
and constrained by need ; and when one has in 
his own will and fortune wherewithal to live 
without them. I know myself very well, but 
'tis hard to imagine any so pure liberality of 
another towards me, any so free and frank 
hospitality, that would not appear to me a dis- 
grace, tyrannical, and tainted with reproach, if 
necessity had reduced me to it. As giving is 
an ambitious and authoritative quality, so is 
accepting a quality of submission ; witness the 



injurious and quarrelsome refusal that Bajazet 
made of the presents that Temir 4 sent him ; and 
those that were offered in the behalf of the 
Emperor Solyman to the Emperor of Calicut, 
were so much disdained by him, that he not 
only rudely rejected them, saying that neither 
he nor any of his predecessors had ever been 
wont to take, and that it was their office to 
give ; but moreover caused the ambassadors 
sent for that purpose to be put into a dungeon. 
When Thetis, says Aristotle, 5 flatters Jupiter, 
when the Lacedaemonians flatter the Athenians, 
they do not put them in mind of the good they 
have done them, which is always odious, but of 
the benefits they have received from them. 
Such as I see so frequently employ every one 
in their affairs, and thrust themselves into so 
much obligation, would never do it, did they 
but relish the sweetness of a pure liberty as I 
do, and did they but weigh, as wise men should, 
the burden of obligation ; 'tis sometimes, perhaps, 
fully returned, but 'tis never dissolved. "Pis a 
miserable slavery to a man that loves to be at 
full liberty in every way. My acquaintance, 
both those above and those below me, can say 
whether they have ever known a man less im- 
portuning, soliciting, entreating, and pressing 
upon others than I. And if I am a degree be- 
yond all modern example in this respect, 'tis no 
great wonder, so many parts of my manners 
contributing to it; a little natural pride, an im- 
patience of being refused, the contraction of my 
desires and designs, inaptitude for business, and 
my most beloved qualities, idleness and free- 
dom: by all these together, I have conceived a 
mortal hatred of being obliged to any other 
than myself. I readily lay out all I can rap 
and wring of my own, rather than employ the 
bounty of another, in any important or light 
occasion or necessity whatsoever. My friends 
strangely ann6y me when they ask me to ask 
a third person any thing; and I think it costs 
me little less to disengage him who is indebted 
to me, by making use of him, than to engage 
myself to one that owes me nothing. This 
condition being removed, and this other, that 
they require of me nothing of any great trouble 
or care (for I have declared open war against 
all trouble), I am easily entreated, and ready 
to do every one the best service I can. 6 But I 
have still more avoided receiving, than sought 
occasion of giving; and this, moreover, accord- 
ing to Aristotle, 7 is much more easy. My 
fortune has allowed me but little to do others 
good withal ; and the little it can afford is put 
into a pretty close hand. Had I been born a 
great person, I should have been ambitious to 
have made myself beloved, not feared or ad 
mired: shall I more impudently express it? 
should as much have endeavoured to please as 



1 JEneid, xii. 5)9. 

2 Terence, Melph. iii. 5, 9. The text has, In te apes om- 
nis, Hcgio. nobis situ est. 

^ Or rather, Hippias of Elis. See Cicero, de Oratore, 
iii. 3-2. 
* Timur, or Tamerlane. 



6 Ethics, iv. 3. See also, Homer, Iliad, i. 503. 

6 The edition of 1588 adds here: " I have ever willingly 
sought every occasion to do a kindness, and to attach 
others to me; and incthinks one cannot make a better use 
of the moans one lias : but I have still," &c. 

' Ethics, ix. 7. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



475 



to do good. Cyrus very wisely, and by the 
mouth of a great captain and still greater philo- 
sopher, 1 prefers his goodness and well-doing 
much before his valour and warlike conquests ; 
and the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise 
himself in people's esteem, sets a higher value 
upon his affability and humanity than on his 
prowess and victories, and has always this 
glorious saying in his mouth: "That he had 
given his enemies as much occasion to love him 
as his friends." I would say, then, that if a 
man must needs owe something, it ought to be 
by a more legitimate title than that whereof I 
am speaking, to which the necessity of this mi- 
serable war compels me; and not in so great a 
debt as that of my entire preservation ; this 
overwhelms me. 

I have a thousand times gone to bed in my 
own house, with an apprehension that I should 
be betrayed and murdered that very night; 
compounding with fortune that it might be 
without terror, and with quick dispatch; and 
after my paternoster have cried out, 

Impius hiec tam culta novalia miles habebit ? 2 
"Shall impious soldiers have these nevv-plough'd lands ?" 

But what remedy 1 'tis the place of my birth, 
and of most of my ancestors ; here they have 
fixed their affection and their name. We inure 
ourselves to whatever we are accustomed to ; 
and, in so miserable a condition as ours is, cus- 
tom is a great bounty of nature, which benumbs 
our senses to the sufferance of many evils. A 
civil war has this in it worse than other wars, 
to make each of us stand sentinel in his own 
house : 



'Tis a grievous extremity for a man to be jostled 
in what should be the quiet of his own house. 
The country where I live is always the first in 
arms, and the last that lays them down, and 
where there never is absolute peace : 



Turn quoqu 



pax est, trepidant formidine belli 



Cluoties pacom [brtmin lacessit, 
I' :u- iter est bellis • • - Melius, Fortuna, dedisses, 
Orhe sub Koo sedem, gelidatpie sub Arcto, 
Etraiitesque domns. 6 



"E'en when at peace, we're ever fearing war." 

" Klscwhere, when all 
The world's at peace, we are the spoil of war. 
The first that are invaded ; happier far 
Might we have lived in farthest north or east. 
Or wandering tents of Scythia." 

I sometimes extract the means to fortify myself 
against these considerations, from carelessness 
and indolence, which also in some sort bring us 
on to resolution. It frequently happens to me 
to imagine and expect mortal dangers with a 
kind of pleasure: I stupidly plunge myself 
headlong into death, 6 without considering or 
taking a view of it, as into a silent and obscure 
abyss, which swallows me up at one leap, and 
involves me in an instant in a profound sleep, 
without any sense of pain. And in these short 
and violent deaths, the consequence that I fore- 
see administers more consolation to me than the 
effect of fear. They say that as life is not the 
better for being long, so death is better for not 
being long. I do not so much evade being 
dead, as I enter into confidence with dying. I 
envelope and shelter myself in the storm, that 
is to blind and carry me away with fury, by a 
sudden and insensible attack. Moreover, what 
if it should fall out that, as some gardeners say, 
as roses and violets spring more odoriferous 
near garlic and onions, by reason that the last 
i suck and imbibe all the ill odour of the earth ; 
that these depraved natures should also attract 
all the malignity of my air and climate, and 
i render me so much the better and purer by their 
J vicinity, that I should not lose all ! That cannot 
be ; but there may be something in this, that 
| goodness is more beautiful and attractive when 
it is rare ; and that contrariety and diversity 
fortifies and shuts up well-doing within itself, 
and enfiames it by the jealousy of opposition 
and glory. The robbers, of their special favour 
have no particular aim at me ; no more have I 
to them: I should have my hands too full. 
Like consciences are lodged under several sorts 
of robes, like cruelty, disloyalty, and rapine; 
and much the worse and baser, as more secure 
and concealed under the colour of the laws. 
I less hate an open and professed injury than 
one that is clandestine and treacherous; an 
enemy in arms than an enemy in a gown. Our 
fever has seized upon a body that is not much 
the worse for it: there was fire before, and now 
'tis broke out into a flame. The noise is greater, 
the evil much the same. I generally answer 
such as ask me the reason of my travels : " That 



,60. 

I 25fi. 251, &c. 

ie Port Royal logic, pari iii. c. 20, sect. 

issago, are very indignant with Mon- 
th) n amidst the da nuers that surround- 
ehend the authors true meaning here, 



drend of seeing himself every moment at the 



'th-'sr> 



illai 



he 



bin 



hands, and fooling a kind of pleasure to be at last delivered 
thereby on a sudden from the continual anguish which ren- 
dered liis life insupportable. Full of these ideas, he stupidly 
plunges himself headlong, as be says, into death, without 
taking a view of it, as into a dark and deep mile v, v, huh 
swallows him up, &c. Which is as much as to say. that 
by taking his resolution he expects, when he least thinks 
of it, to be in that stale of surprise and horror from the 
barbarity of those villains, who shall conn- to knock him 
on the head, or cut his throat, before be has time to look 
about him. The images which Montaigne here make-- 11 -.- 
of are lively but innocent, and very natural, and such as 
no fair critic need find fault with.— Coste. 



476 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



I know very well what I fly from, but not what 
I seek." If they tell me I may be as ill among 
strangers, and that their manners are no better 
than ours, I first reply that that is hard to be 
believed, 

Tam multffi scelerum faciesl i 

"Crime in so many shapes abounds!" 

secondly, that it is always gain to change an 
ill condition for one that is uncertain; and that 
the ills of others ought not to concern us so 
much as our own. 

I will not here omit that I never mutiny so 
much against France, that I am 
Jai1on°Tparifi. not perfectly friends with Paris; 
that city has ever had my heart 
from my infancy; and it has fallen out, as of 
excellent things, that the more beautiful cities 
I have seen since, the more the beauty of this 
does still win upon my affection : I love it by 
itself, and more in its own native being, than 
in all the pomp of foreign embellishments: I 
love it tenderly, even to its warts and blemishes: 
I am not a Frenchman but by this great city, 
great in people, great in the felicity of her 
situation, but, above all, great and incomparable 
in variety and diversity of commodities: the 
glory of Franee, and one of the most noble 
ornaments of the world. May God keep her 
free from our divisions, entire and united ! I 
hold her to be sufficiently defended from all 
other violence: I give her caution, that of all 
sorts of parties that will be the worst that shall 
set her in disorder; and I have no fears for her but 
from herself; and certainly I have as much fear 
for her as for any other part of this state. 
Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a 
retreat where I may live, sufficient to make me 
amends for parting with any other retreat what- 
ever. 

Not because Socrates said so, but because it 
is in truth my own humour, and perhaps not 
without some excess, I look upon 
Montaigne a \\ men as mv compatriots; and 

S,,hL embrace a Polander as heartily 
countrymen. as a Frenchman, preferring the 
universal and common tie to the 
national tie. I am not much taken with the 
sweetness of a native air: acquaintance wholly 
new, and wholly my own, appear to me full as 
good as common and accidental ones with our 
neighbours: friendships that are purely of our 
own acquiring, ordinarily carry it above those 
to which the communication of the clime, or of 
blood, oblige us. Nature has placed us in the 
world free and unbound ; we imprison ourselves 
in certain narrow limits, like the kings of 
Persia, who obliged themselves to drink no 
other water but that of the river Choaspes, 2 
foolishly quitting claim to their right of usage 
of all other streams, and as to what concerned 
themselves, dried up all the other rivers of the 



i Virgil. Ocorg. i. 506. 

3 Plutarch, On Exile. jElian, Hist. Var. xi.. 40. Pliny, 
ixxi. 3. a JEneid. vi. 114. 



world. What Socrates says towards his end, 
that he looked upon a sentence of banishment 
as worse than a sentence of death, I shall, I 
think, never be either so broken, or so strictly 
habituated to my own country, to be of that 
opinion: these celestial lives have images 
enough, that I embrace more by esteem than 
affection ; and they have some also so elevated 
and extraordinary, that I cannot embrace them 
even by esteem, forasmuch as I cannot conceive 
them : this humour was very tender in a man 
that thought the whole world was his city ; it 
is true that he disdained travel, and had hardly 
ever set his foot out of the Attic territories. 
That he complained of the money his friends 
offered to save his life, and that he refused 
to come out of prison by the mediation 
of others, not to disobey the laws, in a time 
when they were otherwise so corrupt : these 
examples are of the first kind for me ; of the 
second there are others that I could find in 
the same person : many of these rare examples 
surpass the force of my action; but some of 
them, moreover, surpass the force of my judg- 
ment. 

Besides these reasons, travel is, in my 
opinion, a very improving thing: the soul is 
there continually employed in observing new 
and unknown things; and I do not know, as I 
have often said, a better school wherein to 
model life, than by constantly setting before it 
the diversity of so many other lives, fancies, and 
customs, and to make it relish so perpetual a 
variety of the forms of human nature. The 
body is therein neither idle nor overwrought; 
and that moderate agitation puts it in breath. I 
can keep on horseback, tormented with the stone 
as I am, without alighting or being weary, eight 
or ten hours together, 

Vires ultra sortemque senectse : s 
" Beyond tlie strength and common lot of age :" 

no season is distasteful to me, but the parching 
heat of a scorching sun; for the umbrellas 
made use of in Italy, ever since the time of the 
ancient Romans, more burden a man's arm than 
they relieve his head. I would fain know what 
plan the Persians had so long ago, and in 
the infancy of luxury, for creating fresh air, 
and having shade where they would, as Xeno- 
phon reports they did. I love rain and dirt, 
like a duck. Change of air and climate never 
affects me; every sky is alike: I am only 
troubled with inward alterations, which I breed 
within myself, and those are not so frequent in 
travel. I am hard to be got out; but being 
once upon the road, I hold out as well as the 
best: I take as much pains in little as in great 
undertakings, and to equip myself for a short 
trip, if but to visit a neighbour, as for a regular 
journey. I have learned to travel 
after the Spanish fashion, and to ™e Spanish^ 
make but one stage of my day's ii„ g . 
journey; and in excessive heats, 
I always travel by night, from sun-set to sun- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



477 



rise. The other method of baiting by the way, 
in haste and hurry gobbling up a dinner, is, es- 
pecially in short days, very inconvenient. My 
horses are all the better for it : never any horse 
failed me that was able to hold out the first 
day's journey : I water them at every brook I 
meet, and have only a care they have so much 
way to go before I come to my inn, as will warm 
the water in their bellies. My unwillingness 
to rise in a morning gives my servants leisure 
to dine at their ease before they set out: for my 
own part, I never eat too late; my appetite 
comes to me while eating, and not otherwise; 
I am never hungry but at table. 

Some of my friends blame me for continuing 
this travelling humour, being married and old: 
but they are out there; for it is the best time to 
leave a man's house, when he has put it into a 
way of going on without him, and settled such 
an economy as corresponds to its former govern- 
ment; 'tis much greater imprudence to abandon 
it to a less faithful housekeeper, and who will 
be less solicitous to provide for the family, and 
look after your affairs. 

The most usei'ul and honourable knowledge 
and employment for the mother 
of a family, is the science of good 
housewifery. I see some that are 
covetous, but very few that are 
economical ; 'tis the supreme 
quality of a woman, and what a 
man ought to seek after before 
any other, as the only dowry that must ruin or 
preserve our houses. Let men say what they 
will, according to the experience I have learned, 
I require in married women the economical vir- 
tue above all others: I put my wife to't as a 
concern of her own, leaving her by my absence 
the whole government of my affairs. I see, and 
am vexed to see it, in several families I know, 
monsieur, about midday, come home all dirt and 
disorder, from trotting about on his affairs; 
when madame is still pouncing and tricking 
herself up in her closet: this is for queens to 
do, and that's a question too : 'tis ridiculous and 
unjust that the laziness of our wives should be 
maintained with our sweat and labour. No 
man, as much as in me lies, shall have a more 
free and liberal, a more quiet and free fruition 
of his estate than I. If the husband bring mat- 
ter, nature herself will that the wife find the 
form. 

As to the duties of conjugal friendship, that 

some think to be weakened by 

•pi.' conjugal absence, I am quite of another 

friendship ■ ■ T . - * ., 

grows vvarin by opinion. It is, on the contrary, 
aisuuee. an intelligence that easily cools 

by too continual and assiduous 
exercise. Every other woman appears graceful, 
and we all find by experience that being con- 
tinually together is not so pleasant as to part 



The most use- 
ful anrl the 
most honour- 
able accom- 
plishment of a 
mother of a 
family. 



> The example of the finger stretched out is in Plutarch, 
On the Common Conceptions of the Stoics ; but as to the eco- 
nomical arrangement fur feeding two persons on oneman'fi 
meal, it is apparently a fancy of Montaigne's own. 



for a time and meet again. These interruptions 
give me renewed affection for my family, and 
render my own house more agreeable to me: 
change warms my appetite, now to the one and 
now to the other. 1 know that the arms of 
friendship are long enough to reach from one 
end of the world to the other, and especially 
this, where there is a continual communication 
of offices, that rouse the obligation and remem- 
brance. The Stoics say, indeed, that there is 
so great connexion and relation amongst wise 
men, that he who dines in France nourishes his 
companion in Egypt; and that whoever does 
but hold out his finger, in what part of the world 
soever, all the wise men upon the habitable 
earth feel themselves assisted by it. 1 Fruition 
and possession principally appertain to the ima- 
gination : it more fervently and constantly em- 
braces what it is in quest of, than, what we hold 
in our arms. Let a man but consider, and cast 
up his daily thoughts, and he will find that he 
is most absent from his friend when in his com- 
pany : his presence relaxes your attention, and 
gives your thoughts liberty to absent themselves, 
at every turn and upon every occasion. When 
I am at Rome, I keep and govern my house, 
and the conveniences I there left; I see my 
walls rise, my trees shoot, and my revenue in- 
crease or decrease, very near as well as when 
I am at home: 

Ante oculos errat domus, errat forma locorum.* 



If we enjoy nothing but what we touch, we may 
say farewell to the money in our closets, and to 
our sons, when they are gone a hunting. We 
will have them nearer to us. Are they in the 
garden] Is that far off] Is it half a day's 
journey] Is it ten leagues] Is that far or 
near] If near, what is eleven, twelve, or thir- 
teen] and so by degrees. In earnest, if there 
be a woman who can tell her husband what step 
ends the near, and what step begins the remote, 
I would advise her to stop him between them ; 

Excludat jurgia finis .... 
(Jtor permisso; cauda-que pilos ut equinae 
Paulatim vello, et demo uuum. demo etiam unum, 
Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi; 3 

'•I take the grant, and by degrees prevail 
(For hair by hair I pull the horse's tail). 
And while I take them year by year away, 
Their subtle heaps of arguments decay;" 

and let them boldly call philosophy to their 
assistance ; in whose teeth it may be cast that 
seeing it neither discerns the one nor the other 
end of the junction between the too much and 
the too little, the long and the short, the light 
and the heavy, the near and remote; that 
seeing it discovers neither the beginning nor 
the end, it must needs judge very uncertainly of 



> Ovid, TrisL iii. 4. 7. 

' Horace, Epist. ii. i. 38, and 45. 



478 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



the middle : Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit 
cognitionem finium. 1 " Nature has given us 
no knowledge of the limits of things." Are 
they not still wives and friends to the dead, 
who are not at the end of this, but in the other 
world ] We embrace not only the absent, but 
those who have been, and those who are not 
yet. We do not promise in marriage to be 
continually linked together, like some little 
animals that we see, or like those of Karenty 
that are bewitched, tied together like dogs: 2 
and a wife ought not to be so greedily ena- 
moured of her husband's fore-parts that she 
cannot endure to see him turn his back, if 
occasion be. But may not this saying of that 
excellent painter of woman's humours, be here 
introduced, to show the reason of their com- 
plaints 1 

Uxor, si cesses, ant te amare cogitat, 

Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi; 

Et tibi bene esse soli, cum sibi sit male ; 3 

"Thy wife, if thou stav'st long abroad, is mov'd, 
Thinking thou either lov'st, or art belov'd ; 
Drinking, or something else, thyself to please, 
And that thou'rt well, while she is ill at ease ;" 

or may it not be, that, of itself, opposition and 
contradiction support and nourish them; and 
that they sufficiently accommodate themselves, 
provided they incommode you 1 

la true friendship, wherein I am skilled, I 
more give myself to my friend than I attract 
him to me. I am not only better pleased in 
doing him service, than if he conferred a benefit 
upon me ; but, moreover, had rather he should 
do himself good than me ; and he most obliges 

me when he does so. And if 
tiie 'absence 'of aDsence De either more pleasant 
a friend is. or convenient for him, 'tis also 

more acceptable to me, than his 
presence ; neither is it properly absence, when 
we can write to one another. I have often 
made good use of our separation for a time; 
we better filled and further extended the pos- 
session of life in being parted; he 4 lived, re- 
joiced, and saw for me, and I for him, as plainly 
as if he had himself been there ; one part of us 
remained idle when we were together; we be- 
came confounded : the distance of place rendered 
the conjunction of our wills more rich. This 
insatiable desire of personal presence a little 
implies weakness in the fruition of souls. 



1 Cicero, Acad. ii. 29. 

a It is Saxo Grammaticus that has left us the story of 
these hag-ridden creatures, in the fourteenth book of his 
History of Denmark; where, speaking of the conversion of 
the people of Rugen. an island in the liaitic, lie savs (hat 
the inhabitants of Karantia, or Kerantia, one of their 
towns, after having renounced their worship of idols, were 
nevertheless still afraid of their power, remembering how 
often they had been punished fur their lewdness, "when 
both sexes were tied together in the action, after the man- 
ner of dogs, and even faster. Sometimes, when they were 
taken in the fact, they were, fur the diversion of the people, 
hoisted upon a perch, the man on one side and the woman 
on the other, without being able to separate. If this fact 
was true, one could hardly help inferring that the devil 
was at that time much more severe or more mischievous 
than he is now. 

'■> Terence, Melph. i. 1. 7. 

i La Boetie. 



As to age, which is alleged against me, 'tis 
quite contrary; 'tis for youth to 
subject itself to common opinions, Whether old 
and to curb itself to please others; %£%£ £ 
it has wherewithal to please both veiling, 
the people and itself; we have 
but too much ado to please ourselves alone. As 
natural conveniences fail, let us supply them 
with those that are artificial. 'Tis injustice to 
excuse youth for pursuing its pleasures, and to 
forbid old men to seek them. When young, I 
concealed my wanton passions with prudence ; 
now I am old, I chase away melancholy by de- 
bauch. 5 And thus do the Platonic laws 6 forbid 
travel till forty or fifty years old, that men's 
travels might be more useful and instructive in 
so mature an age. I should sooner subscribe to 
the second article of the laws, which forbids it 
after threescore. 

"But at such an age, you will never return 
from so long a journey." What care I for 
that] I neither undertake it to return from 
nor to finish it; my business is only to keep 
myself in motion whilst motion pleases me, and 
only journey for the journey's sake. They 
who hunt after a benefice or a hare run not; 
they only run that run at base, and to exer- 
cise their running. My design is divisible 
throughout; it is not grounded upon any 
great hopes; every day is complete in itself; 
and the journey of my life is carried on after 
the same manner. And yet I have seen places 
enough a great way off, where I could have 
wished to have been stayed. And why not, if 
Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, Anti- 
pater, so many sages of the sourest sect, cheer- 
fully abandoned their country, 7 without occasion 
of complaint, and only for the enjoyment of 
another air? In truth, that which most dis- 
pleases me in all my travels is that I cannot 
resolve to settle my abode where I should best 
like, but that I must always propose to myself 
to return, to accommodate myself to the com- 
mon humour. 

If I feared to die in any other place than that 
of my birth ; if I thought I should 
die more uneasily remote from my Montaigne pre- 



out fear step out of my parish ; I and why. 
feel death always twitching me 



5 " This word debauch" observes M. Coste, " must be 
taken in a moderate sense, and as such is suitable to Mon- 
taigne's genius and character, and to the subject he here 
treats of: that is to say, to his passion for travel, which he 
is pleased to term a debauch, by an excursion which is very 
common to him. There is scarce any writer who has more 
need than Montaigne of a judicious reader, and one, espe- 
cially, that is fair"and candid, (lis style, which abounds 
with bold expressions and figures, is very likely to deceive 
a cavilling censor, or to give a handle to those ill-natured 
critics who, without regard to truth, boldly censure the 
most innocent expressions, when they think they can re- 
present them to other persons in a criminal light." 

« Plato, Laws, xii. 

' Chrysippus was of Soles, Cleanthes of Assos, Diogenes 
of Itahylon, Zeno of Citium in the isle of Cyprus, Antipa- 
ter of Tarsus, all Stoic philosophers, who passed their lives 
at Athens, as Plutarch has observed in his Treatise of 
Banis/imcut. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



479 



by the throat or by the back. But I am of 
another temper ; 'tis in all places alike tome. 
Yet, might I have my choice, I think I should 
rather choose to die on horse back than in a bed, 
out of my own house, and far from my own 
people. There is more of heart-breaking' than 
consolation in taking leave of one's friends : I 
am willing to omit that civility; for that, of all 
the offices of friendship, is the only one that is 
unpleasant; and I could with all my heart dis- 
pense with that great and eternal larewell. If 
there be any convenience in so many standers 
by, it brings a hundred inconveniences along 
with it. I have seen many miserably dying, 
surrounded with all this train; 'tis a crowd 
that chokes them. 'Tis against duty, and a 
testimony of little kindness and little care, to 
permit you to die in repose : one torments your 
eyes, another afflicts your ears, another your 
tongue ; you have no sense or member that is 
not teased by them. Your heart is wounded 
with compassion to hear the mourning of your 
real friends ; and, perhaps, with spite, to hear 
the counterfeit condolings of those who only 
pretend and make a show of being so. Who- 
ever has been delicate that way when well, is 
much more so in his illness ; in such a necessity 
a tender hand is required, accommodated to his 
sentiments, to scratch him just in the place 
where he itches, or not to meddle with him at 
all. If we stand in need of a wise woman' to 
bring us into the world, we have need of a wiser 
man to help us out of it. Such a one, and a 
friend to boot, a man ought to purchase at any 
rate for such an occasion. I am not yet arrived 
at such a pitch of vigour as to be able so to 
fortify myself in my own strength that nothing 
can assist or offend me; I have not brought 
myself to that; I endeavour to evade hidingly, 
and to escape from this passage, not from fear, 
but from art. I do not intend, in this act of 
dying, to muster up and make a show of my 
constancy. For whom should I do it? All the 
right and title I have to reputation will then 
cease. I content myself with a death collected 
within itself, quiet, solitary, all my own, suit- 
able to my retired and private life; quite con- 
trary to the Roman superstition, where a man 
was looked upon as unhappy who died without 
speaking, and that had not his nearest relations 
to close his eyes. I have enough to do to com- 
fort myself, without having to console others; 
thoughts enough in my head, not to need that 
circumstances should possess me with new; and 
matter enough to occupy myself withal with- 
out borrowing. This critical minute is out of 
the part, of society ; 'tis the act of one single 
person. Let us live and be merry amongst our 
friends; let us go die, and be sullen amongst 
strangers; a man may find those for his money 
will shift his pillow and rub his feet, and will 
trouble him no more than he would have them; 
who will present him with an indifferent coun- 

' Sage-femme, a midwife. 



tenance and suffer him to govern himself; and 
to complain according to his own method. 

I wean myself daily, by reason, from this 
childish and inhuman humour of desiring by 
our sufferings to move the compassion and 
mournings of our friends: we set forth our 
discomforts beyond their just weight, in order 
to extract tears from them, and the constancy 
which we commend in every one in supporting 
his own adverse fortune, we accuse and reproach 
in our friends, when the case is our own ; we 
are not satisfied that they should be sensible of 
our condition only, unless they be moreover 
afflicted. A man should publish and commu- 
nicate his joy, but, as much as he can, conceal 
and smother his grief. He that makes himself 
pitied without reason, is a man not to be 
pitied when there shall be real cause : to be 
always complaining is the way never to get 
sympathy; by making himself out always so 
miserable, he is never commiserated by any. He 
that makes himself dead when living, is subject 
to be held as though alive when he is dying. 
I have seen some take it ill, when they 
have been told that they looked well, and 
that their pulse was temperate; contain their 
smiles, because they betrayed a recovery, and 
be angry at their health because it did not call 
forth pity : and, which is a great deal more, 
they were not women either. I describe my 
infirmities at most, such as they 
are, and avoid all expression of ill j^Jop'J^at^ 
prognostic and made-up exclama- sick persons. 
tions. If not mirth, at least a tem- 
perate countenance in the standers by, is proper 
in the presence of a wise sick man; he does 
not quarrel with health, for seeing himself in 
a contrary condition; he is pleased to contem- 
plate it sound and entire in others, and at 
least to enjoy it for company : he does not, for 
feeling himself melt away, abandon all thoughts 
of life, nor avoid to discourse of ordinary and 
indifferent things. I would study sickness 
whilst T am well ; when it has seized me, it will 
make its impression real enough, without the 
help of my imagination. Vv^e prepare ourselves 
beforehand for the journeys we undertake and 
resolve upon; we leave the appointment of the 
hour when to take horse to the company, and 
in their favour defer it, 

I find this unexpected advantage in the pub- 
lication of my manners, that it in some sort 
serves me for a rule: I have every now and 
I then consideration of not betraying or falsifying 
: the history of my life; this public declaration 
obliges me to keep my way, and not to give 
the lie to the picture I have drawn of my quali- 
ties, commonly less deformed and contradictory 
than the malignity and infirmity of the judg- 
ments of this age would have thorn. The uni- 
formity and simplicity of my manners produce 
a face of easy interpretation; but because the 
fashion is a little new, and not in use, it gives 
too great opportunity to slander. Yet so it is, 
that whoever will go about justly to condemn 



480 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



me, I do think I so sufficiently assist his 
malice in my known and avowed imperfections, 
that he may in that way satisfy his ill-nature, 
without fighting with the wind. If I myself, 
to prevent this accusation and discovery, confess 
enough to frustrate his malice, as he conceives, 
'tis but reason that he make use of his right of 
amplification and extension ; offence has a right 
beyond justice; and let him make the roots of 
those errors I have laid open to him, shoot up 
into trees and branches: let him make his use 
not only of those I am really infected with,, but 
also of those that only threaten me, injurious 
vices both in quality and number; let him 
cudgel me that way. I should willingly fol- 
low the example of the philosopher Bion : — 
Antigonus sought to annoy him by reproaching 
him with the meanness of his birth; he pre- 
sently cut him short with this declaration: "I 
am," said he, " the son of a slave, a butcher, 
and stigmatized, and of a whore, my father 
married in the lowest of his fortune ; both of 
them were whipped for offences they had com- 
mitted. An orator bought me when a child, 
finding me a pretty and hopeful boy, and when 
he died left me all his estate, which I have 
transported into this city of Athens, and here 
settled myself to the study of philosophy. Let 
the historians never trouble themselves with 
inquiry after me ; I tell them what I am." ' A 
free and generous confession enervates reproach, 
and disarms slander. So it is that, one thing 
with another, I fancy men as often commend 
as undervalue me beyond reason: as methinks, 
also, from my infancy, in rank and degree of 
honour, they have given me a place rather 
above than below my right. I should find 
myself more at ease in a country where these 
degrees were either regulated or not regarded. 
Amongst men, when the difference about the 
precedency either of walking or sitting, exceeds 
three replies, 'tis uncivil. I never stick at 
giving and taking place out of rule, to avoid the 
trouble of ceremony, and never any man had a 
mind to go before me, but I permitted him to do it. 
Besides the profit I make of writing of my- 
self, I have also hoped for this other advantage, 
that if it should fall out that my humour should 
please or jump with those of some honest man, 
before I die, he would desire and seek to be 
acquainted with me, and come to me. I have 
given him a great deal of space ; for all that he 
could have in many years acquired by a lono- 
familiarity he has seen in three days' in this 
register, and more surely and exactly set 
down. A pleasant fancy ! many things that 
I would not confess to any one in particular, 
I deliver to the public ; and send my best friends 
to a bookseller's shop, there to inform them- 
i concerning my most secret thoughts : 

Excutienda damus precordial 
My entrails I lay open to men's view." 



: Could I, by good tokens, know where to seek 
■ any one proper for my conversation, I would 
! certainly go a great way to find him out ; for 
j the sweetness of suitable and agreeable com- 
pany cannot, in my opinion, be 
! bought too dear. Oh! what a Jj££ g "™™ and 
! thing is a friend ! How true is friend is. 
| that old saying, " That the use 
' of a friend is more pleasing and necessary than 
: the elements of water and fire !" 3 

To return to my subject, there is, then, no 
great harm in dying apart, and far from home; 
| we conceive ourselves obliged to retire for 
j natural actions less unseemly and less terrible 
I than this. But, moreover, such as are reduced 
| to spin out a long and languishing life, ought 
| not perhaps to wish to trouble a large family 
with their continual miseries. Therefore the 
j Indians, in a certain province, thought it just 
to knock a man on the head, when reduced to 
such a necessity ; and in another of their pro- 
I vinces they all forsook him, to shift for himself 
J as well as he could. To whom do they not at 
! last become tedious and insupportable] The 
[common offices do not go so far. You teach 
your best fiiends to be cruel perforce ; hardening 
i both wife and children, by long custom, not to 
! pity or even feel your sufferings. The groans 
! forced from me by the stone are grown so fami- 
I liar to my people, that nobody takes any more 
notice of them. And though we should extract 
| some pleasure from their conversation, which 
does not always happen, by reason of the dis- 
parity of conditions, which easily begets con- 
tempt, or envy toward any one whatever, is it 
not too much to be troublesome all the days of 
a man's life 1 The more I should see them con- 
strain themselves out of affection for me, the 
more I should be sorry for their pains. We 
have liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole 
weight upon others, so as to prop ourselves by 
their ruin, like him who caused little children's 
throats to be cut, to make use of their blood for 
the cure of a certain disease he had ; or that 
other, who was continually supplied with ten- 
der young girls, to keep his old limbs warm in 
the night, and to mix the sweetness of theirs 
with his sour and stinking breath. Decrepitude 
is a solitary quality. I am sociable even to 
excess; and I think it reasonable that I should 
j now withdraw my troubles from the sight of 
the world, and keep them to myself; let me 
shrink and draw up myself in some shell like a 
tortoise ; let me learn to see men without hang- 
ing upon them. I should endanger them in so 
j steep a passage ; 'tis now time to turn my back 
to company. 

" But in so long a journey you may be sur- 
prised with sickness in some wretched place, 
where nothing can be had to re- ., , . . 

,. „ ? i . Montaigne s 

heve you. I always carry most preparations 

things necessary about me; and with a view to 

we cannot evade this for- eath " 



* Cicero, de Amicit. c. 5. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



481 



tune, if she once resolve to attack us. I need 
nothing extraordinary when I am sick : I will 
not be beholden to a bolus to do that for me I leave nothing to be desired or guessed at con 



/hich nature cannot. At the very beginning 
of my fevers and the sickness that cast me 
down, whilst entire and but little disordered 
in health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God 
by the last Christian offices, and find myself by 



cerning me. If people must be talking of me, 
I would have it to be justly and truly. I would 
come again with all my heart from the other 
world, to give any one the lie that should re- 
port me other than I was, though he did it to 



so doing less oppressed and more easy, and honour me. I perceive that people represent 



even living men quite another thing than 
what they really are; and had I not stoutly 
defended a friend whom I have lost, 3 they 
would have torn him into a thousand different 
pieces. 

To conclude the acount of my frail humours, 



have got, methinks, so much the better of my 
disease. I have still less need of a scrivener, or 
counsellor, than of a physician. What I have 
not settled of my affairs when I was in health, 
let no one expect I should do it when I am 
sick. What I will do for the service of death, 

is always ready done ; I durst not so much as I confess that, in my travels, I 
one day defer it;' and if nothing be done, 'tis' seldom get to my inn but that it what i.na 01 
as much as to say, either that doubt hindered ; comes into my mind to consider i is | le d best, 
my choice (and sometimes 'tis well chosen not whether I could there be sick and 
to choose), or that I was positively resolved not die at m y ease. l wou d be lod S ed in some 
to do any thin"' at all ! convenient part of the house, remote from all 

I write my°book for few men, and for few i n°«*. 'J 1 scents > ? nd smoke • l endeavour to 
years. Had it been matter of duration, I should flatter death b / these frivolous circumstances, 
have put it into a better language. According or rather to ^charge myself from all other 
to the continual variation that ours has been incumbrances, that I may have nothing to do but 
subject to hitherto, who can expect that the to walt *; Jt Wl11 lle heavy enough upon me, 



present form should be in use fifty years hence 1 
It slips every day through our fingers, and 
since I was born is altered above one half. 
We say that it is now perfect : every age says 
the same of the language it speaks: I shall 
hardly trust to that, so long as it runs away and 
changes as it does. 

'Tis for good and useful writings to nail and 
rivet it to them, and its reputation will go ac- 
cording to the fortune of our state. For which 
reason I am not afraid to insert herein several 
private articles, which will spend their use 
amongst the men that are now living, and that 
concern the particular knowledge of some, who 



without any other load. I would have my 
death share in the ease and comfort of my life ; 
'tis a great part of it, and of the greatest im- 
portance, and I hope it will not contradict what 
went before it. Death hath some forms that 
are more easy than others, and receives diverse 
qualities, according to every one's fancy. 
Amongst the natural ones, those that proceed 
from weakness and insensibility I think the most 
favourable ; amongst those that are violent, I 
can worse endure to think of a precipice than 
the fall of a house, that will crush me flat in a 
moment; and a wound with a sword than a 
harquebuss shot ; and should rather have chosen 



will see further into them than the common I t0 P olson m y self wlth Socrates than stab myself 
reader. I will not, after all, as I often hear! wlth Cat °; and > though * be the same thing, 
dead men spoken of, that men should say of yet my imagination makes as great a difference 

as betwixt death and life, betwixt throwing 
myself into a burning furnace, and plunging 
into the channel of a river. So idly does our 
fear more concern itself in the means than the 
effect : it is but an instant, 'tis true, but 'tis 
withal an instant of such weight, that I would 
willingly give a great many days of my life to 
pass it over after my own fashion. Since every 
one's imagination renders it more or less terrible, 
and since every one has some choice amongst 
the several forms of dying, let us try a little 
further to find 6ome one that is wholly clear 
from all offence. Might not one render it more- 
over voluptuous, as the Commorientes of Antony 
and Cleopatra? 4 I leave aside the brave and 



me, "He judged and lived so and so; he 
would have done this or that. Could he have 
spoken when he was dying, he would have said 
so or so, and have given this thing or the other. 
I knew him better than any." Now, as much 
as decency permits, I here discover my inclina- 
tions and affections; but I do it more willingly 
and freely by word of mouth, to any one who 
desires to be informed. So it is, that in these 
memoirs, if any observe, he will find that I 
have either told or designed to tell all. What 
I cannot express, I point out with my finger ; 

Vertim animo satis htcc vestigia parva sagaci 
Sunt, per qua; possis cognoscere camera tute. a 



'What Montaigne here savs is fullv confirmed by an 
anecdote related by Bernard Anthnne, in his Commnitaire 
tur la Coulumc de. Bordeaux:— -"The late Montaigne," he 
says, "author of the F,«snvs, feeling Hie approach ot death, 
got out of bed in his shin, and i < 1 1 1 1 i 1 1 <r on his dressing- 
gown, opened the door of his chamber, and calling all his 
servants, and others to whom he had left legacies, together, 
paid Hem tin; sums he had respectively bequeathed them in 



a I.ucret., i. 403. 

> La Boelie. See boon i. chap. 27, On Friendship. 

* Commorientes was the title of a comedy that Planum 
imitated from the XvvaTtoOvnaKovTcs of Diphilus. (Terence, 
jhUlph. /ico/.verse?) Moiitnigm- alludes to the brother 
hood of the Synapntanoumenes. a band of those that would 
die together, formed by Antony and Cleopatra, alter the 



turning the a 

41 



ifiiculty they might have in ob- i battle of Actium. Bee Plutarch, Life tf Antony, k. 15. 
his heirs." , 

2r 



482 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



exemplary efforts produced by philosophy and 
religion ; but amongst men of little note, such as 
a Petronius and a Tigillinus at Rome, 1 condemned 
to dispatch themselves, who have, as it were, 
rocked death asleep with the delicacy of their 
preparations; they have made it slip and steal 
away in the height of their accustomed diver- 
sions, amongst wenches and good fellows ; not 
a word of consolation, no mention of making a 
will, no ambitious affectation of firmness, no 
talk of their future condition; amidst sports, 
feasts, wit, and mirth, common and indifferent 
discourses, music, and amorous verses. Were 
it not possible for us to imitate this resolution 
after a more decent manner] Since there are 
deaths that are fit for fools and fit for the wise, 
let us find out such as are fit for those who are 
betwixt both. My imagination suggests to me 
one that is easy, and since we must die, to be 
desired. The Roman tyrants thought they did 

in a manner give a criminal life, 
dyin *eft n t e o wh en they gave him a choice of 
the choice of his death. But was not Theo- 
criminaisby phrastus, that so delicate, so 
tne tj rants. l . ' , . , ., ', 

modest, and so wise philosopher, 
compelled by reason, when he durst repeat 
this verse, thus translated by Cicero: 

Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia. 2 
" Fortune, not wisdom, human life doth sway." 

Fortune is assisting to the facility of the bargain 
of my life, having placed it in such a condition 
that for the future it can be neither advantage 
or hindrance to those that are concerned in me. 
'Tis a condition that I would have accepted at 
any time of my age; but in this occasion of 
trussing up my baggage, I am particularly 
pleased, that in dying I shall neither do them 
pleasure nor displeasure ; she has so ordered it, 
by a cunning compensation, that they who may 
pretend to any considerable advantage by my 
death, will at the same time sustain a material 
loss. Death sometimes is more grievous to us, 
in that it is grievous to others, and interests us 
in their interest as much as in our own, and 
sometimes more. 

In this conveniency of lodging that I desire, 
I mix nothing of pomp and splendour, I hate it 
rather; but a certain plain neatness, which is 
often found in places where there is less of art, 
and that nature has adorned with some grace 
that is all her own : Non ampliter, sed mun- 
diter cnnvivium ,• plus salis, quam sumptus. 
"A repast where neatness reigns, not abun- 
dance; pleasure, not expense." And, besides, 
'tis for those whose affairs compel them to 
travel in the depth of winter through the Gri- 
sons, to be surprised upon the way with great 
inconveniences. I, who for the most part travel 



i Tacitus, Jlnnal. xvi. ]9. 

■> Cicero, Tusc. Qnms, v. 9. 

3 " Nous ne vovaseons pdint tristement assis et comme 
cinprisonncs dans une petite cacrebien fermee • - On observe 
le pays ; on se detourne a droite, a gauche ; on examine 



for my pleasure, do not order mv 
affairs so ill. If the way be bad ®£^Ld£. 
on my right hand, I turn on my 
left; if I find myself unfit to ride, I stay where 
I am ; and proceeding thus, in truth, I see 
nothing that is not as pleasant and commodious 
as my own house. 'Tis true that I always find 
superfluity superfluous, and observe a kind of 
trouble even in abundance itself. Have I left 
any thing behind me unseen, I go back to see 
it; 'tis still my way; I trace no certain line, 
either straight or crooked. 3 Do I not find in 
the place to which T go what was reported to 
me (as it oft falls out that the judgments of 
others do not jump with mine, and that I have 
found those reports for the most part false) 1 I 
never complain of losing my labour; I have 
informed myself that what was told me was not 
true. 

T have a constitution of body as free, and a 
palate as indifferent, as any man living; the 
diversities of fashions of divers nations no further 
concern me than by the pleasure of variety : 
every custom has its reason. Let the plate and 
dishes be pewter, wood, or earth, my meat be 
boiled or roasted, let them give me butter or 
oil, nuts or olives, hot or cold, 'tis all one to 
me; indeed, so much so, that, growing old, I 
accuse this generous faculty, and have neei" 
that delicacy and choice should correct the in 
discretion of my appetite, and sometimes relieve 
my stomach. When I have been abroad out of 
France, and the people out of civility have 
asked me if I would be served after the French 
manner, I laughed at the question, and always 
frequented tables the most filled with foreign- 
ers. I am ashamed to see my countrymen 
besotted with this foolish humour of quarrel- 
ling with forms contrary to their own ; they 
seem to be out of their element when out of 
their own village; wherever they go they 
keep strictly to their own fashions, and abo- 
minate those of strangers. Do they meet with 
a countryman in Hungary 1 Oh, the happy 
adventure ! They are thenceforward insepar- 
able; they cling together, and their whole 
discourse is to condemn the barbarous manners 
they see there ; and why not barbarous, since 
they are not French 1 And those have made 
the best use of their travels who have observed 
most to speak against; for most of them go 
for no other end but to return; they proceed 
in their travel with great gravity and circum- 
spection, with a silent and incommunicable 
prudence, preserving themselves from the 
contagion of an unknown air. What I am 
saying of them puts me in mind of some- 
thing" like it: I have observed in some of our 
young courtiers, they will not mix with any 
but men of their own sort, and look upon 



tout ce qui Matte; on s'arrete a tous les points de vues. 
A perr.nisje une riviere? Je la cotoie; line bois toiiffu? Je 
vais sous son ombre - - - Je n'ai pas besnin de choisir les 
chemins lout faits, les routes commodes; je passe partout 
ou mi liomir.e peut passer." Rousseau, Entile, liv. v. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



us as men of another world, with disdain or 



and troublesome company. Aristippus loved to 



live as a stranger in all places : 

paterentur duccre vitam 

would so propitious be, 
it my own liberty," 

I should choose to pass away the greatest part 



Visere gestiens. 
Qua parte dehacchentur ignes, 
Qua nebula, pluviique rores.5 



: sub pectore flxa ? 6 



pity. Put them upon any discourse but the 
intrigues of the Court, and they are utterly at 
a loss, as very owls and novices to us as we 
are to them. 'Tis truly said, that a well-bred 
man is of a compound education. I, for my 
part, travel very much sated with our own 
fashions; not to look for Gascons in Sicily, 

I have left them at home: I rather seek for ~ f ~ ^y "life ion i horseback, 
Greeks and Persians; they are the men I 
endeavour to be acquainted with, and the men 
I study ; 'tis there that I bestow and employ 
myself; and, which is more, I fancy that I 
have met with but few customs that are not as 
good as our own: I have not, I confess, tra- 
velled very far; scarce out of the sight of the I "Have you not more easy diversions at home? 
vanes of my own house. j What do you there want] Is not your house 

As to the rest, most of the accidental com- \ situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently 
pany a man falls into upon the road give him i furnished, and more than sufficiently large 1 
more trouble than pleasure ; I waive them as The royal majesty has more than once been 
much as I civilly can, especially now that age entertained there with all his train. Has not 
seems in some sort to privilege and sequester your family left more below it in good govern- 
me from the common forms. You suffer for ment than it has above it in eminence! Is 
others, or others suffer for you ; both of which ' there any novel, extraordinary, and indigestible 
inconveniences are troublesome, but the latter ; thought that afflicts you ; 

appears to me the most so. 'Tis 
Worthy uien rare f ortune but of inestimable l 

of preat plea- . ' , 

sure in travel. pleasure, to have a worthy man, ; 
one of a sound judgment, and 
of manners conformable to your own, who ! " Where do you think to live without disturb- 
takes a delight to bear you company. I have lance 7 Nunquamsirnpliciterforlitnaindulget." 
been at an infinite loss for that upon my travels; ' The favours of fortune are never without a 
but such a companion should be chosen and ! mixture of evil.' You see then it is only you 
acquired from your first setting out. There is i that trouble yourself, and everywhere corn- 
no pleasure to me without communication; there ' plain; for there is no satisfaction here below, 
is not so much as a sprightly thought comes ' but either for brutish or divine souls. He who, 
into my rnind, that it does not grieve me to with so just reasons, has no contentment, where 
have produced alone, and that I have no one ; will he think to find it ? How many millions 
to tell it to: Si cum hac exceptione detur sa- '. of men terminate their wishes in such a con- 
pientia, ut illam inclusam teneam, nee enun- 1 dition as yours] Do but reform yourself, for 
ciem, rejiciam. 1 "If wisdom were conferred j that is wholly in your own power; whereas 
with this proviso, that I must keep it to my- you have no other right but patience towards 
self, and not communicate it to others, I would , fortune : Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam 
have none of it." This other has strained it ratio composuit. 'True tranquillity is that 
one note higher: Si contigeril ea vita sapienti, alone which reason prepares for us.'" 
ut in omnium rerum qffluenlibus copiis, quamvis ' I see the correctness of this advice, and I see 
omnia, qux cognitione digna sunt, summo otio ! it perfectly well ; but my adviser might sooner 
sccum ipse consideret, et contempletur ; tamen, have done, and have spoken more pertinently, 
si solitudo tanla sit ut hnminem videre non in bidding me in two words; "Be wise." This 
possit, excedat e vita. 2 "If such a condition resolution is after wisdom: 'tis her work and 
of life should happen to a wise man, that in the product; thus the physician goes preaching to 
greatest plenty of all conveniences lie might at a poor languishing patient: "Be cheerful:" 
the most undisturbed leisure consider and con- but he would advise him a little more discreetly 
template all the things worth the knowing, in bidding him: "Be well." For my part, I 
yet if his solitude must be such that he must am but a man of the common sort. 'Tis a 
not see a man, he had much better die." wholesome precept, certain, and easy to be 
Architas was of my opinion when he said, j understood : "Be content with what you have," 
"That it would be unpleasant, even in heaven that is to say, with reason; and yet to follow 
itself, to wander in those great and divine this advice is no more in the power of the wise 
eelestial bodies without a companion." 3 But! men of the world than in me. 'Tis a common 
yet it is much better to be alone than in foolish saying, but of a terrible extent ; what does it 



i Seneca, F.pist. 6. 
I Cicero, dc Offie. c. 43. 
I Id. de Jiminlia. c. Zl 
1 JEncid, iv. 340. 



« Horace, Od. iii. 3. 54. 

« Ennius. apud Cicero, de Sencct. c 1. 

' Quint. CurtiU9, iv. 14. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



rot comprehend 1 All things come under dis- 
cretion and qualification. I know very well 
that, to take it to the letter, this pleasure in 
travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irre- 
solution; but these two are our governing and 
predominating qualities. Yes, I confess it, I 
see nothing, not so much as in a dream and 
in a wish, whereon I could set up my rest: 
variety only, and the possession of diversity, 
can satisfy me, if anything can. In travelling, 
it pleases me that I may stay where I like, 
without inconvenience, and that I have where- 
withal commodiously to divert myself. I love 
a private life, because 'tis my own choice that 
I love it, not by any particular distaste or 
unfitness for public life, which, perhaps, is as 
much according to my complexion ; I serve my 
prince more cheerfully, because it is by the free 
election of my own judgment and reason, with- 
out any particular obligation; and that I am 
not compelled so to do, for being rejected or 
disliked by the other party; and so of all the 
rest. I hate the morsels that necessity carves 
me; I should think that the greatest conve- 
nience upon which I only had to depend, had 
me by the throat: 

Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas.' 



One cord will never hold me fast enough. You 
will say there is vanity in this way of living. 
But where is there not! Both these fine pre- 
cepts are vanity, and all wisdom is vanity: 
Dominus novit cogitationes sapienlium, qun- 
niam vance sunt: 2 "The Lord knoweth the 
thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." 
These exquisite subtleties are only fit for ser- 
mons ; they are discourses that will send us all 
cut and dry into the other world. Life is a 
material and corporal motion; an action im- 
perfect and irregular of its own proper essence: 
I make it my business to serve it according to 
itself. 

Cluisque suos patimur manes." 
" We are all punished for our proper crimes. 

Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam uni- 
versam nihil cnntendamus ; ea tamen conser- 
vata, propriam sequamurS "We must so order 
it as by no means to contend against universal 
nature ; but yet that rule being observed, to 
follow our own." To what end are these ele- 
vated points of philosophy, upon which no 
human being can rely? And those rules that 
exceed our use and our strength? 

I often observe that we have rules of life set 



i Prop. iii. 3. 23. 

2 Corinthians, i. 3. 20. 

3 JEncid, vi. 743. 

* Cicero, de Offic. i. 31. 

6 Daughter of Cato of Utica, and wife of Brutus. 

6 Montaigne probably refers to Theodore de Beza, who at 



before us, which neither the pro- Pmlo80 hjcal 
poser nor those that hear him precepts' as" 
have any manner of hope, nor mucn despised 
which is more, any inclination, g {h e e m aU as h0 by 
to follow. Of the same sheet of the person to 
paper whereon the judge has but ^^ are 
just written a sentence against an 
adulterer, he steals a piece whereon to write a 
love-letter to his companion's wife. She whom 
you have but just now entertained in your em- 
braces will presently, even in your own hearing, 
more loudly inveigh against the same fault in 
her companion than would Porcia. 5 And such 
there are who will condemn men to death for 
crimes that they do not themselves repute so 
much as faults. I have in my youth seen a 
gentleman with one hand present the people 
with verses that excelled both in wit and de- 
bauchery, and with the other, at the same time, 
the most straight-laced and quarrelsome theo- 
logical reformation that the world has been 
treated with these many years. 6 Men proceed 
in this way : they let the laws and precepts fol- 
low their road, but themselves keep another 
course, not only from debauchery of manners, 
but oft-times by judgment and contrary opinion. 
Do but hear a philosophical lecture; the inven- 
tion, eloquence, and pertinency immediately 
strike upon your mind, and move you; there 
is nothing that either flatters or reprehends 
your conscience; 'tis not that they address. 
Is not this true? This made Aristo say, "that 
neither a bath nor a lecture were of use, unless 
they scoured and made men clean." 7 One may 
stop at the outward skin, but 'tis after the mar- 
row is picked out; as after having quaffed off 
the wine out of a fine cup, we consider the 
graving and workmanship. In all the courts 
of ancient philosophy this is to be found, that 
the same lecturer there publishes the rules of 
temperance, and at the same time discourses of 
love and wantonness; and Xenophon, even in 
the bosom of Clinias, wrote against the Aris- 
tippic virtue. 8 'Tis not that there is any mira- 
culous conversion in it that makes them thus 
wavering, but 'tis as Solon represents himself, 
sometimes in his own person, and sometimes in 
that of a legislator; one while he speaks for the 
crowd, and another for himself; taking the free 
and natural rules for his own share, assuring 
himself of a firm and established health and 
vigour : 

Curentur dubii medicis majoribus tegri,» 
" A desperate case needs ablest hands." 

Antisthenes 10 allowed a sage to love, and to do 
whatever he saw opportune, with- A sage permit . 
out regard to the laws; foras- ted to love. 



one and the same time, in 1550, published his amorous 
poems, Juvenilia, and his intolerant apology for the trial 
and execution of Servetus. 

' Plutarch, How to hear, &c. 

8 Laertius, Life of Xenophon. 

' Juvenal, ziii. 121. •'•' Laertius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



485 



much as he was better advised than they, 
and had a greater knowledge of virtue. His 
disciple, Diogenes, said: 1 that men to perturba- 
tions were to oppose reason, to fortune courage, 
and to the laws, nature. For tender stomachs, 
constrained and artificial recipes must be pre- 
scribed ; good and strong stomachs serve them- 
selves simply with the prescriptions of their own 
natural appetite: after this manner do our 
physicians proceed, who eat melons, and drink 
iced wines, whilst they confine their patients to 
syrups and sops. "I know not," said the 
courtezan Lai's, "what they talk of books, 
wisdom, and philosophy ; but these men knock 
as often at my door as any others." 2 At the 
same rate that our licence always carries us 
beyond what is lawful and allowed, men have, 
often beyond universal reason, narrowed the 
precepts and rules of life : 



"None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise; 
'Thus, and no farther, may ye step in vice.' 
But leap the bounds prescrib'd, and with free grace 
Scour far and wide the interdicted space." 

It were to be wished that there were more pro- 
portion betwixt the command and the obedience; 
and the mark seems to be unjust to which one 
cannot attain. There is no man so good, who, 
were he to submit all his thoughts and actions 
to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten 
times in his life ; nay, and such a one, too, as it 
were great pity to make away with, and very 
unjust to punish : 



and such a one there may be as hath no way 
offended the laws, who nevertheless would not 
deserve the character of a virtuous man, and 
that philosophy would justly condemn to be 
whipped ; so unequal and perplexed is this rela- 
tion ! We are so far from being good men, 
according to the laws of God, that we cannot 
be so according to our own : human wisdom 
never yet arrived at the duty that it had itself 
prescribed; and could it arrive there, it would 
still prescribe itself others beyond it, to which it 
would ever aspire and pretend: so great an 
enemy to consistency is our human condition. 
"Pis man enjoins himself to be necessarily in 
fault; he is not very discreet to cut out his duty 
by the measure of any other being than his own ; 
to whom does he prescribe that which he does 
not expect any one should perform? Is he 
unjust in not doing what it is impossible for him 
to do ! The laws which condemn us not to bo 
able, condemn us for not being able. 



At the worst, this disform liberty of present- 
ing themselves two several ways, the doing 
after one manner, and the saying after 
another, may be allowed to those who only 
speak of things; but it cannot be allowed to 
them who speak themselves, as I do ; I must 
march my pen as 1 do my feet. The common 
life ought to have communication with other 
lives : the virtue of Cato was vigorous beyond 
the reason of the age he lived in ; and for a 
man whose province it was to take part in the 
governing others, dedicated to the public ser- 
vice, it might be called a justice, if not unjust, 
at least vain and out of season. 4 Even my own 
manners, which have not above an inch of sin- 
gularity in them above those that are current 
amongst us, render me nevertheless a little odd 
and unsociable to the age I live in. I know 
not whether it be that I am disgusted without 
reason with the world I frequent; but I know 
very well that it would be without reason, 
should I complain of its being disgusted with 
me, seeing I am so with it. The virtue that is 
assigned to the affairs of the world is a virtue of 
many wavings, corners, and elbows, to join and 
adapt itself to human frailty; mixed and artifi- 
cial, not straight, clean, constant, nor purely 
innocent. Our annals to this very day reproach 
one of our kings for suffering himself implicitly 
to be carried away by the conscietitious persua- 
sions of his confessor ; affairs of state hold bolder 
precepts ; 

Exeat aula 
Qui vult esse pius.« 

" Let him who will be good from court retire." 

I have formerly tried to employ, in the manage- 
ment of public affairs, opinions and rules of 
living, as rude, new, unpolished or unpolluted, 
as were either born with me, or brought away 
from my education, and wherewith I serve my 
turn, if not so commodiously, at least as 
securely, in my own particular concerns: but 
I have found this scholastic and novice virtue 
foolish and dangerous in those matters. He 
that goes into a crowd, must now go one way, 
and then another, keep his elbows close, retire, 
or advance, and quit the direct way, according 
to what he encounters; and must live, not so 
much according to his own method as that of 
others; not according to what he purposes to 
himself, but according to what is proposed to 
him, according to the time, according to men, 
according to occasions. Plato says that who- 
ever escapes the world's handling with clean 
breeches escapes by miracle; and says, too, 
that when he appoints his philosopher the head 
of a government, he does not mean a corrupt 
one like that of Athens, 7 and much less such a 
one as this of ours, wherein wisdom itself would 



> Laertiua, in vitS. 

» Ant. Guevara, Golden Epistles, 

» Juvenal, xiv. 833. 

p Martial, vii.9. 1, 

41* 



« Cicero, too, says of him (Rpist. ad Jltticnm. ii. l.)j— 
" Dicil <ii i in tanquam, in l'lalonis xoXtraa, non tanquam 
Romuli fa>cc, sententiam." 

« Lucan, viii. 4<J3. 

' Republic, vi. 



486 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



be to seek: a good herb, transplanted into a 
soul very contrary to its own nature, much 
sooner conforms itself to the soil, than it re- 
forms the soil to it. I feel, if I were wholly to 
apply myself to such employments, it would 
require a great deal of change and new model- 
ling in me, before I could be any way fit for it. 
And though I could so far prevail upon myself 
(and why might I not with time and diligence), 
I would not do it. What little I have had 
to do with public employments has been so 
much disgust to me; I feel betimes some 
temptations toward ambition rising in my soul, 
but I obstinately oppose them : 

At tu, Catulle, obstinatus obdura. 1 
" But thou, Catullus, hold out to the last." 

I am seldom called to it, and as seldom offer 
myself uncalled : liberty and laziness, the qua- 
lities most predominant in me, are qualities 
diametrically contrary to that trade. We can- 
not distinguish the faculties of men; they have 
divisions and limits hard and delicate to choose : 
to conclude, from the discreet conduct of a pri- 
vate life, a capacity for public affairs, is to con- 
clude ill: a man may govern himself well, that 
cannot govern others so, and compose Essays 
that cannot work effects: such a one may be 
who can order a siege well, that would ill mar- 
shal a battle, and that can speak well in private, 
who would ill harangue a people or a prince : 
nay, 'tis peradventure rather a testimony in 
him who can do the one, that he cannot do the 
other, than otherwise. I find that elevated 
souls are not much more proper for low things, 
than mean souls are to high ones. Could it be 
imagined that Socrates 8 should have given 
occasion of laughter, at the expense of his own 
reputation, to the Athenians, for having never 
been able to sum up the votes of his tribe, to 
deliver it to the council] Doubtless, the vene- 
ration I have for the perfections of this great 
man, deserves that fortune should furnish for 
the excuse of my principal imperfections, so 
magnificent an example. Our sufficiency is cut 
out into small parcels: mine has no latitude, 
and is also very contemptible in number. Sa- 
turninus, 3 to those who had conferred upon him 
the command in chief: "Comrades," said he, 
" you have lost a good captain, to make him an 
ill general." 

Whoever boasts, in so sick a time as this, to 



i Catullus, Cam. viii. 19. 
2 In the Gorgias of Plato. 

s One of the thirty tyrants, who rose in the time of the 
Emperor Gallienus. SeeTrebelliusPolIio, Triginl. Ti/raim. 

« Greek History, iv. 1 ; where, however, Xenophon speaks 
not of a passage through Peloponnesus, but of an interview 
in the camp of Agesilaus. 

s Capette properly means a scholar of Montaigu Col- 
lege at Paris. In 1480 John Sandoncht, of Malines, a 
doctor of the Sorbonne, settled a fund for maintaining in 
this collide H-! scholars, in honour of the 12 apostles, and 
the 72 disciples of Jesus Christ. These scholars were called 



employ a true and sincere virtue 

in the world's service, either Virtue which is 

knows it not, opinions growing ESSfSEJwi 

corrupt with manners (and in be employed in 

truth to hear them describe it, ,ne manage- 

,.,.,, , . ,, . i ' ment of a cor- 

to glorify themselves in their de- nipt state, 
portments, and to lay down their 
rules; instead of painting virtue, they paint 
pure vice and injustice, and so represent them 
false in the education of princes): or, if he does 
know it, boasts unjustly, and, let him say what 
he will, does a thousand things of which his 
own conscience must necessarily accuse him. 
I should willingly take Seneca's word of the 
experience he made upon the like occasion, 
provided he would deal clearly and sincerely 
with me. The most honourable mark of good- 
ness, in such a necessity, is freely to confess 
both his own fault and those of others; with 
the power of his virtue to stop the inclination 
towards evil; unwillingly to follow this propen- 
sity, to hope better, and to desire better. I 
perceive that in these unhappy divisions wherein 
we are miserably involved in France, every one 
does his best to defend, and by argument to 
make good his cause ; but even the very best 
with dissimulation and disguise : he that would 
write roundly of the true state of the quarrel, 
would write boldly and viciously. What is 
the most party, other than a member of a de- 
cayed and worm-eaten body 1 But of such a 
body, the member that is least affected is said 
to be found, and with good reason, forasmuch 
as our qualities have no title but in comparison : 
civil innocence is measured according to time 
and place. I should love to read in Xenophon 
this commendation of Agesilaus: 4 being en- 
treated by a neighbouring prince, with whom 
he had formerly had war, to permit him to pass 
through his country; he granted his request, 
giving him free passage through Peloponnesus, 
and not only did not imprison or poison him, 
being at his mercy, but courteously received 
him, according to the obligation of his promise, 
without doing him the least injury or offence. 
To such humours as theirs, this was an act of no 
great lustre; elsewhere, and in 
another age, the frankness and %*$£"&£ 
magnanimity of such an action lege, in Paris. 
will be in high esteem. Our 
childish Capettes would have laughed at it, so 
little does the Spartan innocence resemble that 
of France. 5 We are not without virtuous men: 



Capettes from short cloaks they wore, called capes. And as 
they were treated very harshly, both with regard to their 
table and to their discipline, they were commonly such low 
geniuses that the won! aii>ritc was made use of to signify a 
scholar of the most contemptible character, a fool, an im- 
pertinent. "Montaigne, by the use of the term," ob- 
serves M. Coste, " intends the bulk of his cotemporaries, 
who would not have failed to ridicule the frank and generous 
spirit of Agesilaus. In the same predicament may be placed 
those Flemish historians who, having accused Charles V. 
of imprudence in reiving on the good faith of Francis I 
when his imperial majesty passed through France in 1540, 
have therebv signified their opinion that Francis was very 
weak in slipping so fair an opportunity of making himself 
master of his most formidable enemy." 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



487 



but 'tis according to our standard. Whoever 
has his manners established in regularity above 
the standard of the age he lives in, let him either 
wrest or blunt his rules; or, which I would 
rather advise him to, let him retire, and not 
meddle with us at all: What will he get by it? 

Egregium sanctumque virum si cerno, himembri 
Hoc nionstrum puero, el miranti jam sub aratro 
Piscibus inventis, et 1'oeta; comparo niuhe.i 

" If such a man 1 see, of pious worth, 
I straight compare him to a monstrous birth; 
'I'o pregnant mules, or fish unheard-of, found 
Ploughed by the vvond'ring share from out the ground." 

A man may regret the better times, but cannot 
fly from the present: we may wish for other 
magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey 
those we have; and peradventnre 'tis more 
laudable to obey the bad than the good. So 
long as the image of the ancient and received 
laws of this monarchy shall shine in any corner 
of the kingdom, there will I be : If they unfor- 
tunately happen to thwart and contradict one 
another, so as to produce two factions of doubtful 
and difficult choice, I will willingly choose to 
withdraw from the tempest; in the mean time 
nature, or the hazards of war, may lend me a 
helping hand. Betwixt Caesar and Pompey, I 
should soon and frankly have declared myself; 
but amongst the three robbers that came after, 2 
a man must needs have either hid himself, or 
have gone along with the current of the time ; 
which I think a man may lawfully do, when 
reason no longer rules. 

duo diversus abia? 8 
" Whither dost thou wandering go ?" 

This medley is a little from my subject: I 
go out of my way ; but 'tis rather 
iCi'iMiri'i'^n" Why y l' cence than oversight: my 
someiimesde- fancies follow one another, but 
viated from his sometimes at a great distance ; 
dd!''i' here. * a,1! ' ' 00 ' c towards one another, 
but 'tis with an oblique glance. 
I have read a dialogue of Plato, 4 of such a mot- 
ley and fantastic composition : the beginning 
about love, and all the rest about rhetoric : they 
stick not at these variations, and have a mar- 
vellous grace in letting themselves be carried 
away at the pleasure of the winds ; or at least 
to seem as if they were. 

The titles of my chapters do not always com- 
prehend the whole matter; they often denote 
it by some mark only, as these other titles, 
Andria, Eunuchus ; 6 or these, Sylla, Cicero, 
Torquatus. I love a poetic inarch, by leaps and 
skips; 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, 
and a little demoniacal. 6 There arc pieces in 
Plutarch where he forgets his theme; where 
the proposition of his argument is only found 
incidentally, and stuffed throughout with fbr- 



i Juvenal, xiii. 64, 

,J Oil, iritis, Murk .Intony, and Lrpidus. 

" JKtirhl, v. Kill. 

■ The P/mdra. 

' The names of two of Terencc'a 



eign matter: do but observe his meanders in 
the Demon of Socrates. Good God ! how 
beautiful are his variations and digressions; 
and then, most of all, when they seem to be 
fortuitous, and introduced for want of heed. 
'Tis the indiligent reader that loses my subject, 
not I; there will always be found some words 
or other in a corner that are to the purpose, 
though it lie very close. I ramble about, in- 
discreetly and tumultuously : my style and my 
wit wander at the same rate. A little folly is 
desirable in him that will not be guilty of stu- 
pidity, say the precepts, and much more the 
examples, of our masters. A thousand poets 
flag and languish after a prosaic manner ; but 
the best old prose, and I strew it here up and 
down indifferently for verse, shines throughout 
with the vigour and boldness of poetry, and 
represents some air of its fury. Certainly prose 
must yield the pre-eminence in speaking. The 
poet, says Piato, 7 when set upon the muses' 
tripod, pours out with fury whatever comes 
into his mouth, like the pipe of a fountain, 
without considering and pausing upon what he 
says; and things come from him, of various 
colours, of contrary substance, and with an 
irregular torrent: himself is all over poetical ; 
and all the old theology, as the learned inform 
us, is poetry, and the first philosophy is the ori- 
ginal language of the gods. I would have the 
matter distinguish itself; it sufficiently shows 
where it changes, where it concludes, where it 
begins, and where it resumes, without inter- 
lacing it with words of connection, introduced 
for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and 
without commenting myself. Who is he that 
had not rather not be read at all, than after a 
drowsy or cursory manner 1 ? Nihil est tarn 
utile quod in transitu prosit. s "Nothing can 
be so profitable as to be so when negligently 
read." If to take a book in hand were to read 
it, if to look upon it were to consider it, and to 
run it slightly over were to make it a man's 
own, I were then to blame to make myself out 
so ignorant as I say I am. Seeing I cannot 
fix the attention of my reader by the weight of 
what I write, manco male, if I should chance 
to do it by my intricacies. " Nay, but he will 
afterwards repent that he ever occupied himself 
about it." True, but he will still have occupied 
himself. And besides, there are some humours 
in which intelligence produces disdain, who 
will think better of me for not understanding 
what I say: they will conclude the depth of 
my meaning by the obscurity; which, to speak 
sincerely, 1 mortally hate, and would avoid it 
if I could. Aristotle boasts somewhere 9 that 
he affected it: vicious affectation! The short 
chapters that I made my method in the begin- 
ning of my book, having since seemed to me to 



I Or rather divine, jaijiovtK'i. Montaigne quotes the Ion. 

' Laws, vi. 

i Seneca, Epist. 2. 

' See Aulus Gellius, xx. 5 ; Plutarch, L\fc of AUianier. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



break and dissolve the attention before it was 
raised, as making it disdain to settle itself to so 
little, I upon that account have made the rest 
longer, such as require proposition and assigned 
leisure. In such an employment, to whom you 
will not give an hour you will give nothing; and 
you do nothing for him for whom you only do 
whilst you are doing something else. To which 
may be added, that I have perhaps some par- 
ticular obligation to speak only by halves, to 
speak confusedly and discordantly. I am there- 
fore angry at this kind of perplexing reason, 
and these extravagant projects that trouble a 
man's life, and those opinions so fine and subtle ; 
though they be true, I think them too dear- 
bought. On the contrary, I make it my busi- 
ness to bring vanity itself in repute, and folly 
too, if it bring me any pleasure ; and let myself 
follow my own natural inclinations, without 
carrying too strict a hand upon them. 

I have seen elsewhere palaces in ruins, and 
statues, both of gods and men, defaced, and yet 
there are men still. All this is true; and yet 
for all that I cannot so often review the ruins of 
that so great, and since so holy, 
His particular city i tnat j jo not admire and 

liknn; to the •" m . „ ., 

city of Rome. reverence it. ihe care of the 
dead is recommended to us ; be- 
sides, I have been bred up from my infancy 
with these people; I had knowledge of the 
affairs of Rome long before I had any of those 
of my own house. I knew the Capitol arid 
its plan before I knew the Louvre; and the 
Tiber before I knew the Seine. The qualities 
and fortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio, 
have ever run more in my head than those of 
any of my own country; they are all dead, 
and so is my father as absolutely dead as they, 
and is removed as far from me and life in 
eighteen years, as they in sixteen hundred ; 
whose memory, nevertheless, friendship and so- 
ciety, I do not cease to hug and embrace with 
a very perfect and lively union, 
fowardfthe Na y> of m ? own inclination, I 
dead. render myself more attentive to 

the dead; they no longer help 
themselves, and therefore, methinks, they more 
require my assistance: 'tis there that gratitude 
appears in its full lustre ; benefits are not so 
generously placed where there is retrogradation 
and reflection. Arcesilaus 2 going to visit Cte- 
sibius, who was sick, and finding him in a very 
poor condition, privately conveyed some money 
under his pillow ; and, by concealing it from 
him, acquitted him moreover from the acknow- 
ledgment due to such a benefit. Such as have 
merited from me friendship and gratitude, have 
never lost them by being no more ; I have bet- 
ter and more carefully paid them when gone, 
and ignorant of what I did : I speak more 
kindly and affectionately of my friends when 
they can no longer know it. I have had a 



hundred quairels in defending Pompey, and 
upon the account of Brutus; this acquaintance 
does yet continue betwixt us: I have no other 
hold even of present things but by my fancy. 
Finding myself of no use to this age, I throw 
myself back upon that other; and am so child- 
ishly enamoured of the free, just and flourishing 
state of ancient Rome (for I neither love it in 
its birth nor old age), that I interest myself in 
it to a degree of passion ; and therefore cannot 
so often review the situation of their streets and 
houses, and ruins as profound as the antipodes, 
but that it always puts me into the dumps. 
Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that 
the sight of the places which we know have 
been frequented and inhabited by persons whose 
memories are recommended in story, does in 
some sort work more upon us than to hear a 
recital of their acts, or to read their writings 1 

Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis ! Et 

id quidem in hac urbe infinitum ; quacumque 
enim ingredimur, in aliquant historiam vesti- 
gium ponimus? " So great a power of admo- 
nition is in places; and truly in this city so 
infinite, that which way soever we go we tread 
upon some history." It pleases me to consider 
their face, port and vestments; I ruminate 
those great names betwixt my teeth, and make 
them ring in my own ears ; ego illos veneror, 
et tantis nominibus semper assurgo* " I reve- 
rence them, and rise up in honour of so great 
names." Of things that are in some part great 
and admirable, I admire even the common 
parts: I could wish to see her people talk, 
walk, and sup together. It were ingratitude 
to contemn the relics and images of so many 
worthy and valiant men as I have, as it were, 
seen live and die, and who, by their example, 
give us so many good instructions, knew we 
how to follow them. 

And moreover, this very Rome that we now 
see, deserves to be beloved: so long, and by so 
many titles, confederate to our 
crown; the only common and f^^nand 
universal city. The sovereign universal city, 
magistrate that commands there 
is equally acknowledged and obeyed elsewhere : 
'tis the metropolitan city of all the Christian 
nations ; the Spanish and French are there at 
home ; to be a prince of this state there needs 
no more but to be a prince of Christendom, no 
matter of what part. There is no place upon 
earth that heaven has embraced with such an 
influence and constancy of favour; her very 
ruins are glorious and great: 

Laudandis pretiosior ruinis : 6 
" More glorious by her ruins made:" 

she yet in her very tomb retains the marks and 
image of empire: ut pala.m sit, uno in loco 
gaudentis opus esse naturae. 6 " That it may be 



l Laertius, in. villi. 

> Cicero, de Finib. 5. 1 and 2. 



i Seneca, Epist. 04. 

i Sidonius Apoll., Carm. : 

> Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii. 5. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



manifest that nature is in one place enamoured 
of her own work." Some would blame and be 
angry at themselves to perceive themselves 
tickled with so vain a pleasure: our humours 
are never too vain, that are pleasant; let them be 
what they would, that did constantly content 
an honest man of common understanding, I 
could not have the heart to pity him. 

I am very much obliged to fortune in that to 

this very hour, she has offered me 

How Montaigne outrage beyond what I was 

i.- nil li-i .1 to lor- , , , & i , . ... 

tune. * able to bear. May it not be Iter 

custom to let those live in quiet 
by whom she is not importuned ! 

Quanta quisque silii plura ne-raverit, 
A diis plura feret : nil cupientium 
Nudus castra peto - - - 
Multa petentibus 
Deeuut multa. 1 



w that nothing crave; 
, ever poor." 



If she continues so, she will dismiss me very 
well satisfied. 



" Nor for aught more 
The Gods implore." 

But beware the shock ! There are'a thousand 
that perish in the port. I easily comfort myself 
tor what shall happen here when I am gone; 
present things trouble me enough : 

Fortunte camera mando :3 
" To fortune I leave all the rest :" 

besides, I have not that strong obligation that 
they say ties men to the future, by the children 
that succeed to their name and honour; and 
perhaps ought less to covet them if they are to 
be so much desired. I am but too much tied to 
the world, and to this life of myself; I am 
content to be in fortune's power by circum- 
stances properly necessary to my being, without 
otherwise enlarging her jurisdiction over me, 
and have never thought that to be without 
children was a defect that ought to render life 
less complete, or less contented. Sterility has 

its conveniences too. Children 
inm'h "to "be' co- are °? l ' le null1uer oi ' things that 
veted, and why. are not so much to be desired, 

especially now that it would be 
so hard to make them good: Bona jam nee 
nasci licet, ita corrnpta sunt semina.* "The 
seed of all things is so corrupt that nothing 
worthy can be born thence," and yet they are 
justly to be lamented by such as lose them when 
they have them. 

lie who left me my house in charge, foretold 
that I was like to ruin it, considering my 



humour so little inclined to look after household 
affairs. But he was mistaken. For I am in 
the same condition now as when I first entered 
into it, if not better ; and yet without office, or 
any place of profit. 

As to the rest, if fortune has never done me 
any violent or extraordinary injury, neither has 
she done me any particular favour. Whatever 
we derive from her bounty, was there above an 
hundred years before my time. I have, as to 
my own particular, no essential and solid good, 
that I stand indebted for to her liberality. She 
has indeed done me some airy honours, and 
titular favours without substance, and those in 
truth she has not granted, but offered me, who, 
God knows, am all material, and who take 
nothing but what is real and massy too for cur- 
rent pay ; and who, if I durst confess so much, 
would hardly think avarice less excusable 
than ambition, or pain less to be avoided than 
shame, or health less to be coveted than learn- 
ing, or riches than nobility. 

Amongst those empty favours of hers, there 
is none that so much pleases the- vain humour 
natural to me as a genuine bull of Roman citi- 
zenship, that was granted me when I was last 
there, 5 pompous in seals and gilded letters; and 
granted with all courtesy and liberality. And 
because these things are couched in a mixed 
style, more or less favourable, and that before 
I myself saw it, I should have been glad to 
have seen a copy of one, I will, to satisfy such 
as are sick of the same curiosity, transcribe it 
here in form : 

Quod Horatius Maximus, Martius Cecius, Alex- 
ander Mutus, almse urbis conservatores, de 
illustrissimo viro Michaele Montano, equite 
Sancti Michaelis, et a cubiculo regis chris- 
tianissimi, romana civitate donando, ad 
Senatum retulerunt; S. P. Q. R. de ea re ita 
fieri censuit. 

Cum, veteri'more et instituto, cupide illi semper 
studioseque suscepti sint, qui virtute ac nobili- 
tate prastantes, magno reipublica? nostras usui 
atque ornamento fuissent, vel esse aliquando 
possent: nos, majorum nostrorum exemplo atque 
auctoritate permoti, prseclaram banc consuetu- 
dinem nobis imitandam ac servandam fore cen- 
semus. Quamobrem cum illustrissimus Michael 
Montanus, eques sancti Michaelis, et a cubiculo 
regis christianissimi, romani nominis studio- 
sissimus, et familiae Iaude atque splendore, et 
propriis virtutum meritis dignissirnus sit, qui 
sumino senatus populique romani judicio ac 
studio in Romanam civitatem adsciscatnr; pla- 
cere senatui P. Q,. R. illustrissimura iMichaelem 
Montanum, rebus omnibus ornatissimum, atque 
huic inclylo populo carissimum, ipstnn poste- 
rosque in romanam civitatem adscribi, orna- 
rique omnibus et prtemiis et honoribus, quibua 



' Horace, Od. iii. 16, 21 

» hi. ib. ii. 18, 11. 

a Ovid, Metam. ii. 140. 



' Tertullian, de Pudicitia. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



illi fruuntur, qui cives patriciique romani nati, 
aut jure optimo facti sunt. In quo censere 
senattim P. Q. R., se non tarn illi jus civitatis 
largiri, quam debitum tribuere, neque magis 
beneficium dare, quam ab ipso accipere, qui, 
hoc civitatis munere accipiendo, s'ingulari civi- 
tatem ipsam ornamento atque honore effecerit. 
Quam quidem S. C. auctoritatem iidem conser- 
vatores per senatus P. Q. R. scribas in acta 
referri, atque in Capitolii curia servari, privi- 
legiumquehujusmodi fieri, solitoque urbis sigillo 
communiri currarunt. Anno ab urbe condita 
IICoXCCCXXXI. Post ^Christum natum 
M. D.LXXXI., Ill idus martii. 

Horatius Fuscus, 

sacri S. P. Q. R. scriba, 

Vincent. Martholtjs, 

sacri S. P. Q. R. scriba. 1 



Being before burgess of no city at all, I am 
glad to be made one of the most noble that ever 
was, or ever will be. If other men would con- 
sider themselves attentively, as I do, they 
would, as I do, discover themselves to be full of 
inanity and foppery; rid myself of which I can- 
not, without making away with myself. We 
are all leavened with it, as well one as another ; 
but they who are not aware on't have the better 
bargain, and yet I know not whether they 
have or no. 

This opinion and common custom to observe 

others more than ourselves, has 
Why man does verv muc h relieved us that wav. 
not love to ,m J j- , • . . ± J 

know and ob- - 1 ls a very displeasing object; we 
serve himself. can there see nothing but misery 

and vanity. Nature, that we may 
not be dejected with the sight of our own de- 
formities, has wisely thrust the action of seeing 
outward. We go forward with the current, but 
to turn back towards ourselves is a painful 
motion. Thus is the sea moved and troubled 
when the waves are driven back against one 
another. Observe, says every one, the motion 
of the heavens, the revolution of public affairs; 
observe the quarrel of such a person, take notice 
of such a one's pulse, of such another's last will 
and testament; in sum, be always looking high 
or low, on one side, before or behind you. It 



i " Upon the report made to the Senate by Orazio Mas- 
eimi, Marzio Cecio, Alessandro Mati, conservators of the 
city of Rome, touching the admission lo the citizenship of 
Rome of the most illustrious Michael do Montaigne, knight 
of the order of St. Michael, and gentleman of the bed- 
chamber of his Most Christian Majesty, the senate and 
people of Rome have thus decreed • 

" Considering that, by ancient usage, those have ever been 
eagerly adopted amongst us who, excelling in virtue and 
nobility, have served and done honour to the republic, or 
might probably be expect, -d to do so; we, full of respect for 
the example and authority of our ancestors, deem that it 
becomes us to imitate and keep up this laudable custom. 
Wherefore, the most illustrious Michael de Montaigne, 
knight of St. Michael, and gentleman of the chamber of 
his Most Christian Majesty, being desirous of receiving the 
title of Citizen of Rome, and being, from the rank and lustre 
of his family and his own personal qualities, fully worthy, 
in the supreme judgment of the Senate and people of Home, 
of being enrolled among the citizens of Koine ; therefore the 
senate and people of Rome are pleased to decree that the 



was a paradoxical command, anciently given 
us by the god at Delphos : " Look into your- 
self; discover yourself, keep close to yourself; 
call back your mind and will, that elsewhere 
consume themselves, into yourself; you run 
out, you spill yourself, carry a more steady 
hand. Men betray you, men spill you, men 
steal you from yourself Dost not thou see that 
this world keeps all its sight confined within, 
and its eyes open to contemplate itself! 'Tis 
always vanity for thee, both within and with- 
out; but 'tis less vanity when less extended. 
'Excepting thee, O man,' said that god, 'every 
thing studies itself first, and has bounds to 
its labours and desires, according to its need.' 
There is nothing so empty and necessitous as 
thou, who embracest the universe. Thou art 
the explorator without knowledge, the magis- 
trate without jurisdiction; and, in short, the 
fool in the play." 



CHAPTER X. 

OF MANAGING ONE'S WILL. 

Few things, in comparison of what commonly 
affect other men, move, or, to say better, possess 
me; for 'tis but reason they should concern a 
man, provided they do not take possession of 
him. I am very solicitous, both by study and 
reasoning, to enlarge this privilege of insensi- 
bility, which is naturally raised to a pretty high 
degree in me ; so that consequently I espouse 
or am very much moved with very few things. 
I have my sight clear enough, but I fix it upon 
very few objects; my sense delicate and tender 
enough, but an apprehension and application 
stubborn and negligent. I am very unwilling 
to engage myself; as much as in me lies, I 
employ myself wholly upon myself; and in this 
very subject should rather choose to curb and 
restrain my affection from plunging itself over 
head and ears into it, it being a subject that I 
possess at the mercy of others, and over which 
fortune has more right than I ; so that even so 
much as to health, which I so much value, it 
were necessary for me not so passionately to 



most illustrious Michael de Montaigne, as a man rich in all 
great qualities, and very dear to the sacred city, be, for him- 
self and his posterity inscribed a Roman citizen, entitled to 
all the honours and advantages which belong to those who 
are either born citizens and patricians of Rome, or become 
such by reason of their peculiar merits. And herein the 
senate and people of Rome deem that they are paying a just 
debt, rather than granting a mere favour; that they are re- 
ceiving, rather than conferring a benefit on one, who, in 
accepting the citizenship of Rome, singularly honours and 
adorns the city. The conservators have' caused this decree 
to be transcribed by the secretaries of the senate and people 
of Rome, that it may be deposited among the archives of the 
Capitol ; and have caused this act to be sealed with the city 
seal. Given in the year of Rome 233) ; and of Christ 15U1, 
this 13th of March. 

"Orazio Fosco, secretary to the senate 
and people of Rome, 

"VtNCENTto Martom, secretary to the 
senate and people of Rome." 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



491 



covet and desire it as to find diseases insupport- 
able. A man ought to moderate himself betwixt 
the hatred of pain and the love of pleasure, and 
Plato 1 sets down a middle path of life betwixt 
both. But against such affections as wholly 
carry me away from myself and fix me else- 
where, against these, I say, I oppose myself 
with my utmost force and power. "Pis my 
opinion that a man should lend himself to 
others, and only give himself to himself. Were 
my will easy to lend itself out, and to be 
swayed, I should not stick there ; I am too 
tender, both by nature and custom : 

Fugax rerum, securaque in otia natus.2 



The hot and obstinate disputes wherein my ad- 
versary would at last have the better, the issue 
that would render my heat and obstinacy dis- 
graceful, would perhaps vex me to the last 
degree. Should I set myself to it at the rate 
that others do, my soul would never have the 
force to bear the emotions and alarms that at- 
tend those who pursue and grasp at so much ; it 
would immediately be disordered by this inward 
agitation. If sometimes I have been put upon 
the management of other men's affairs, I have 
promised to take them in hand, but not into my 
lungs and liver; to take them upon me, not to 
incorporate them ; to take pains for, but not to 
be impassioned about, them. I have a care of 
them, but I will not brood upon them. I have 
enough to do to order and govern the domestic 
tumults that I have in my own veins and bowels, 
without introducing a crowd of other men's 
affairs, and am sufficiently concerned about my 
own proper and natural business, without med- 
dling with the concerns of others. Those who 
know how much they owe to themselves, and | 
how many offices they are bound to of their 
own, find that nature has given them this com- 
mission, full enough to keep them from being 
ever idle: "Thou hast business enough at 
home, look to that." 

Men let themselves out to hire; their facul- 
ties are not for themselves, but to be employed 
for those to whom they have enslaved them- 
selves: their hirers are in their houses, not 
themselves. This common humour pleases not 
me. We must be thrifty of the liberty of our 
souls, and never let them out but upon just oc- 
casions, which are very few, if we judge aright. 
Do but observe such as have accustomed them- 
selves to be at every one's call, they do it indif- 
ferently upon all, as well upon little as upon 
great occasions, in that which nothing concerns 
them, as much as in what imports them most; 



i Laws, vii. 

a Ovid. Trist. iii. 2.9. 

» Seneca, Epist. 22. 

* Id. do Brevitate vita;, c. 3. 

6 Horace, Od. ii. 1. 7. 



they intrude themselves indifferently wherever 
there is business and obligation, and are with- 
out life, when not in the bustle of affairs : In 
vegoiiis sunt negolii causa ,■ 3 they only seek 
business for business sake. It is not so much 
that they will go, as that they cannot stand 
still ; like a rolling stone that does not stop till 
it can go no farther. Business, by a certain sort 
of men, is thought a mark of capacity and 
honour; their souls seek repose in motion, as 
children do by being rocked in a cradle ; they 
may pronounce themselves as serviceable to 
their friends, as troublesome to themselves. No 
one distributes his money to others, but every 
one distributes his time and his life. 4 There 
is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of 
these two things, of which to be thrifty would 
be both commendable and useful. 1 am of 
a quite contrary humour; I look to myself, 
arid commonly covet with no great ardour what 
I do desire, and desire little, and employ and 
busy myself hut rarely and temperately in the 
same way. Whatever they take in hand, they 
do it with their utmost power and vehemence. 
There are so many dangerous steps, that, for 
the more safety, we must a little lightly 
and superficially slide through the world, 
and not rush through it. Pleasure itself is 
painful in its depth : 



The citizens of Bordeaux chose me mayor of 
their city at a time when I was 
at a distance from France, 6 and obtigedUMierve 
still more remote from any such tin' otiice of 
thought. I begged to be excused, J}^ / of Bor " 
but I was told that I had commit- 
ted an error in so doing, and the greater, 
because the king had moreover interposed his 
command in the affair. 'Tis an office that ought 
to be looked upon so much more honourable, as 
it has no other pay nor advantage than the bare 
honour of its execution. It continues two years, 
but may be extended by a second election, 
which very rarely happens. It was so to me, 7 
and had never been so but twice before, some 
years ago to Monsieur Lanssac, and lately to 
Monsieur de Biron, marshal of France, in whose 
place I succeeded, and left mine to Monsieur de 
Matignon, marshal of France also. Proud of 
so noble a fraternity, 



Uterque bonus pads bclliquc minister. 
"Bolli fit fur governing in peace and war." 

Fortune would have a hand in my promotion, 



« When he was ut the baths of Delia Villa, near Lucca, 
September, 1581. 

' A very clear proof that the people of Herdcaux were 
sntii-fii'il with his administratnm, thuui'h Ilnlznr (Dh.'rrt 
111.) insinuates the contrary, without assigning any ground 
for the imputation. 

» JE;icid, xi. WW. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



The charact 
he gave of h 
self to the in 
gistrates of 
Bordeaux. 



by this particular circumstance, which she put 
in of her own, not altogether vain ; for Alex- 
ander disdained the ambassadors of Corinth, who 
came to make him a tender of the burgess-ship 
of their city; but when they proceeded to lay 
before him that Bacchus and Hercules were 
also in the register, he thankfully accepted the 
offer. 1 

At my arrival, I faithfully and conscienti- 
ously represented myself to them 
for such as I find myself to be ; a 
man without memory, without 
vigilance, without experience, and 
without vigour ; but withal with- 
out hatred, without ambition, 
without avarice, and without violence. That 
they might be informed and know what they 
were to expect from my service, and being that 
the knowledge they had had of my father, and 
the 1 honour they had for his memory, had been 
the only motives to confer this upon me, I 
plainly told them that I should be very sorry 
any thing- should make so great an impression 
upon me, as their affairs and the concerns of 
their city had done upon him, whilst he had the 
same government to which they had preferred 
me. I very well remember, when a boy, to 
have seen him in his old age, tormented with 
and solicitous about the public affairs, neglect- 
ing the soft repose of his own house, to which 
the declension of his age had attached him for 
several years before, the management of his own 
affairs, and his health, and certainly despising 
his own life, which was in great danger of being 
lost, by being engaged in long and painful jour- 
neys on their behalf. Such was he, and this 
humour of his proceeded from a marvellous 
goodness of nature. Never was there a more 
charitable and popular spirited man. Yet this 
which I commend in others, I do not love to 
follow myself, and am not without excuse. 

He had heard that a man must forget him- 
self for his neighbour, and that particular in- 
dividuals were in no manner of consideration 
Why the sages in comparison with the general 
recommended concern. Most of the rules and 
precepts of this world run this 
way, to drive us out of ourselves 
into the world, for the benefit of 
public society: they thought to 
do a great feat, to divert us from ourselves, 
presuming we were but too much fixed at 
home, and by a too natural inclination, and 
have said all they could to that purpose; for 
'tis no new thing for wise men to preach things 
as they serve, not as they are. Truth has its 
obstructions, inconveniences, and incompati- 
bilities with us: we must be often deceived, 
that we may not deceive ourselves, and shut 
our eyes, and stupify our understandings, to 
and amend them : Imperiti enirn judi 



J Seneca, de Beneficiis, i. 13. and Plutarch, Of the Three 
Forms of Government, in relating this anecdote, do not men- 
tion Bacchus. Plutarch names the Mcgarians, instead of the 
Corinthians. 



neglect them- 
selves for the 
sake of the 
public. 



cant, et qui frequenter in hoc if sum fallendi 
sunt, ne errent? " For the ignorant judge, and 
therefore are oft to be deceived, lest they should 
err." When they prescribe us to love three, 
four, fifty degrees of things above ourselves, 
they do like archers, who, to hit the mark, 
take their aim a great deal higher than the 
butt: to set a crooked stick straight, we bend 
it the contrary way. 

I take it that in the temple of Pallas, as we 
see in all other religions, there were apparent 
mysteries to be shown to the people, and others, 
more secret and high, that were only to be 
shown to such as were professed: 'tis likely 
that in these the true point of friendship that 
every one owes to himself is to be found ; not 
a false friendship, that makes us embrace glory, 
knowledge, riches, and the like, with a prin- 
cipal and immoderate affection, as members of 
our being, nor an indiscreet and effeminate 
friendship, wherein it happens, as with ivy, 
that decays and ruins the walls it embraces; 
but a sound and regular friendship, equally 
useful and pleasant. Who knows the duties 
of this friendship, and practises them, is truly 
of the cabinet council of the muses, and has 
attained the summit of human wisdom and our 
happiness: such a one, exactly knowing what 
he owes to himself, will in his part find that 
he ought to apply the use of the world and of 
other men to himself, and, to do this, to contri- 
bute to the public society the duties and offices 
appertaining to him. Who does not in some 
sort live to others, does not live much to him- 
self: Qui sibi amicus est, sciln hunc amicum 
omnibus esse. 3 " He who is his own friend is 
a friend to every body else." The principal 
charge we have is, to every one his own con- 
duct, and 'tis for this that we are here. As he 
who should forget to live a virtuous and holy 
life, and should think he acquitted himself of 
his duty in instructing and training up others 
to it, would be a fool ; even so he who abandons 
his own particular healthful and pleasant living 
to serve others, takes, in my opinion, a wrong 
and an unnatural course. He that js t00 

I would not that men should eager in the 

refuse, in the employments they exercise of an 

. ' , r J J office cannot 

take upon them, their attention, manage it with 
pains, their eloquence, and their prudence or 
sweat and blood, in time of e i uit y- 



but 'tis only as a loan, and incidentally; his 
mind being always in repose and in health ; 
not without action, but without vexation, with- 
out passion. To be simply doing costs him so 
little that he acts even sleeping ; but he must 

2 Gluintilian, Instit. Orat. 11. 17. 

3 Seneca, Epist. 6. 

« Horace, Od. 4. 9. 51. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



403 



set on the motion with discretion; for the body 
receives the offices imposed upon it, just accord- 
ing to what they are; the mind often extends, 
and makes them heavier at its own expense, 
giving them what measure it pleases. Men 
perform like things with several sorts of en- 
deavour, and different contentions of the will : 
the one does well enough without the other; 
for how many people hazard themselves every 
day in war, without any concern which way it 
goes, and thrust themselves into the dangers of 
battles, the loss of which will not break their 
next night's sleep? And such a man may be 
at home, out of danger, which he durst not 
have looked upon, who is more passionately 
concerned for the issue of this war, and whose 
soul is more anxious about events, than the 
soldier who stakes his life and blood in the 
quarrel. I could have engaged myself in 
public employments, without quitting myself 
a nail's breadth, and have given myself to 
others without abandoning myself. This sharp- 
ness and violence of desires more hinders than 
it advances the execution of what we un- 
dertake, 1 fills us with impatience against slow 
or contrary events, and with heat and sus- 
picion against those with whom we have to do. 
We never carry on that thing well by which 
we are prepossessed and led : 



" For over heat doth carry on things ill." 

He who therein employs only his judgment 
and address proceeds more cheerfully : he 
counterfeits, he gives way, he defers all things 
at his ease, according to the necessities of occa- 
sions; he fails in his attempts, without trouble 
and affliction, ready and entire for a new 
effort; he always rides bridle in hand. In 
him who is drunk with violent and tyrannic 
intention, we see of necessity much imprudence 
and injustice: the impetuosity of his desire 
carries him away ; these are rash motions, and, 
if fortune does not very much assist, of very 

„ t little fruit. Philosophy wills tliat 

That the chas- .. /.', . 

tiscmeiit of of- In tne revenge of injuries re- 
fences ought to ceived we should strip ourselves 

withou^alfger of choler ' not that thc chastise- 
ment should be less, but, on the 
contrary, that the revenge may be tiie belter 
and more heavy, which it conceives will be by 
this impetuosity hindered. For anger does not 
only trouble, but of itself does also weary, the 
arm of those who chastise; this fire benumbs 
and wastes their force: as in precipitation, fes- 
linatio tarda est, 3 "haste fetters itself:" Ipsa 
se velocitas implieut.* For example, according 
to what I commonly see, avarice has no greater 
impediment than itself; the more bent and 



1 " Omnia fere cupiditus ipsa sihi in id, in quod propcrat, 
oppoiiitnr."- Seneca, <lr Ira, i. 12. 
« Statins, rtir.tmid. x. 701. 
sauiiitHst'uriiim. ix. !). 12. 
« Senecn, Ilpht. 44., whose words are slightly different. 

42 



vigorous it is, the less it rakes together, and 
commonly sooner grows rich, when disguised 
in a vizor of liberality. 

A very honest gentleman, and a particular 
friend of mine, had like to have cracked his 
brains by a too passionate attention and affec- 
tion to the affairs of a certain prince, his 
master; 5 which master has thus set himself out 
to me : — " That he foresees the weight of acci- 
dents as well as another; but that in those for 
which there is no remedy he presently resolves 
upon suffering ; in others, having taken all 
the necessary precaution, which, by the vivacity 
of his understanding, he can presently do, he 
quietly awaits what may follow." And, in 
truth, 1 have accordingly seen him maintain a 
great nonchalance and liberty of action, and 
serenity of countenance, in very great and dif- 
ficult affairs; I find him much greater and 
of greater capacity in adverse than prosperous 
fortune; his losses are to him more glorious 
than his victories, and his mourning than his 
triumph. 

Do but consider that, even in vain and frivo- 
lous actions, as at chess, tennis, 
and the like, this eager and it is an advan- 
ardent engaging 1 with an im- jage in gaming 
, <? =". <=> ,• . , ., to keep ones 

petuous desire immediately throws temper, both in 
the mind and members into in- gain and loss, 
direction and disorder; a man 
confounds and hinders himself: he that carries 
himself the most moderately, both towards gain 
and loss, has always his wits about him; the 
less peevish and passionate he is at play, he 
plays much more advantageously and surely. 

As to the rest, we hinder the mind's seizure 
and hold, in giving it so many things to seize 
upon : some things we are only to offer to it, to 
tie others to it, and others to incorporate with 
it: it can feel and discern all things, but 
ought to feed on nothing but itself, and should 
be instructed in what properly concerns itself, 
that is properly of its own having and sub- 
stance. The laws of nature teach us exactly 
what we need. After the sages have told us 
that, according to nature, no one is indigent, 
and that every one is so according to opinion, 6 
they very subtly distinguish betwixt the de- 
sires that proceed from her and those that pro- 
ceed from the disorder of our own fancy: those 
of which we can see the end are hers; those 
that fly before us, and of which we can see no 
end, are our own. Want of goods is easily 
repaired; poverty of soul is irreparable: 

IVani si, quod satis est honiini, id satis esse potesset, 

line sal erat : nunc, quum hod non est, qui credimus porro 

Divitias ullas aniinum mi cxplere potesse .' ' 

" If what's for man enough enough could he 
It were enough; hut as we plainly see 
That won't suffice, how can I e'er believo 
That any wealth my mind content can give ?" 



° Probably the King of Navarre, afterwards Honrjr IV. 
of France. 
« Seneca, Fpist. 16. 
t Lucil. tib. v. apud Mmium Marccllum, v. § 98. 



494 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Socrates seeing a great quantity of riches, 
jewels, and furniture of great value, carried in 
pomp through the city : " How many things," 
said he, "do I not desire !" 1 Metrodorus lived 
on twelve ounces a day; Epicurus upon less ; 2 
Metrocles slept in winter abroad among sheep; 
in summer in the cloisters of churches: 3 Svffi- 
cit ad id natura, quod poscit.* " Nature pro- 
vides for its own exigences." Cleanthes lived 
by the labour of his own hands, and boasted, 
" That Cleanthes, if he would, could maintain 
yet another Cleanthes." 5 

If that which nature exactly and originally 
Why his neces- requires of us for the conserva- 
sities may be tion of our being be too little (as, 
extended a ^ n truth, what it is and how very 

httle beyond . .' , . . J , 

the necessary cheap life may be maintained 
demands of cannot be better made out. than 
nature. ^y t j,£ s consideration; that it is 

so little that by its littleness it escapes the gripe 
and shock of fortune), let us dispense with a 
little more; let us call every one of our habits 
and conditions nature; let us tax and treat 
ourselves by this measure; let us stretch our 
appurtenances and accounts so far; for so far 
I fancy we have some excuse. Custom is a 
second nature, and no less powerful. What is 
wanting to my custom I hold to be wanting to 
me; and I should be almost as well content 
that they took away my life, as take me far 
from the way wherein I have so long lived. 
I am no more in a condition for any great 
change, nor to put myself into a new and un- 
wonted course, though never so much to my 
advantage. 'Tis past the time for me to become 
other than what I am; and as I should com- 
plain of any great adventure that should now 
befal me, that it came not in time to be enjoyed : 

duo mihi fortuna, si non conceditur uti ? 6 



so should I complain of any inward acquest. 
It were almost better never, than so late, to 
become an honest man, and well understanding 
in living, when a man has no longer to live. 
I, who am going, would readily resign to any 
new-comer all the wisdom I have acquired for 
the world's commerce: "after meat comes 
mustard." I want no goods of which I can 
make no use ; of what use is knowledge to him 
that has lost his head 7 'Tis adding insult to 
injury for fortune to offer us presents that will 
only inspire us with a just despite that we 
had them not in their due season. Guide me 
no more, I can no longer go. Of so many 
parts as make a perfect man, patience suffices. 



i Cicero, Tasc. Qums. v. 32. 

» Seneca, Epist. 18. 

3 Plutarch, That Vice alone is sufficient to make a man 
unhappy. 

« Seneca, Epist. 90. 

6 It was Zeno who said this of Cleanthes, his disciple. 
See Laertius, Life of Cleanthes. 



Give an excellent treble to a chorister that has 
rotten lungs, and eloquence to a hermit exiled 
in the deserts of Arabia. There needs no art 
to further a fall; the end finds itself of itself, 
at the conclusion of every affair. My world is 
at an end, my form expired ; I belong to the 
past, and am bound to authorise it, and to con- 
form my end to it. I will here mention, by 
way of example, that the recent eclipse by the 
pope of ten days, 7 has taken me so low that I 
cannot well get used to it ; I belong to the years 
wherein we kept another kind of account. So 
ancient and so long a custom challenges and 
calls me back to it; I am constrained to be 
somewhat heretical in this point: impatient of 
any, even though a corrective innovation. My 
imagination, in spite of my teeth, always pushes 
me ten days forward or backward, and is ever 
murmuring in my ears, "This rule concerns 
those who are going to be." If health itself, 
sweet as it is, returns to me by fits, 'tis rather to 
give me cause of regret than fruition of itself; 
I have no place left to keep it in. Time leaves 
me, without which nothing can be possessed. 
Oh, what little account should I make of those 
great elective dignities that I see in such esteem 
in the world, that are never conferred but upon 
men who are taking leave of it, in whom they 
do not so much regard how well he will dis- 
charge his trust, as how short his administration 
will be ; from the very entry they look at the 
exit. In short, I am about to finish this man, 
and not to rebuild another. By long habit 
this form is, in me, turned into substance, and 
fortune into nature. 

I say, therefore, that every one of us feeble 
creatures is excusable in thinking that to be his 
own which is comprised under this measure; 
but withal, beyond these limits, 'tis nothing 
but confusion; 'tis the largest extent we can 
grant to our own claim. The more business 
we create ourselves, the more we amplify our 
possession, so much more do we expose our- 
selves to the blows and adversities of fortune. 8 
The career of our desires ought to be circum- 
scribed, and restrained to a short limit of near 
and contiguous conveniences; and ought more- 
over, to perform their course, not in a right line, 
that ends elsewhere, but in a circle, of which 
the two points by a short wheel meet and ter- 
minate in ourselves. Actions that are carried 
on without this reflection (a near and essential 
reflection I mean), such as those of ambitious 
and avaricious men, and many more who run 
point blank, and whose career always carries 
them before themselves, such actions, I say, 
are erroneous and sickly. 

Most of our business is farce : Mundus uni- 



« Horace, Epist. i. 5, 12. 

' Gregory XIII., who in 1582 had the calendar altered by 
Louis Lilio, Peter Chacon, and Christopher Clavius. In 
France they made the alteration by skipping at once from 
the 9th to the 20th of December, 1582. 

8 "L'homrne tient par ses vceux a mille choses: plus il 
augmente ses attachemens, plus il multiplie ses peines."— 
Rousseau, Entile, liv. v. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



405 



versus exercet hislrioniam. " All 
,*" «£? ma " the world's a stage, and all the 
rupteii i>y the men and women merely players." 
employment he We musl p]ay ur part wel i but 
exercises. . , , \ J "C , , , 

withal as the part of a borrowed j 
personage; we must not make a real essence of 
a mask and outward appearance, nor of a 
strange person our own ; we cannot distinguish 
the skin from the shirt; 'tis enough to meal 
the face without mealing the breast. I see 
some who transform and transubstantiate them- 
selves into as many new shapes and new beings 
as they undertake employments, and who pre- 
late themselves even to the heart and liver, and 
carry their office along with them, even to the 
close stool; I cannot make them distinguish 
the salutations that are made to them from 
those made to their commission, their train, or 
their mule: Tanquam se fortunes permittutit, 
etiarn ul naturam dedisr.ant ,• l " They so much 
give themselves up to fortune as even to for- 
get nature;" they swell and puft' up their 
souls and their natural way of speaking, ac- 
cording to the height of their magisterial place. 
The mayor of Bordeaux and Montaigne have 
ever been two, by very manifest separation. 
To be an advocate or a treasurer, a man must 
not be ignorant of the knavery of such callings; 
an honest man is not accountable for the vice 
or folly of his business, and yet ought not to 
refuse to take the calling upon him; 'tis the 
custom of his country, and there is money to 
be got by it; a man must live by the world, 
and make his best of it, such as it is. But the 
judgment of an emperor onght to be above 
his empire, and view and consider it as an 
accident; and he ought to know how to enjoy 
himself apart from it, and to communicate 
himself as James and Peter, to himself at least. 
I cannot engage myself so deep and so en- 
tire; when my will gives me to a party, 'tis 
not with so violent an obligation 
Montaigne, by that my judgment is infected with 
partyf'i'i'd not &• In the present broils of this 
(.•si)ouW its kingdom, my interest in the one 

^■TridSo'us S ' de hEtS " 0t made " ie f ° r ^ et e ' ther 

whimsies. the laudable qualities of some of 

our adversaries, nor those that arc 
reproachable in my own party. People gene- 
rally adore all of their own side ; for my part I 
do not so much as excuse most things in those 
of mine; a good book has never the worse 
grace for being written against me. The knot 
of the controversy excepted, I have always kept 
myself in equanimity and pure indifference : 
Ni'que extra necessitates belli prxcipuum 
odium gero:* "And have no express hatred 
beyond the necessity of war;" for which I am 
pleased with myself! and the more, because I 
see others commonly fail in the contrary way. 
Such as extend their anger and hatred beyond 
the dispute in question, as most men do, show 



> Petronius, apud John of Salisbury, Policratic. iii. 8. 
2 Quintus Curtius, iii. 3. 18. 



that they spring from some other occasion and 
particular cause; like one who, being cured of 
an ulcer, has yet a fever remaining, by which 
it appears that the ulcer had another more con- 
cealed beginning. It is because they are not 
concerned in the common cause, because it is 
wounding to the state and common interest, but 
are only nettled by reason of their private and 
particular concern : this is why they are so 
especially animated, beyond justice and public 
reason : Non tarn omnia universi, ejuam ea qwe 
ad quemque pertinerent, singuli carpebant. 3 
"Every one was not so much angry against 
things in general as against those that par- 
ticularly concerned himself." I would have, 
matters go well on our side ; but if they do not, 
I shall not run mad. I am heartily for the 
right party ; but I do not affect to be taken 
notice of for an especial enemy to others, and 
beyond the general quarrel. I am a mortal 
enemy to this vicious form of censure: "He is 
of the league because he admires the Duke of 
Guise. He is astonished at the king of Na- 
varre's valour and diligence, and therefore he 
is a Huguenot. He finds such and such faults 
in the king, and therefore he is seditious in his 
heart;" and I would not grant to the magis- 
trate that he did well in condemning a book, 
because it had placed a heretic" 1 among the best 
poets of the time. Shall we not dare to say of 
a thief that he has a handsome leg ? Because a 
woman is a strumpet, must it needs follow that 
she has a stinking breath? Did they, in the 
wiser ages, revoke the proud title of Capitolinus, 
they had before bestowed upon Marcus Man- 
lius as the preserver of religion and the public 
liberty; did they damn the memory of his 
liberality, his feats of arms, and the military 
recompense granted to his virtue, because he 
afterwards aspired to the sovereignty, to the 
prejudice of the laws of his country? If they 
take a hatred against an advocate, he will not 
be allowed the next day to be eloquent. I have 
elsewhere spoken of the zeal that pushes on 
worthy men to the like faults. For my part I 
can say : " such an one does this ill, and that 
well and virtuously." So, in the prognostics 
or sinister events of affairs, they will have every 
one, in his own party, blind or a blockhead ; 
and our persuasion and judgment be subser- 
vient, not to truth, but to the project of our 
desires. I should rather incline towards the 
other extreme, so much do I fear being suborned 
by my desire ; to which may be added, that I 
am a little tenderly distrustful of things that 
I wish. 

I have in my time seen wonders in the way of 
an indiscreet and prodigious feci- . 

lity in people to suffer their hopes f ai 'j'ii'iy ,?,' "',!'.,!. 
and belief to be led and governed pic m'smr.-ring 
which way has best pleased and j^™^ "' 
served their leaders, through a upon i>> t\e 



s I.lvy, xxxiv. 38. 

* Theodore Beza, whose poems have already been re- 
ferred to. 



496 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



leaders of a hundred mistakes one upon an- 
1,arty ' other, and through dreams and 

phantasms. I no more wonder at those who 
have been blinded and led by the nose by the 
ape's tricks of Apollonius and Mahomet. Their 
sense and understanding is absolutely taken 
away by their passion : their discretion has no 
longer any other choice than that which smiles 
upon them, and supports their cause. I prin- 
cipally observed that in the beginning of our 
intestine distempers: this other, which is 
sprung up since, in imitation, has surpassed it: 
by which I am satisfied that it is a quality in- 
separable from popular errors; after the first 
fthat sets out, opinions drive on one another like 
waves with the wind ; you are not part of the 
body, if you utter a word of objection, and do 
not follow the common run. But doubtless 
they wrong the just side, when they go about 
to assist it with fraud; I have ever been 
against that practice: 'tis only fit to work 
upon weak heads; for the sound, there are 
surer and more honest ways to keep up their 
courage, and to excuse adverse accidents. 
Heaven never saw a greater animosity than 

that between Caesar and Pompey, 
?wf!tc£sa b r e ' nor ever wil1 • and y et 1 observe, 
andPompey's methinks, in those fine souls a 
war, and. that great moderation towards one 
andSyiia. d " US another ; it was a jealousy of 

honour and command, which did 
not transport them to a furious and indiscreet 
hatred, and that was without malignity and 
detraction: in their hottest exploits upon one 
another, I discover some traces of respect and 
good-will; and therefore am of opinion that, 
had it been possible, each of them would rather 
have done his business without the ruin of the 
other, than with it. Take notice how different 
matters were with Marius and Sylla. 

We must not precipitate ourselves so head- 
long after our affections and interest. As, when 
I was young, I opposed the progress of love, 
which I perceived to advance too fast upon me, 
and had a care lest it should at last become so 
pleasing as to force, captivate, and wholly re- 
duce me to its mercy, so I do the same upon all 
other occasions, where my will is running on 
with too warm an appetite ; I lean opposite to 
the side it inclines to, as I find it going to 
plunge and make itself drunk with "its own 
wine: I evade nourishing its pleasure so far, 
that I cannot recover it without infinite loss. 
Souls that, through their own stupidity, only 
discern things by halves, have this happiness, 
that they smart the less with hurtful things: 
'tis a spiritual leprosy that has some show of 
health, and such a health as philosophy does 
not altogether contemn; but yet we have no 
reason to call it wisdom, as we often do. And 
after this manner a man mocked Diogenes, who, 
in the depth of winter, and stark naked, went 



hugging an image of snow for a trial of his 
patience ; seeing him in this exercise : "Art 
thou very cold]" said he; "Not at all," re- 
plied Diogenes; "Why, then," said the 
other, " what great and exemplary thing dost 
thou think thou art doing now?" 1 To estimate 
a man's firmness, we must know what his 
suffering is. 

But souls that are to meet with adverse 
events, and the injuries of fortune in their depth 
and sharpness, that are to weigh and taste them 
according to their natural weight and sharp- 
ness, let such show their skill in avoiding the 
causes and diverting the blow. What did King 
Cotysdo] He paid liberally for the rich and 
beautiful service of porcelain that had been 
brought him ; but, seeing it was exceedingly brit- 
tle he immediately broke it, in order to prevent 
so easy a matter of displeasure against his ser- 
vants. 2 In like manner, I have 
willingly avoided all confusion in How Mon - 
my affairs, and never coveted to S* 
have my estate contiguous to yent accidents 
those of my relations, and those "' the mana^e- 

., J T ' merit of his af 

with whom 1 coveted a strict fairs & actions, 
friendship ; whence matter of un- 
kindness and fallings-out often proceed. I for- 
merly loved cards and dice, but have long since 
left them off, only for this reason, that though 
I carry my losses as handsomely as another, I 
was not quiet within. Let a man of honour, 
who ought to be sensible of the lie, and who 
will not take a scurvy excuse for satisfaction, 
avoid occasions of dispute. I shun melancholic 
and sour-natured men as I would the plague ; 
1 and in matters I cannot talk of without emotion 
and concern, I never meddle, if not compelled 
by duty : Melivs non incipient quara desi- 
nenl ; 3 "'Tis better not to begin, than to 
desist." The surest way, then, is to prepare 
one's-self before the occasion. 

I know very well that some wise men have 
taken another way, and have not feared to 
grapple and engage to the utmost upon several 
' subjects : these are confident of their own 
1 strength, under cover of which they protect 
[ themselves in all ill successes, making their 
patience wrestle and contend with disaster: 

Velut rapes, vastum qua; prodit in sEqnor, 
Obvia ventorum funis, expostaque ponto, 
Vim cunctam atque minas perfert ccelique marisque, 
Ipsa immota manens. 4 

" He, like a solid rock by seas inclosed. 
To ra^in? winds and roaring waves opposed, 
From his proud summit, looking down, disdains 
Their empty menace, and unmoved remains." 

Let us never attempt these examples; we shall 
never come up to them. They set themselves 
resolutely, and without trouble, to behold the 
! ruin of their country, to which all the good 
' they can contrive or perform is due : this is 
I too much and too rude for our common souls to 



' T.aertius. Life of Diogenes. Plutarch. JljiotJtcgms of ! ' Seneca, Epist. 
the LacedrrmoTiians. 
3 Plutarch, Jjiotlicgms of the Kings. \ * JEneid, x. 693. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



497 



undergo. Cato gave up the noblest life that 
ever was upon this account; but it is for us 
smaller men to fly from the storm as far as we 
can; we ought to shun pain, instead of culti- 
vating patience, and dip under the blows we 
cannot parry. Zeno seeing Chremonides, a 
young man whom he loved, draw near to sit 
down by him, suddenly started up, and Cle- 
anthes asking him the reason why he did so: 
"I hear," said he, "that physicians especially 
order repose, and forbid emotion, in all ex- 
citements." ' Socrates does not say: "Do not 
surrender to the charms of beauty ; stand your 
ground, and do your utmost to oppose it." 
"Fly it," says he, "shun the sight and en- 
counter of it, as of a powerful poison, that 
darts and wounds at a distance." 2 And his 
good disciple, 3 either feigning or reciting, but 
in my opinion rather reciting than feigning, 
the rare perfections of that great Cyrus, makes 
him distrustful of his own strength to resist the 
charms of the divine beauty of the illustrious 
Panthea, his captive, and committing the visit- 
ing and keeping of her to another, who could 
not have so much licence as himself. And the 
Holy Spirit, in like manner: "Lead us not into 
temptation." 4 We do not pray that our reason 
may not be combated and overcome by concu- 
piscence, but that it should not be so much as 
tried by it ; that we should noi be brought into 
a state wherein we should have so much as to 
euffer the approaches, solicitations, and tempta- 
tions of sin; and we beg of Almighty God to 
keep our consciences quiet, fully and perfectly 
delivered from all commerce of evil. 

Such as say that they have reason for their 
avenging passion, or any other sort of trouble- 
some agitation of mind, do often say true, as 
things now are, but not as they were; they 
speak to us when the causes of their error are 
nourished and advanced by themselves: but 
look back, recal these causes to their beginning, 
and there you will put them to a nonplus. 
Will they have their fault less, for being of 
longer continuance; think they of an unjust 
beginning the sequel can be just? Whoever 
desires the good of his country, as I do, with- 
out fretting and pining, will be troubled, 
but will not swoon to see it threatened either 
with its own ruin, or a not less ruinous con- 
tinuance: poor vessel, that the waves, the 
wind, and the pilot, toss and steer to so con- 
trary designs! 

In tain di versa, magister, 
Ventus, ct inula, nullum. 1 

He who does not gape after the favour of 
princes, as after a thing he cannot live without, 
does not much concern himself at the coldness 
of their reception and countenance, nor at the 
inconstancy of their wills. He who does not 



i LaertiUB, Lift of Zeno. 
2 Xenophon, Memoir upon Socrates, i. 3. 13. 
« Id. Ci/rop.rdia. i. 3. 3. &c. 
i St Matthew, vi. 13. 

& Montaigne has translated the quotation before Riving 
t. 1 know not who the author is. tSuinc of the editions 



brood over his children or his honours with a 
slavish propension, ceases not to live commo- 
diously enough after their loss. He who does 
good principally for his own satisfaction will 
not be much troubled to see men judge of hia 
actions contrary to his merit. A quarter of an 
ounce of patience will provide sufficiently 
against such inconveniences. I find ease in 
this receipt, redeeming myself in the beginning 
as cheap as I can ; and find that by this means 
I have escaped much trouble and many diffi- 
culties. With very little effort I stop the first 
sally of my emotions, and quit the subject that 
begins to be troublesome, before it carries one 
away. He who stops not the start will hardly 
ever be able to stop the career: he who cannot 
keep them out will never get them out, when 
they are once in ; he who cannot crush them 
at the beginning, will never do it after ; nor 
ever keep himself from falling, if he cannot 
recover himself when first he begins to totter: 
Etenim ipsse se impellunt, ubi semel a rat tone 
discessum est ; ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indul- 
ge^ in altumque prnvehitur imprudens, nee 
reperit locum emisistendi. " For they throw 
themselves headlong, when once they lose 
their reason ; and frailty so far indulges itself 
that it is unawares carried out into the deep, 
and can find no port wherein to come to an 
anchor." I am betimes sensible of the little 
breezes that begin to sing and whistle in the 
shrouds, the forerunners of a storm : 

Ceu flamina prima 

Cum deprensa freinunt silvis, et creea volutant 
Munnura, ventures nautis prodentia ventos:' 

" So winds, when yet unfledged in woods they lie. 
In whispers first their tender voices try; 
Then issue on the main with bellowing rage. 
And storms to trembling mariners presage." 

How often have I done myself a manifest 
injustice, to avoid the hazard of 
having yet a worsi 
the judges, after an age of vexa- 
tions, dirty and vile practices, 
more enemies to my nature than fire or the 
rack ! Conven.it a lilibus, quantum licet, et 
nescio an paulo plus etiam, qudm licet, abhor- 
rentem esse : est enim non modo liberale, pau- 
lulum nonnunquam de suo jure decedere, sed 
interdum etiam fructuosum? " A man should 
be an enemy to all contention as much as he 
lawfully may, and I know not whether or not 
something more: for 'tis not only handsome, 
but sometimes also advantageous too, a little to 
recede from one's right." Were we wise, we 
ought to rejoice and boast, as I one day heard 
a young gentleman of a good family very inno- 
cently do, that his mother had lost her suit, as 
if it had been a cough, a fever, or something 
very troublesome to keep. Even the favours 



mention Buchanan, but without referring us to any parti- 
cular work of that poet. 

» Cicero, Tasc. Quics. iv. 18. 

' JEncid. x. 07. 

« Cicero, de OJjie. ii. 18. 

2a 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



that fortune might have given me through 
relationship, or acquaintance with those who 
have sovereign authority in our affairs, I have 
conscientiously waived, and very carefully j 
avoided employing them to the prejudice of j 
others, and of advancing my pretensions above j 
their true right. In fine, I have so much pre- 
vailed by my endeavours (happy 'tis for me 
I can say), that I am to this day a virgin 
from all suits at law, though they have made 
me very fair offers, and with very just ground, 
would I have hearkened to them ; and a virgin 
from quarrels too; I have almost passed over a 
long life without any offence of moment, either 
active or passive, or without ever hearing my- 
self called by a worse word than my own 
name ; a rare favour of heaven ! 

Our greatest agitations have ridiculous mo- 
„,. , . tives and causes; what ruin did 

The most vjo- ._ ' _ 

lent passions our last Duke of Burgundy run 
raised l'rom j n t about a cart-load of sheep- 

trifling causes. gking , , An(J wag nQt the engrav . 

ing of a seal the first and principal cause of 
the greatest commotion that this machine of 
the world ever underwent! 2 — for Pompey and 
Coesar were but the off-sets a,nd continuation 
of the two others ; and I have in my time seen 
the wisest heads in this kingdom assembled 
with great ceremony, and at the public ex- 
pense, about treaties and agreements, of which 
the real decision in the mean time absolutely 
depended upon the ladies' cabinet council, and 
the inclination of some woman body. The 
poets very well understood this, when they put 
all Greece and Asia to fire and sword for an 
apple. Enquire why that man hazards his life 
and honour upon the fortune of his rapier and 
dagger : let him acquaint you with the occa- 
sion of the quarrel ; he cannot do it without 
blushing, 'tis so idle and frivolous! 

A little thing will engage you in't, but 
being once embarked, all cords 
draw ; greater considerations are 
then required, more hard and 
more important. How much 
easier is it not to enter in, than 
it is to get out"! We should pro- 
ceed contrary to the reed, which at its first 
spring produces a long and straight shoot, but 
afterwards, as if tired and out of breath, runs 
into thick and frequent joints and knots, as 
so many pauses, which demonstrate that it 
has no more its first vigour and constancy: 
'twere better to begin fair and calmly, and 
to keep a man's breath and vigour for the 
height and stress of the business. We guide 
and govern affairs in their beginnings, and 
have them then in our own power; but after- 
wards, when they are once at work, 'tis they 
that guide and govern us, and we have to 
follow them. 

Yet do I not pretend by this to say that this 



The necessity 
of deliberation 
before we en- 
page in affairs 
especially 
quarrels. 



plan has relieved me of all difficulty, and that 
I have not often had enough to do "to curb and 
restrain my passions; they are not always to be 
governed according to the measure of occasions, 
and often have their entries very sharp and vio- 
lent. Yet good fruit and profit may thence be 
reaped, except by those who in well-doing are 
not satisfied with any benefit, if reputation be 
wanting; for, in truth, such an effect is of no 
account, but by every one in himself; you are 
better contented, but no more esteemed, seeing 
you reformed yourself before you came into 
play, or that any vice was discovered in you. 
Yet not in this only, but in all other duties of 
life also, the way of those who aim at honour 
is very different from that they proceed by, 
who propose to themselves order and reason. 
I find some who rashly and furiously rush into 
the lists, and cool in the race. As Plutarch 
says, 3 that as those who, through awkwardness, 
are soft and facile to grant whatever is desired 
of them, are afterwards as frail to break their 
word and to recant; so likewise he who en- 
ters lightly into a quarrel, is subject to run as 
lightly out of it. The same difficulty that keeps 
me from entering into it would, when once hot 
and engaged in it, incite me to maintain it with 
resolution. 'Tis, perhaps, wrong; but when a 
man is once engaged, he must go through with 
it or die. "Undertake coldly," said Bias, 4 
" but pursue with ardour." For want of pru- 
dence, men fall into want of courage, which is 
still more intolerable. 

Most accommodations of our quarrels now- 
a-days are discreditable and false: we only 
seek to save appearances, and in the mean time 
betray and disavow our true intentions ; we salve 
over the fact. We know very well how we 
said the thing, and in what sense we spoke it, 
and all the 'company, and all our friends with 
whom we would appear to have the advantage, 
understand it well enough too; 'tis at the ex- 
pense of our frankness, and the honour of our 
courage, that we disown our thoughts, and 
seek subterfuge in falsehood to make friends; 
we give ourselves the lie, to excuse the lie we 
have given another. You are not to consider 
whether your word or action may admit of 
another interpretation ; 'tis your own real and 
sincere interpretation, your real meaning, that 
you are thenceforward to maintain, whatever 
it cost you. Men address themselves to your 
virtue and your conscience, which are neither 
of them to be disguised ; let us leave these piti- 
ful ways and expedients to the tricksters of the 
law. The excuses and satisfactions that I see 
every day made and given to repair indiscretion, 
seem to me more scandalous than the indiscre- 
tion itself. It were better to affront your 
adversary a second time, than to offend yourself 
by giving him such satisfaction. You have 
braved him in your heat and anger, and you go 



1 See Uio Mem., of Philip cle Comincs, V. I. 
" Referring to the civil war between Marius and Sylia 
See Plutarch, Lift of Marius, c. 3. 



i On False Ska 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



499 



to appease him in your cooler and better sense ; 
and by that means lay yourself lower, and at 
his feet, whom before you pretended to over- 
top. I do not find any thing a gentleman can 
say so rude and vicious in him, as unsaying 
what he h;is said is infamous, when that unsay- 
ing is authoritatively extracted from him; for- 
asmuch as obstinacy is more excusable in him 
than pusillanimity. Passions are as easy for 
me to evade, as they are hard for me to mode- 
rate : Exscinduntur facillus animo quam tem- 
perantur. " 'Tis easier to tear them altogether 
from the mind, than to moderate them." He 
who cannot attain unto that noble stoical im- 
passibility, let him secure himself in the bosom 
of this popular stupidity of mine: what those 
great souls performed by their virtue, I inure 
myself to do by complexion. The middle re- 
gion harbours storms and tempests; the two 
extremes of philosophers and rustics concur ' 
tranquillity and happiness: 



losrere rnnsas 



, Nyniphasque sore 



" How blest Hie sage ! whose mind f.-iri pierce each caiibO 
Of changeful nature, and lier wond'rous laws ; 
Who trample.-; liar benenlh his Coot, and braves 
Fate, and stern death, and lull's resounding waves! 
Blest too, who knows each god that guards the swain, 
Tan, old Sylvanus, and the Dryad train." 

The birth of all things is weak and tender; and 
therefore we are to have an eye to beginnings; 
for as then, in their infancy, the danger is not 
perceived, so, when it is grown up, neither is 
the remedy to be found. I had every day en- 
countered a million of crosses, harder to digest, 
in the progress of ambition, than it has been 
difficult for me to curb the natural propension 
that inclined me to it: 

Jure per hnrrui 
Late conspicuuin tollere verticem.' 



All public actions are subject to various and 
uncertain interpretations, for too many heads 
judge of them. Some say of this city employ- 
ment of mine 3 (and I am willing to say a word 
„ ,. of it, not that it is worth so much, 

Montaigne s , ' .... . . ' 

account of his hut to exhibit my conduct in 
conduct in snc h things), that I have behaved 

myself in it like a man not easy 
to be moved, and with a languishing affection; 
and they have some colour for what they say. 
I endeavour to keep my mind and my thoughts 
in repose; Cum semper natura, turn etiam 
wtate. jam quietus; 4 "As being always quiet 
by nature, so also now by age;" and if they 
sometimes lash out on some rude and sensible 
impression, 'tis, in truth, without my advice. 
Yet, from this natural heaviness of mine, men 
ought not to conclude a total inability in me 



(for want of care and want of sense are two 
very different things), and much less any ingra- 
titude towards that city, who employed the 
utmost means they had in their power to oblige 
me, both before they knew me and after, and 
did much more for me in choosing me anew, 
than conferring that honour upon me at first. 
I wish them all the good that can befal them, 
and certainly, had occasion offered, there is 
nothing I would have spared for their service. 
I did for them as I would have done for myself. 
'Tis a good, warlike, and generous people, but 
capable of obedience and discipline, and of 
whom the best use may be made, if well guided. 
They say also that my administration was passed 
over without mark or thing worthy of record. 
Very good ! They accuse my cessation in a time 
when every body almost was convicted of doing 
too much. I am impatient to he doing where, 
my will spurs me on ; but this point is an enemy 
to perseverance. Let whoever will make use 
of me according to my own way, employ me in 
affairs where vigour and liberty are required; 
where a direct, short, and moreover a hazardous 
conduct is necessary; I may do something: 
but if it must be long, subtle, laborious, artifi- 
cial, and intricate, they would do better to call 
in somebody else. All important offices are not 
hard : I came prepared to work a little more, 
had there been great occasion ; for it is in my 
power to do something more than I do, or than 
I love to do ; I did not to my knowledge omit 
any thing that my duty really required. I 
easily forget those offices that ambition mixes 
with duty, and shelters under that title ; these 
are they that, for the most part, fill the eyes 
and ears, and give men the most satisfaction : 
not the thing, but the appearance contents 
them; they think men sleep, if they hear no 
noise. My humour is no friend to tumult ; I 
could appease a riot without emotion, and chas- 
tise a disorder without alteration. If I stand 
in need of anger and inflammation, I borrow it 
and put it on; my manners are heavy, rather 
faint than sharp. I do not condemn a magis- 
trate that sleeps, provided the people under his 
charge sleep as well as he: the laws in that 
case sleep too. For my part I commend a 
gliding, quiet, and silent life, Neque submission 
el abjectam, neque se efferentem: "Neither 
abject nor overbearing:" my fortune will have 
it so. I am descended from a family that has 
lived without lustre or tumult, and time out of 
mind, particularly ambitious of the character of 
truth and honesty. 

Our people now-a-days are so bred up to 
bustle and ostentation, that goodness, modera- 
tion, equability, and such quiet and obscure 
qualities, are no more regarded: rough bodies 
make themselves felt, the smooth are imper- 
ceptibly handled; sickness is felt; health little, 
or not at all ; no more than the oils that lb- 



500 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



merit us, in comparison of the pain for which 
we are fomented. 'Tis acting for a man's re- 
putation and particular profit, not for the public 
good, to refer that to be done in the public 
place which a man may as well do in the 
council-chamber, and to noon-day what might 
have been done the night before; and to be 
jealous to do that himself which his colleague 
can do as well as he. So some surgeons of 
Greece used to perform their operations upon 
scaffolds, in the sight of the people, to draw 
more practice and profit. They think that 
good orders cannot be understood but by the 
sound of trumpet. Ambition is not a vice of 
little people, and of so mean abilities as ours. 
One said to Alexander: "Your father will 
leave you a great dominion, easy and pacific ;" 
but this youth was envious of his father's vic- 
tories, and the justice of his government, and 
would not have enjoyed the empire of the 
world in ease and peace. 1 Alcibiades, in Plato, 
had rather die young, beautiful, rich, noble, 
and learned, and all this par excellence, 
than slop in the state of such a condition; 2 
this disease is perhaps excusable in so strong 
and so full a soul. When these wretched and 
dwarfish little souls gull and deceive themselves, 
and think to spread their fame, for having 
given right judgment in some affair, or kept 
up the discipline of the guard of the city gate, 
the more they think to exalt their heads, the 
more they show their tails. This little well- 
doing has neither body nor life ; it vanishes in 
the first mouth, and goes no farther than from 
one street to another. Talk of it, in God's 
name, to your son or your servant; like that 
old fellow who, having no other auditor of his 
praises, nor approver of his valour, boasted to 
his chambermaid, crying out: "O, Peretta, 
what a brave man hast thou to thy master!" 
At the worst, talk of it to yourself; like a 
counsellor of my acquaintance, who, having 
disgorged a whole cart-load of paragraphs with 
great heat, and as great folly, coming out of 
the council-chamber to make water, was heard 
very conscientiously to mutter betwixt his 
teeth : Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed 
nomini tuo da gloriam? He who can get it 
of nobody else, let him pay himself out of his 
own purse. 

Fame is not prostituted at so cheap a rate ; 
rare and exemplary actions, to which it is dye, 
would not endure the company of this pro- 
digious crowd of little every-day performances. 
Marble may exalt your titles as much as you 
please, for having repaired a rod of a ruinous 
wall, or cleansed a public sewer, but not 
men of sense. Renown does not follow all 
good deeds, if novelty and difficulty be not 
conjoined ; nay, so much as mere estimation, 
according to the Stoics, is not due to every 
action that proceeds from virtue ; neither will 



i See Plutarch, Life of Alexander. 

2 See the first Alcibiades. 

3 " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto U9, but unto thy l 
be the glory."— Psalm 113. 



they allow him bare thanks who, out of tem- 
perance, forbears to meddle with any old blear- 
eyed hag. Such as have known the admirable 
qualities of Scipio Africanus deny him the 
glory that Panastius attributes to him, of being 
abstinent from gifts, as a glory not so much his 
as that of the age he lived in. 4 We have plea- 
sures suitable to our fortunes; let us not usurp 
those of grandeur. Our own are more natural, 
and by so much more solid and sure, as they 
are more low. If not for that of conscience, 
yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject 
ambition ; let us disdain that thirst of honour 
and renown, so low and mendicant, that it 
makes us beg it of all sorts of people {qua est ista 
lnus, quae possit 6 macello peti ! 5 " What praise 
is that which is to be got in the market?"), 
by abject means, and at what cheap rate soever. 
'Tis dishonour to be so honoured. Let us learn 
to be no more greedy of honour than we are 
capable of it. To be puffed up with every 
action that is innocent, or of use, is only for 
such with whom such things are extraordinary 
and rare ; they will value it as it costs them. 
How much the more a good effect makes a 
noise, so much I abate of the goodness of it, 
as I enter into suspicion that it was more per- 
formed for noise than upon the account of 
goodness: being exposed upon the stall, it is 
half sold. Those actions have much more 
grace and lustre that slip from the hand of him 
that does them negligently and without noise, 
and that some honest man after chooses out and 
raises from the shade, to produce it to the light 
upon its own account: Mihi quidem lauda- 
biliora videntur omnia, qux sine venditatione, 
et sine populo teste Jiunt, 6 "All things, truly, 
seem more laudable to me that are performed 
without ostentation and without the testimony 
of the people," says the most vain-glorious 
man in the world. 

I had no care but to conserve and to con- 
tinue, which are silent and insensible effects. 
Innovation is of great lustre, but 'tis inter- 
dicted in this time, when we are pressed upon, 
and have nothing to defend ourselves from but 
novelties. To forbear doing is often as noble 
as to do; but 'tis less in the light: and 
the little good I have in me is almost all of 
this kind. In fine, occasions in this employ- 
ment of mine have been confederate with my 
humour, and I thank them for it. Is there 
any one who desires to be sick that he may see 
his physician at work? And would not that 
physician deserve to be whipped who should 
wish the plague amongst us, that he might put 
his art in practice? I have never been of that 
wicked, though common enough, humour, to 
desire that the trouble and disorders of this 
city should elevate and honour my govern- 
ment: I have ever willingly contributed all I 
could to their tranquillity and ease. He who 



4 Cicero, dc Offic. ii. 22. 

6 Id. dc Fin. ii. 15. 

« Id. Tiisc. Quas. ii. 26. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



.501 



will not thank me for the order, gentle and 
silent calm, that has accompanied my adminis- 
tration, cannot, however, deprive me of the 
share that belongs to me by the title of my 
good fortune. And I am of such a composition 
that I would as willingly be happy as wise; 
and had rather owe my successes purely to the 
favour of Almighty God than to any industry 
or operation of my own. I had sufficiently 
published to the world my unfitness for such 
public offices. But I have something in me 
yet worse than incapacity, which is that I am 
not much displeased at it, and that I do not 
much go about to cure it, considering the 
course of life that I have proposed to myself. 
Neither have I satisfied myself in this employ- 
ment, but I have very near arrived at what I 
expected from myself, and have much sur- 
passed what I promised them with whom I had 
to do; for I am apt to promise something less 
than what I am able to do, and than what I 
hope to make good. I am sure that I have 
left no impressions of offence or hatred behind 
me; and as to leaving regret or desire of me 
amongst them, I at least know very well that 
I never much affected it: 

Mono huir confidero nionstro! 
Mene salis placiili vultuni, fluctusque quietoa 
lgnorare ! > 

' Wouldst thou I should a quiet sea believe, 
To this inconstant monster credit give?" 



CHAPTER XI. 



OF CRIPPLES. 

'Tis now two or three years ago that they 
made the year ten days shorter 
Tne vcar cut in France. How many changes 
shorter. 3 ma y we expect should follow this 

reformation ! This was properly 
moving heaven and earth at once. And yet 
nothing for all that stirs from its place; my 
neighbours still find their seasons of sowing 
and reaping, the opportunities of doing their 
business, the hurtful and propitious days, just 
at the same time where they had, time out of 
mind, assigned them. There was no more error 
perceived in our old custom, than there is amend- 
ment found in this alteration. So great an 
uncertainty there is throughout; so gross, ob- 
scure, and dull is our perception. 'Tis said 
that this regulation might have been carried 
out with less inconvenience by subtracting, 
after the example of Augustus, the bissextile, 
which is in some sort a day of hindrance and 
confusion, till we had exactly satisfied the 



i JEneid, v. 849. 

■> Pop,. Cregory XIII. having remarked that the error of 
eleven minutes, which occurred in the Julian year, bad 
given (he wi.rl ! ti'ii da\s more than it was entitled to. paid 
Offthedehl to time hv at once out tiny out ten days from the 
year 1582, proceeding at once from the 5th to the Lull of 
October iu that year. The new mode of reckoning years 



debt; 2 which, after all, is not paid by the 
correction, and we yet remain some days in 
arrear; and, by the same means, order might 
be taken for the future, providing that after 
the revolution of such a year, or such a number 
of years, the supernumerary day should be 
always thrown out, so that we could not hence- 
forward err above four and twenty hours in 
our computation. We have no other account 
of time but years ; the world has for many 
ages made use of that only, and yet it is a 
measure that to this day we are not agreed 
upon; such a one, that, we still doubt what 
form other nations have variously given to it, 
and what was the true use of it. What do 
some say? "That the heavens, in growing 
old, bow themselves down nearer towards us, 
and put us to an uncertainty even of days and 
months." And what does Plutarch say? 3 
"That astrology had not, in his time, deter- 
mined the motion of the moon." See what a 
fine condition are we in to keep records of 
things past! 

I was just now ruminating, as I often do, 
upon this; what a free and roving m , 
thing human judgment is. I or" .TXm^un- 
dinarily see that men, in things demanding, 
proposed to them, more willingly "^ksV>Mhe 
study to find out the reason than causes of a fact, 
to find out the truth of them ; they i"-*™' ! h <"-e is 
slip over pre-suppositions, but are such'fa'c't.^ ° 
curious in examination of conse- 
quences; they leave the things, and fly to the 
causes. Pleasant praters! the knowledge of 
causes only concerns him who has the conduct 
of things, not us, who are only to undergo them, 
and who have the perfectly full and accom- 
plished use of them, according to our need, 
without penetrating into their origin and es- 
sence; wine is none the more pleasant to him 
that knows its first faculties. On the contrary, 
both the body and soul alter and interrupt the 
right they have of the use of the world and of 
themselves, by mixing with it the opinion of 
learning. Effects concern us, but the means 
not at all. To determine and to distribute ap- 
pertain to superiority and command, as it does 
to subjection to accept. Let me reprehend 
our custom: we commonly begin \ thus: — 
"How is such a thing done?" whereas, we 
should say : "Is such a thing done?" Our rea- 
son is able to create a hundred other worlds, and 
to find out the beginnings and contexture : it 
needs neither matter nor foundation. Let it 
run on: it builds as well in the air as on the 
earth ; and with inanity as well as with matter; 

Dare pondtts idonen fumo.< 
" And can give weight to smoke." 



is called, after his holiness, the flrotrorian calendar, or New 
Style, while the Julian calendar is termed (lid Style, which 
latin is sun followed by the Russians and other members 

of the Greek Church. 

3 Roman Questions. 
* Persius, v. 20. 



502 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



I find that almost throughout we should say : 
" There is no such thing ;" and should myself 
often make use of this answer, but I dare not ; 
for they cry: "It is a defect produced from 
ignorance and weakness of understanding ;" 
and 1 am forced, for the most part, to juggle 
for company, and prate of frivolous and idle 
subjects, which I don't believe a single word of. 
Eesides that, in truth, 'tis a little rude and 
quarrelsome, flatly to deny a proposition; and 
few people but will affirm, especially in things 
hard to be believed, that they have seen them, 
or at least will name witnesses whose authority 
will stop our mouths from contradiction. By 
this mode we know the foundations and means 
of things that never were; and the world scuffles 
about a thousand questions, of which the pro 
and con are both false : Ita jinitima sunt falsa 
veris - - - ut in prsecipitern locum non debeat se 
sapiens committere. 1 " False things are so like 
the true, that a wise man should not trust him- 
self upon the precipice." 

Truth and lies are faced alike; their port, 
taste, and proceedings are the same. We look 
upon them with the same eye. I hold that we 
are not only remiss in defending ourselves from 
deceit, but that we seek and offer ourselves to 
be gulled. We love to entangle ourselves in 
vanity, as a thing conformable to our being. 

I have seen the birth of several miracles of 
my time. Although they died in 
What credit the birth, yet have we not failed 
have gained 68 to foresee what they would have 
in the world. come to, had they lived their full 
age ; for 'tis but finding the end 
of the clue, and one may wind off as much as 
one will ; and there is a greater distance betwixt 
nothing and the least thing in the world, than 
there is betwixt that and the greatest. Now, 
the first that are imbued with this beginning of 
novelty, when they set out and sow their his- 
tory, find, by the oppositions they meet with, 
where the difficulty of persuasion lies, and so 
caulk that place with some false piece. 2 Besides 
that, insita hominibus libidine alendi de indus- 
tria rumores, 3 " men having a natural desire 
to nourish reports," we naturally make a con- 
science of restoring what has been lent us, 
without some usury and access of our substance. 
Particular error first makes the public error ; 
and afterwards, in turn, the public error makes 
the particular error. 4 Thus all this vast fabric 
goes on founding and confounding itself from 
hand to hand, so that the remotest testimony is 
better instructed than those that are nearest, 
and the last informed better than the first. 'Tis 
a natural progress; for whoever believes any 



> Cicero, Acad. ii. 21. 

s " Clue d'erreurs monstreuses accreditors par la science, 
merne qui aurait dii les dctruire ! On commence par une 
fausse cliarte, par un diplome suppose; on le montre en 
secret aquelquespersonucs interessees a le faire valoir; sa 
reputation s'etablit avant meine qu'il soit connu. Com- 
mence-t-il a percer; les honnetes pins, les esprits senses se 
recrient contre I'imposture: on les fait taire; on rectifie 
une erreur, on deguise habilement un mensonge; on cor- 
rdmpt le sens d> ■--•■» -«ir des commentaires. Ecoutons 



thing, thinks it a work of charity to persuade 
another into the same opinion, which the better 
to do, he will make no difficulty of adding as 
much of his own invention as he conceives ne- 
cessary to encounter the resistance or want of 
conception he meets with in others. I myself, 
who make a great conscience of lying, and am 
not very solicitous of giving credit and autho- 
rity to what I say, do yet find that, in the 
arguments I have in hand, being heated with 
opposition of another, or by the proper heat of 
my own narration, I swell and puff up my 
subject by voice, motion, vigour, and force of 
words, and, moreover, by extension and ampli- 
fication, not without some prejudice to the 
naked truth ; but I do it conditionally withal, 
that to the first who brings me to myself, and 
who asks me the plain truth, I presently sur- 
render my effort, and deliver it to him without 
exaggeration, without emphasis, or any larding 
of my own. A quick and earnest way of speak- 
ing, as mine is, is apt to run into hyperbole. 
There is nothing upon which men commonly 
are more intent than to make way for their own 
opinions. Where the ordinary means fail us, 
we add command and forces fire and sword. 
'Tis sad work to be at that pass, that the best 
trial of truth must be the multitude of believers, 
in a crowd where the number of fools so much 
exceeds that of the wise : Quasi ve.ro quidquam 
sit tarn valde, quam nil sapere, vulgare? Sa- 
nitatis patrocinium est insanienlium turba? 
"As if any thing were so common as igno- 
rance. The multitude of fools is a protection to 
the wise." 'Tis hard to resolve a man's judg- 
ment against the common opinions. The first 
persuasion, taken from the subject itself, pos- 
sesses the simple ; and from them diffuses itself 
to the wise, under the authority of the number 
and antiquity of witnesses. For my part, what 
I should not believe from one, I should not 
believe from a hundred and one ; and do not 
judge opinions by the years. 

'Tis not long since one of our princes, in 
whom the gout had spoiled an excellent nature 
and sprightly disposition, suffered . 

himself to be so far persuaded with CLn P e d ie aii sorts 
the report that was made of the of diseases by 
wonderful operations of a certain ™ tu s re a s nd 
priest, who, by words and ges- 
tures, cured all sorts of diseases, as to go a 
long journey to seek him out ; and by the force 
of his apprehension, for some hours so persuaded 
and laid his legs asleep, as to obtain that service 
from them they had a long time forgotten. 
Had fortune heaped five or six such like adven- 
tures, it had been enough to have brought this 



Montaigne, il (lira mieux que moi : ' Les premiers qui sont 
abbruvcs rie ce coimueiiccnient d'cstraiiECt.-.' &c. CAui vcut 
appreiulre adouterdoit lire ce chapitiv i-n tier de Montaigne, 
le moins methodiqiiede philosopher mais le plus sage et le 
plus aimable.'' Voltaire, Melanges Bistoriques. 
s Livy, xxviii.24. 

4 " Et quurn singulorum error publicum fecerit, singu- 
lorum errorem facit publicus." Seneca, Ep. 81. 

5 Cicero, de Divinat. ii. 39. 

« St. Augustin, de Civit. Dei, vi. 10. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



503 



What Mem 



miracle into nature. There was afterwards dis- 
covered so much simplicity and so little art in 
the architect of such operations, that he was 
thought too contemptible to be punished. As 
would be thought of most such things, were 
they well examined: Miramur ex inlervallo 
faltenlia: 1 "We admire at distant things that 
deceive." So does our sight often represent to 
us strange images at distance, that vanish as we 
approach near : Nunquam ad liquidum fama 
perducilur. 2 "Fame is never brought to be 
clear." 

'Tis wonderful from how idle beginnings, and 
frivolous causes, such famous impressions com- 
monly proceed ! This it is that obstructs the 
information ; for whilst we seek out the causes, 
and the great and weighty ends worthy of so 
great a name, we lose the true one; they escape 
our sight by their littleness; and, in truth, a 
prudent, diligent, and subtle inquisition, indif- 
ferent and not prepossessed, is required in such 
searches. To this very hour all these miracles 
and strange events have concealed themselves 
from me. I have never seen a greater monster 
or miracle in the world than my- 
self. A man grows familia.r with 
all strange things by time and 
miracles. custom ; but the more I frequent 

and the better I know myself, the 
more does my own deformity astonish me, and 
the less I understand myself. 

The principal right of advancing and pro- 
ducing such accidents is reserved to fortune. 
Riding the day before yesterday through a vil- 
lage, about two leagues from my house, I found 
the place yet hot with a miracle which had 
lately exploded there, wherewith the neighbour- 
hood had been several months amused, so that 
the neighbouring provinces had begun to take 
up the excitement, and to run thither in great 
companies of all sorts of people. A young 
fellow of the town had one night counterfeited 
the voice of a spirit in his own house, without 
any other design at present, but only for sport; 
but this having succeeded with him a little 
better than he expected, to illustrate his farce 
with more actors, he took a stupid, silly country 
girl into the scene, and at last there were 
three of the same age and understanding; and 
from domestic lectures, proceeded to public 
preaching, hiding themselves under the altar 
of the church, never speaking but by night, and 
forbidding any light to be brought. From 
words which tended to the conversion of the 
world, and threatened the day of judgment (for 
these are subjects under the authority and reve- 
rence of which imposture most securely lurks), 



i Seneca, Epist. Ufi. 
'Quint. Curt. ix.2. 
s Cicero, .dead. ii. 47. 

vii'i is tosay of wonder (8aD/ia flavuaToj.) "Estcnim 
pulcher (the rainbow, Iris) el ob earn causam, quia speciem 

habet ailmirnhili m. Thnumitntr dicitur esse n.it us." Cicero, 
de Nat. Dear. hi. 20. Readers will see that in the text of 
Blontaiinc they must read Thuumas, not Tlmumante. 
o Or rather Coras, a learned jurisconsult, born at Tou- 



they proceeded to some visions and movements 
so simple and ridiculous, that nothing could 
hardly be so gross and contemptible amongst 
little children. Yet had fortune never so little 
favoured the design, who knows to what height 
this juggling might have at last arrived 1 These 
poor devils are at present in prison, and are 
like to pay for the common folly, and I know 
not whether some judge may not make them 
smart for his share in it. We see clearly through 
this, which is discovered; but in many things 
of the like nature, that exceed our knowledge, 
I am of opinion that we ought to suspend our 
judgment, both as to rejecting, and as to re- 
ceiving. 

Many abuses in the world are begotten, or, 
to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world 
are begotten, by our being afraid 
of acknowledging our ignorance, Jf'^"!','"'^ 110 " 
and that we hold ourselves bound ture. 
to accept all things we are not 
able to refute: we speak of all things by 
precepts and resolution. The style at "Rome 
was, that even that which a witness deposed to 
have seen with his own eyes, and that which 
a judge determined on his most certain know- 
ledge, was couched in this form of speaking : 
" It seems to me." 3 They make me hate things 
that are likely, when they would impose them 
upon me for infallible: I love these words which 
mollify and moderate the temerity of our pro- 
positions: "Perhaps, in some sort, 'tis said, I 
think," and the like: and had I had to train 
up children, I had so put this way of answer- 
ing into their mouths, inquiring, and not reso- 
lutive: " What does this mean! I understand 
it not; it may be; is it true?" that they should 
rather have retained the form of pupils at three- 
score years old, than to go out doctors, as they 
now do, at ten. He who would cure ignorance, 
must confess it. 

Iris is the daughter of Thaumantis: 4 wonder 
is the foundation of all philosophy; enquiry 
the progress; ignorance the end. Ay, but 
there is a sort of ignorance, strong and 
generous, that yields nothing in honour and 
courage to knowledge; a knowledge which to 
conceive requires no less knowledge than know- 
ledge itself. I saw in my younger days a report 
of a process that Corras, 5 a counsellor of Thou- 
louse, put in print, of a strange accident of two 
men, who presented themselves the one for the 
other. I remember (and I hardly remember 
any thing else), that he seemed to have rendered 
the imposture of him whom he judged to be 
guilty so wonderful, and so far exceeding both 
our knowledge and his who was the judge, that 



louse, l. r il3, ninl assassinated at the same place, with three 
other Protestants, on the 4th October, LYr.'. shortly after 
the St. Bartholomew. His works were published, in two 
volumes, folio, at Lyons, I.Vili, laari, and afterwards re 
printed at Wittemberg, 1603; and Ins life u as written in 
Latin by James Horns, the poet, a member of the same 
family. The trial of winch IMoiitnisiic speaks is the cele- 
brated affair of the false Martin (Juerre. of which Coraa 
published the account referred to, Paris, 13(35. 



504 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



I thought it a very bold sentence that con- 
demned him to be hanged. Let us take up some 
form of arrest that shall say : " The court un- 
derstands nothing of the matter:" more freely 
and ingenuously than the Areopagites did, who, 
finding themselves perplexed with a cause they 
could not unravel, ordered the parties to appear 
again in a hundred years. 1 

The witches of my neighbourhood run a 
hazard of their lives, upon the formation of 

As to witches ever y new author tha l wil1 S ive a 
body to their dreams. To accom- 
modate the examples that holy writ gives us of 
such things, most certain and irrefragable ex- 
amples, and to tie them to our modern events, 
being we neither see the causes nor the means, 
will require another sort of wit than ours. It 
perhaps only belongs to that sole all-powerful 
testimony to tell us: "This is, and that is, and 
not that other." God ought to be believed; 
that certainly is good reason: but not one 
amongst us, who is astonished at his own nar- 
ration (and he must of necessity be astonished, 
if he be not out of his wits), whether he employ 
it about other men's affairs, or against himself. 

I am plain and dull, and stick to the main 
point, and that which is likely, avoiding those 
ancient reproaches: Mnjorem fidem homines 
adhibent eis quae non intelligunt. — Cupidine 
humani ingenii, libentius obscura creduntur. 2 
"Men are most apt to believe what they 
least understand. Through the lust of human 
wit, obscure things are more easily credited." 
I see very well that men are angry, and for- 
bid me to doubt upon pain of insults and 
injuries: a new way of persuading! Mercy, 
for God's sake; I am not to be cuffed into be- 
lief. Let them be angry with those that accuse 
their opinion of falsity; I only accuse it of dif- 
ficulty and boldness, and condemn the opposite 
affirmation equally with them, if not so impe- 
riously. Who will establish his argument by 
overbearing and huffing, discovers his reason to 
be weak. For a verbal and scholastic alterca- 
tion, let them have as much appearance as their 
contradictors ; Videantur sane, non affirmentur 
modo:* "Let them suggest things as probable, 
but not affirm them :" but in the real conse- 
quence they draw from it, these have much the 
advantage. To kill men, a clear and shining 
light is required ; and our life is too real and 
essential to warrant these supernatural and fan- 
tastic accidents. 

As to drugs and poisons, I throw them out of 
my account; they are homicides, and of the 
worst sort : yet even in this, 'tis said, that we 
are not always to rely even upon the confessions 
of these people themselves ; for they have some- 
times been known to accuse themselves of the 
murder of persons who have afterwards been 
found living and well. In these other extra- 
vagant accusations, I should be apt to say that it 



i Val. Max. viii. 1. Aulus Gellius, xii. 7. 
2 The second of these paragraphs is from Tacitue, Hist. 
i. 22. I know not whence Montaigne borrowed the other. 



is sufficient for a man, what recommendation so- 
ever he may have, to be believed in human things; 
but of what is beyond his conception and of super- 
natural effect, he ought then only to be believed 
when authorized by a supernatural approbation. 
The privilege it has pleased God to give to some 
of our witnesses, ought not to be lightly com- 
municated and made cheap. I have my ears 
battered with a thousand such flim-flams as 
these : " Three saw him such a day in the east, 
three the next day in the west: at such an hour, 
in such a place, in such a habit:" in truth, I 
should not believe myself How much more 
natural and likely do I find it that two men 
should lie, than that one man, in twelve hours' 
time, should fly with the wind from east to 
west! How much more natural, that our 
understanding should be carried from its place, 
by the volubility of our disordered minds, than 
that one of us should be carried by a strange 
spirit upon a broom-stick, flesh and bones as we 
are, up the funnel of a chimney ! Let us not 
seek illusions from without and unknown, who 
are perpetually agitated with illusions domestic, 
and our own. Methinks a man is pardonable 
in disbelieving a miracle, as much at least as he 
can divert and elude the verification of it by 
ways other than marvellous ; and I am of St. 
Augustin's opinion, "that 'tis better to lean 
towards doubt than assurance, in things hard to 
prove and dangerous to believe." 

'Tis now some years ago that I travelled 
through the territories of a foreign prince, who, 
in my favour, and to abate my incredulity, did 
me the honour to let me see, in his own presence 
and in private, ten or twelve prisoners of this 
kind ; and amongst others an old hag, a real 
witch in foulness and deformity, who long had 
been famous in that profession. I saw both 
proofs and free confessions, and I know not 
what insensible mark upon the miserable crea- 
ture ; I examined and talked with her, and the 
rest, as much and as long as I would, and made 
the best and soundest observations I could, and 
I am not a man to suffer my judgment to be 
captivated by prepossession; and, in the end, 
should in conscience sooner have prescribed 
them hellebore than hemlock: Capiisque res 
magis menlibus, quam consceleratis, similis 
visa: 4 "The thing was rather to be attributed 
to madness than malice :" justice has correction 
proper for such maladies. As to the oppositions 
and arguments that honest men have made me, 
both there, and often in other places, I have met 
with none that have convinced me, and that 
have not admitted a more likely solution than 
their conclusions. It is true, indeed, that the 
proofs and reasons that are founded upon expe- 
rience and matter of fact, I do not go about to 
untie ; neither have they any end : I often cut 
them, as Alexander did the gordian-knot. 
After all, 'tis setting a man's conjectures at a 

8 Cicero, Acad. ii. 27. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



505 



very high price, to cause a man to be roasted 
alive upon them. 

We are told by several examples (and parti- 
cularly Prestantius of his father 1 ), that being 
more profoundly asleep than men usually are, 
he fancied himself to be a mare, and that he 
served the soldiers for a sumpter; and what he 
fancied himself to be, he was. 2 If sorcerers 
dream so materially, if dreams can sometimes so 
incorporate themselves with effects of life, I 
cannot believe that therefore our will should be 
accountable to justice; which I say, as a man, 
who am neither judge nor privy councillor, nor 
think myself by many degrees worthy so to be, 
but a man of the common sort, born and vowed 
to the obedience of the public realm, both in 
words and acts. He that should record my 
idle talk, to the prejudice of the most paltry 
law, opinion, or custom of his parish, would do 
himself a great deal of wrong, and me too ; for 
in what I say, I warrant no other certainty 
but that 'tis what I had then in my thought, a 
thought tumultuous and wavering. All I say 
is by way of discourse: Nee me pnrlel ul istos, 
foteri nescire quad wsciam : 3 "Neither am I 
ashamed, as they are, to confess my ignorance 
of what I do not know:" I should not speak 
so boldly if it were my due to be believed ; and 
so I told a great man, who complained to me of 
the tartness and contention of my advice. Per- 
ceiving you to be ready and prepared on one 
part, I propose to you the other, with all the 
care I can to clear your judgment, not to en- 
force it. God has your hearts in his hand, and 
will furnish you with choice. I am not so pre- 
sumptuous as to desire that my opinions should 
so much as give an inclination in a thing of so 
great importance: my fortune has not trained 
them up to so potent and elevated conclusions. 
Truly, I have not only a great many humours, 
but also a great many opinions, that I would 
endeavour to make my son dislike, if I had one. 
The truest are not always the most commodious 
to man: he is of too wild a composition. 

Whether it be to the purpose or not, 'tis no 
great matter; 'tis a common proverb in Italy, 
that he knows not Venus in her perfect sweet- 
ness, who has never lain with a lame mistress. 
P'ortune, or some particular accident, has long 
ago put this saying into the mouths of the 
people: and the same is said of the men as well 
as of women ; for the queen of the Amazons 
answered the Scythian, who courted her to love, 
dpifa 2w?.6j ot^fi, 4 lame men 
brautt'ihcTort P erform best - In tnis feminal 
oi'VI'inis. republic, to evade the dominion 



' St. Augustin, T)e Civil.. Dei. xviii. 18. The holy Antler 
opines, that •' in cases of this sort the devil presents to the 
spi-<- 1 ;i 1 1 .1 s a visionary body which they take Cor a real ani- 
mal, a horse, an ass, &c., and that the man who imagines 
himself to be thai ass, or thai horse, thinks he carries a real 
burden, as much as it was possible lor him to fancy it in a 
dream; so that if such phantom of an animal carries real 
bodies, they are the demons who carry thorn in order to de- 
ceive men, who ih--n see real bodies on the back Of a sumpter- 
horse, which is n mere phantom." 

» ■■ auod ita, in narravirt, factum fuisse compertum est." 
— St. Aug. ut supra. 

43 



of the males, they lamed them in their 
infancy, arms, legs, and other members that 
gave them advantage over them, and only made 
use of men in that wherein we in the other 
parts of the world make use of women. I 
should be apt to think that the irregular move- 
ment of the lame mistress added some new 
pleasure to the work, and some extraordinary 
titillation to those who were at the sport; but 
I have lately learnt that ancient philosophy has 
itself determined it: 6 it says that the legs and 
thighs of lame women not receiving, by reason 
of their imperfection, their due aliment, it falls 
out that the genital parts above are fuller, and 
better supplied, and more vigorous; or else that 
this defect hindering exercise, they who are 
engaged in it less disperse their strength, and 
come more entire to the sports of Venus ; which 
also is the reason why the Greeks decried the 
women weavers, as being more ™ „„ „,„„ 

' . » Women wea- 

hot than other women, by reason vers more Just- 
of their sedentary trade, which is "'"' tnan °<her 
carried on without any great exer- w0,ne "- 
• cise of the body. What is it we may not reason 
of at this rate 1 I might also say of these, that 
I the jogging which their work causes while 
! they are sitting, rouses and provokes their 
desire, as the swinging and motion of coaches 
does that of our ladies. 

Do not these examples serve to make good 
what I said at first: that our reasons often 
anticipate the effect, and have so infinite an 
extent of jurisdiction, that they judge and exer- 
cise themselves, even in inanity and where 
there is no being] Besides, the flexibility of 
our invention to forge reasons for all sorts of 
dreams, our imagination is equally facile to 
receive impressions of falsity, by very frivolous 
appearances; for, by the sole authority of the 
ancient and common use of this proverb, I have 
formerly made myself believe that I had more 
pleasure with a woman, by reason she was not 
straight, and reckoned that deformity amongst 
her graces. 

Torquato Tasso, in the comparison he makes 
between France and Italy, 6 says 
he has observed that our legs are ™f t iemen"s 
generally smaller than those of Tegs smaller 
the Italian gentlemen, and attri- than those of 

. » ., r .. . i ■ the Italians, 

butes the cause of it to our being allll why 
continually on horseback ; which 
is the very same from which Suetonius draws a 
quite different conclusion : for he says, on the 
contrary, that Gerinanicus had made his legs 
bigger by continuation of the same exercise. 7 
There is nothing so supple and erratic as our 



a Cicero, Tuse. Quccs. i. -5. 

* Michael Apostolius, Proverb. Cmtur, 4. num. 43. It 
was doubtless this opinion that induced the ancients to 
assign the lame Vulcan as the husband of Venus. 

e Aristotle, Problem, sect. 10, prob. 26. 

« Parafrone thlV Italia alia Franria, page 11. JVW/a 
parte prima Uelle. Rime c prose del Sign. Torquat Tasso, 
in Fcrrara, Ann. 1585. 

» Life of Caligula. 



506 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



understanding; 'tis like the shoe of Theramenes, 
fit for all feet; 1 'tis double and various; and 
the matters are double and adverse too. " Give 
me a drachm of silver," said a Cynic philosopher 
to Antigonus. "That is not a present befitting 
a king," replied he. " Give me then a talent," 
said the other. " That is not a present befitting 
a Cynic." 2 



irat.s 



S.'u dura l magis, et vena 

Ne renins pluviu.', rapidive potentia ; 

Acrior, aut Dorcce penetribile frigus ; 

"Whether earth gain fresh strength or richer food, 
Or noxious moisture, forced by fire, exude; 
Whether it draw through man}' an opening vein, 
Juice to fresh plants that clothe anew the plain; 
Or brace the pores that, pervious to the day, 
Felt the prone sun's intolerable ray ; 
To piercing showers Hi' rxpanded fissure close, 
And the chill north that blisters as it blows." 

Ogni medaglia ha il sua reverso. " Every 
medal has its reverse." This is why Climo- 
tachus said of old, that Carneades had outdone 
the labours of Hercules, in having taken from 
man consent, that is to say, opinion and the 
temerity of judging. 4 Tljis so strong fancy of 
Carneades sprung, in my opinion, anciently 
from the impudence of those who made profes- 
sion of knowledge, and their immeasurable self- 
conceit. iEsop was set for sale with two other 
slaves; the buyer asked the first what he could 
do ; he, to enhance his own value, promised moun- 
tains and miracles, saying he could do this, and 
that, and I know not what; the second said as 
much of himself, and more; when it came to 
iEsop's turn, and that he was also asked what 
he could do: "Nothing," said he, "for these 
two have taken up all before me; they can do 
every thing." 5 So has it happened in the school 
of philosophy; the pride of those who attri- 
buted the capacity of all things to human wit, 
created in others, out of spite and emulation, 
this opinion, that it is capable of nothing: the 
one maintain the same extreme in ignorance 
that the others do in knowledge, in order to 
make it undeniable that man is immoderate 
throughout, and can give no other positive 
sentence but that of necessity, and the want of 
ability to proceed farther. 



CHAPTER XII. 



OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 

Almost all the opinions we have are derived 
from authority, and taken upon 
di^oureesof trust 5 and ' tis not amiss: we 
Socrates out of could not choose worse than by 
the 6 'fbUc Ct ap° ourse l ves < m s0 weak an age. 
ptobau'on, ' That image of the discourses of 



i Erasmus, Adagia, in vcrbo. 

2 Seneca, ,ie Briicf. ii. 17. 

3 Virgil, Qcorgic, i. 89. 
< Cicero, Acad. ii. 34. 



Socrates, which his friends have W j t hout dis- 
transmitted to us, we approve cerning the true 
upon no other account but from value of them, 
the reverence to public approbation ; 'tis not 
according to our own knowledge ; they are not 
after our way ; if anything of this kind should 
spring up now, few men would value them. 
We discern not the graces, otherwise than by 
certain features, touched up and illustrated by 
art; such as glide on in their own purity and 
simplicity easily escape so gross a sight as ours; 
they have a delicate and concealed beauty; 
there needs a clear and purified sight to discover 
so secret a light. Is not simplicity, according 
to our notions, cousin-german to folly, and a 
quality of reproach? Socrates makes his soul 
move a natural and common motion; a peasant 
said this, a woman said that; he never has any 
thing in his mouth but carters, joiners, cobblers, 
and masons; these are deductions and simili- 
tudes drawn from the most common and known 
actions of men ; every one understands them. 
Under so vile a form we should never have 
entertained the nobility and splendour of his 
admirable conceptions; we who think all things 
low and flat that are not elevated by learning, 
and who discern no riches but in pomp and 
show. This world of ours is only formed for 
ostentation ; men are only puffed up with wind, 
and are bandied to and fro like foot-balls. That 
man proposed to himself no vain and idle fan- 
cies ; his design was to furnish us with precepts 
and things that really and more fitly serve to 
the use of life ; 

Servare modiim, finemque tenere, 
Naturamque sequi. 6 



He was also always one and the same, 7 and 
raised himself, not by starts, but by complexion, 
to the highest pitch of vigour; or, to say it bet- 
ter, he exalted nothing, but rather brought down 
and reduced to his original, and natural condi- 
tion, all asperities and difficulties ; for, in Cato, 
'tis most manifest that it is a proceeding ex- 
tended far beyond the common ways; in the 
brave exploits of his life, and in his death, we 
find him always mounted upon the high horse ; 
whereas this man 8 always creeps upon the 
ground, and with a slow and ordinary pace, 
treats of the most useful discourses, and bears 
himself, both at his death, and in the most thorny 
traverses that could present themselves, in the 
ordinary course of human life. 

It has fallen out well, that the man most 
worthy to be known, and to be _ , 

J , , -, , ■ r The character 

presented to the world tor ex- ofSocrates. 

ample, should be he of whom we 

have the most certain knowledge; he has been 



6 Planud. in vita. 

« Lucan ii. 381, speaking- of Cato. 

' Cicero, da Offic. i. 2o. 

e Socrates. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



507 



made dear to us by the most clear-sighted men 
that ever were ; the testimonies we have of him 
are admirable, both in fidelity and capacity. 
'Tis a great thing that he was able so to order 
the pure imaginations of a child, that, without 
altering or wresting them, he has thereby pro- 
duced the most beautiful effects of a human 
soul; he presents it neither elevated nor rich, 1 
he only represents it sound, but certainly with 
a pure and sprightly health. By these common 
and natural springs, by these ordinary and 
vulgar fancies, without being moved or making 
any bustle, he set up, not only the most regular 
but the most high and vigorous beliefs, actions, 
and manners that ever were. 'Tis lie who 
brought back from heaven, where she was 
losing her time, human wisdom, to restore her 
to man, with whom her most just and greatest 
business lies. 1 See him plead before his judges; 
observe by what reasons he rouses his courage 
to the hazards of war; with what arguments he 
fortifies his patience against calumny, tyranny, 
death, and the shrewishness of his wife; you 
will find nothing in all this borrowed from the 
arts and sciences; the simplest may there dis- 
cover their own means and power; 'tis not pos- 
sible more to retire, or to creep more low. He 
has done human nature a great kindness in 
showing it how much it can do of itself 

We are all of us richer than we think for; 
but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and 
„ , , brought up more to make use of 

Man incapable . ? . r _ ., , ., „ 

of moderatiou. what is another s, than of our 
own. Man can in nothing fix 
and conform himself in his mere necessity ; of 
pleasure, wealth, and power, he grasps at more 
than he can hold; his greediness is incapable 
of moderation. And I find that in curiosity of 
knowing he is the same ; he cuts himself out 
more work than he can do, and more than he 
needs to do, extending the utility of knowledge 
as far as its matter : Ut omnium rerum, sic tit- 
terarum quoque, intemperantia laboramus ,- 2 
"As of every thing else, we are also afflicted 
with intemperance in letters; 1 " and Tacitus 
has reason to commend the mother of Agricola 
for having restrained her son in his too violent 
appetite for learning. 3 

'Tis a good, if duly considered, which has in 
it, as the other goods of men have, 

,h'in'!''"nVar? a § Teat ^ t>a ' °f var jity! »"d of 

ijuiaitinn. That proper and natural weakness, and 

soi'i't!' iS ° { ' ■''' ^' at costs ver y t ' ear - The acqui- 
m i'y nature. 1 " sition of it is more hazardous than 
that of any other meat or drink ; 
for in other things, what we have bought we 
carry home in some vessel, and there have liberty 
to examine our purchase, and consider when 
and how much of it we will take; but the 
sciences we can, at the very first, bestow into 
no other vessel than the soul ; we swallow them 
as we buy them, and return from the market, 



' Cicero, Jlrnd. i. ■). 
! Srni'ca, /•';,;,-■/ inr,. 
> Life of Jlgricolu, c. 



either already infected or amended ; there are 
some that only burden and overcharge the sto- 
mach instead of nourishing; and others that, 
under colour of curing, poison us. I have been 
pleased, in places where I have been, to see 
men, out of devotion, make a vow of ignorance 
as well as of chastity, poverty, and penitence; 
'tis also a gelding of our unruly appetites to 
blunt this cupidity that spurs us on to the study 
of books, and to deprive the soul of this volup- 
tuous complacency, that tickles us with the idea 
of knowledge; and 'tis plenarily to accomplish 
the vow of poverty to add unto it that of the 
mind. We need little learning to teach us how 
to live at our ease ; and Socrates tells us that it 
is in us, with the way how to find it, and the 
manner how to use it. All this knowledge of 
ours that exceeds the natural is well nigh super- 
fluous and vain ; 'tis much if it do not more 
burden and cumber us than it does us good: 
Faucis opus est litter is ad rnentern bonam:* 
"A man of good natural parts has no great 
need of learning :" 'tis a feverish excess of the 
mind; a tempestuous and unquiet instrument. 
Collect yourself; you will find in yourself the 
arguments of nature against death true, and the 
most proper to serve you in time of need ; 'tis 
they that make a peasant, an entire people, die 
with as much firmness as a philosopher. Should 
I have died less cheerfully before I had read 
Cicero's Tusculans 7 I believe not; and when 
I find myself at the best, I perceive that my 
tongue is enriched indeed, but my courage little 
or nothing elevated by them; it is just as nature 
forged it at first, and against any conflict only 
defends itself after a natural and ordinary way: 
books have not so much served me for instruc- 
tion as for exercise. What if knowledge, try- 
ing to arm us with new defences against natural 
inconveniences, has more imprinted in our fan- 
cies their weight and grandeur, than her reasons 
i and subtleties to secure us from them'? They 
are subtleties, indeed, with which she often 
alarms us to little purpose ; do but observe how 
many slight and frivolous, and, if nearly exa- 
mined, how many incorporeal arguments the 
closest and wisest authors scatter about a 
good one; they are no other but verbal quirks 
to gull us; but forasmuch as this may be with 
some profit, I will shift them no farther ; many 
of that sort are here, dispersed up and down, 
either borrowed or imitated; yet ought a man 
to take heed not to call that force which is only 
a knack of writing, and that solid which is 
only quick, or that good which is only fine: 
Qua magis gustnla quam potato delectant ,- s 
" Which more delight in tasting than in being 
drunk;" every thing that pleases does not 
nourish, ubi non irtgenii, sed animi negotium 
agilur. 6 " Where the question is not about 
improving the wit, but bettering the under- 
standing;." 



i Si'ii.'ca, Epist. Kill. 
'• I'icri), Tusc. Qv<cs. 
> Soueca, Euist. 75. 



508 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



To see the work that Seneca makes to fortify I 
himself against death; to see him sweat and | 
pant to harden and encourage himself, and 
fight so long upon the perch, would have less- j 
ened his reputation with me, had he not very ' 
bravely maintained it to the last. His so ardent 
and frequent agitations discover that he was 
himself impetuous and ardent (Magnus animus 
remissius loquitur, et securius . . . non est 
alius ingenio, alius animo color, 1 " A great 
courage speaks more negligently, 
A comparison m ore securely . . . wit and cou- 

between Seneca J ... 

and Plutarch. rage wear one and the same 
livery ;" he must be convicted 
at his own expense) ; and he does in some sort 
discover that he was hard pressed by his enemy. 
Plutarch's way, by how much it is more dis- 
dainful and negligent, is in my opinion so much 
the more manly and persuasive: I am apt to 
believe that his soul had more assured and more 
regular motions. The one, more sharp, pricks 
and makes us start, and more touches the soul ; 
the other more solid, who informs, establishes, 
and constantly supports us, more touches the 
understanding. That ravishes the judgment, 
this wins it. I have likewise seen other writ- 



ings, yet more reverenced than these, that, in 
the representation of the conflict they maintain 
against the temptations of the flesh, paint them 
so sharp, so powerful and invincible, that we, 
who are of the common sort of people, are apt 
as much to wonder at the strangeness and un- 
known force of their temptation, as at their 
resistance. 

To what end do we go arming ourselves with 

these efforts of science ] Let us look down to 

the earth, upon the poor people 

If h t e he e v?u"a?in that We See scattered shoai > P rone 

facing the" most and intent upon their business, 
fatal accidents that neither know Aristotle nor 
death'^elr 6 " Cato, example nor precept: even 
more instrn'c- from these does nature every day 
lectVres of h trie extract effects of constancy and 
philosophers. patience, more pure and firm than 
those who so inquisitively study 
in the schools. How many do I ordinarily 
see who slight poverty 1 How many that 
desire to die, or that die without alarm or 
regret 1 He that is now digging in my garden 
has this morning buried his father, or his son. 
The very names by which they call diseases 
sweeten and mollify the sharpness of them: the 
phthysic is with them no more than a cough, the 
dysentery but a looseness, a pleurisy but a cold, 
and as they gently name them, so they lightly 
endure them ; they are very great and grievous 
indeed when they hinder their ordinary labour, 
and they never keep their beds but to die: 
Simplex ilia et aperta virtus in obscuram et 
snlertem scienliam versa est. 2 "That plain and 
simple virtue is converted into an obscure and 
subtle knowledge." 



i Seneca, Epist. 114, J 15. 

2 Id. ib. 95. 

s Ovid, de Ponto, i. 3, 57. 



I was writing this about the time when a great 
load of our intestine troubles for 
several months, lay with all its Montaigne's 
weight upon me : I had the enemy j^X' c^ia^ 
at my door on one side, and the unties of the 
freebooters, worse enemies than ^. h |j h v n " in a 
they, on the other: Non armis, involved. 
sed vitiis certatur ; "Fighting 
not with arms, but with vices;" and under- 
went all sorts of military injuries at once: 

Hostis adest dextra lievaque a parte timendus, 
Vicinoque nialo terret utrumque latus.a 



A monstrous war ! Other wars are bent against 
strangers, this against itself; and destroys itself 
with its own poison. 'Tis of so malignant and 
ruinous a nature, that it ruins itself with the 
rest; and with its own rage mangles and tears 
itself to pieces. We oftener see it dissolve of 
itself, than through scarcity of any necessaries, 
or by force of the enemy. All discipline evades 
it; it comes to compose sedition, and is itself 
full of it; will chastise disobedience, and itself 
is the example; and, employed for the defence 
of the laws, rebels against its own. What a 
condition are we in ! Our physic makes us sick ! 



Exsuperat magis. cegrescitque medendo. 4 
' His physic makes him worse, and sicker still.' 



" For right and wrong, confounded in this war, 
Have robb'd us of the gods' protecting care." 

In the beginning of these popular maladies, 
a man may distinguish the sound from the sick; 
but when they come to continue, as ours have 
done, the whole body is then infected from head 
to foot, and no part is free from corruption ; for 
there is no air that men so greedily draw in, 
that diffuses itself so soon, and that penetrates 
so deep, as that of license. Our armies only 
subsist, and are kept together by the cement 
of strangers : for of French there is now no 
constant and regular army to be made. Oh, 
shame ! there is no more discipline now to be 
seen but in borrowed soldiers. As to ourselves, 
we conduct ourselves at the discretion, not of 
the chief, but every one at his own; the general 
has a harder game to play within than he has 
without; 'tis for the commander to follow the 
soldiers, to pay court to them, to consult their 
humours; he alone has to obey ; all the rest is 
dissolute and free. It pleases me to observe 
how much pusillanimity and cowardice there is 
in ambition; by how abject and servi/e ways it 
must arrive at its end ; but, withal, it displeases 
me to see good and generous natures, and that 



I JEneid, xii. 46. 

' Catullus, de Nu.pt. Pelei et Thetidos, verse 405. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



are capable of justice, every day corrupted in 
the management and command of this confu- 
sion. Long toleration begets habit ; habit, 
consent and imitation. We had enough of ill- 
born souls, without spoiling those that were 
generous and good ; so that if we go <pn, there 
will not remain any with whom to entrust the 
health of this state of ours, in case fortune 
chances to restore it : 



Hunc saltern everso juvenem 
Ne prohibited 

"O, let this youth a prostrate world sustain." 

What is become of the old precept, that soldiers 
ought more to fear their chief than the enemy 1 2 
And that wonderful example, that an orchard 
being enclosed within the precincts of a camp 
of the Roman army, was seen at their dislodg- 
ment the next day, in the same condition, not 
an apple, though ripe and delicious, being 
pulled, but all left to the owner I s I could 
wish that our youth, instead of the time they 
spend in less fruitful travels and less honourable 
employments, would bestow one half of that 
time in being an eye-witness of naval exploits 
under some good captain-commander of Rhodes, 
and the other half in observing the discipline 
of the Turkish armies; for they have many 
differences and advantages over ours: one of 
which is, that our soldiers become more licen- 
tious in expeditions, theirs more temperate and 
circumspect ; for the thefts and insolences com- 
mitted upon the common people, which are 
only punished with a cudgel in peace, are capi- 
tal in war ; for an e^<r taken in Turkey without 
paying for it, fitly blows with a cudgel is the 
prefixed rate; for any thing else, how trivial 
soever, not necessary to nourishment, they are 
presently impaled, or beheaded without mercy. 
I am astonished, in the history of Selim, the 
most cruel conqueror that ever was, to see that, 
when he subdued Egypt, the beautiful gardens 
about Damascus, though all open, and in a 
conquered land, and his army encamped upon 
the very place, should be left untouched by 
the hands of the soldiers, because they had not 
received the signal of plunder. 

But is there any disease in a government so 
important as ought to be physicked with such 
a mortal drug] "No," says Favonius, 4 "not so 
much as the tyrannical usurpation of a com- 
monwealth." Plato, likewise, 6 will not consent 
that a man should do violence to the peace of 
his country to cure it; and by no means ap- 
proves of a reformation that disturbs and hazards 
all, and that is to be purchased at the price of 
the citizens' blood and ruin; determining it to 
be the duty of a patriot, in such a case, to let 
things alone; and only to pray to God for his 



> Virgil. Gcorgir. i. 501). Montaigne pn.b.iMv alludes to 
Henry hi' \avain-, afti-rwanls Henry IV. ol Krunce. 

» VM. Mnximus, ii. 7, ext. 2. 

» Frontin. Stralag. iv. 3, 13, speaking of the army of M. 
Beaurus. 

* Plutarch, Life of Marcus Brutus, c. 3. 

43* 



extraordinary assistance; and he seems to be 
angry with his friend Dion for having pro- 
ceeded something after another manner. I was 
a Platonist in this point, before I knew there 
had ever been such a man as Plato in the world. 
And if this person ought absolutely to be re- 
jected from our society, he who, by the sincerity 
of his conscience, merited from the divine 
favour to penetrate so far into the Christian 
light, through the universal darkness wherein 
the world was involved in his time, I do not 
think it would well become us to suffer our- 
selves to be instructed by a heathen, how- 
great an impiety it is not to expect from God 
any relief simply his own, and without our 
co-operation. I often doubt whether, among so 
many men as meddle in such affairs, there is 
not to be found some one of so weak under- 
standing as to have been really persuaded that 
he went towards reformation by the worst of 
deformations; that he advanced towards his 
salvation by the most express causes that we 
have of most assured damnation ; that by over- 
throwing the government, magistracy, and 
laws, in whose protection God had placed him, 
by tearing his mother to pieces, and giving the 
lacerated limbs to her old enemies to gloat 
over, by inspiring fraternal minds with parri- 
cidal animosities, by calling devils and furies 
to his aid, he can assist the holy sweetness and 
justice of the divine laws. Ambition, avarice, 
cruelty, and revenge, have not sufficient natural 
impetuosity of their own; let us bait them with 
the glorious titles of justice and devotion. 
There cannot a worse state of things be ima- 
gined than where wickedness comes to be 
legitimate, and assumes, with the magistrate's 
permission, the cloak of virtue : ISihU in speciem 
fullacius quam prava religio vbi deorum nil- 
men prsetendiliir sceleribus. 6 " Nothing has a 
more deceiving face than false religion, where 
devotion is pretended by wicked men." The 
extremest sort of injustice, according to Plato, 
is where that which is unjust is reputed just. 7 

The common people then suffered therein very 
much, not present damages only, 

Undique totis 
Usque adeo turbatur agris s 

" So great disturbance reigns throughout the land, 

but future too: the living were to suffer, and 
so were they who were yet unborn: they pil- 
laged them, and consequently me too, even of 
hope, taking from them all they had laid up in 
store to live on for many years: 

Quie ncqucunt secum ferre aul ahducere. ptirdunt; 

Kl rreinat insontes turha srelestn casas. 8 
Minis nulla fnles. squalen! popuiatihus agri.n 



» Epist. to Pcrdiccas. 

• I. ivy, xxxix. IB. 
i Itepublic, ii. 4. 

n Virgil. Eelog. i. 11. 

• Ovid, Tritt. in. 10,65. 
io Claudiau, in Eu'.rop. i. 



510 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



"What they can't hear away they spoil and spurn, 
And the lewd rabble harmless b<mses burn: 
Walls can't secure their masters, and the field, 
Through woful waste, does an ill prospect yield." 

Besides this shock, I suffered others ; I under- 
went the inconveniences that moderation brings 
along with it in such diseases ; I was curried 
on all hands ; to the Ghibelline I was a Guelph ; 
to the Guelph a Ghibelline; one of my poets 
expresses this very well, but I know not where 
it is. The situation of my house, and my 
friendliness to my neighbours, presented me 
with one face; my life and my actions with 
another. They did not lay formal accusations 
against me, for they had no hold. I never 
slink from the laws, and whoever would have 
questioned me, would have done himself a 
greater prejudice than me; they were only 
mute suspicions that were whispered about, 
which never want appearance in so confused a 
mixture, no more than envious or idle heads. 
I commonly assist the injurious presumptions 
that fortune scatters abroad against me, by a 
way I have ever had of evading to justify, 
excuse, or explain myself, conceiving that it 
were to compromise my conscience to plead in 
its behalf: Perspicuitas enim augmenlalione 
elevalur : ' " For perspicuity is, clouded by aug- 
mentation." And, as if every one saw as clearly 
into me as I do myself, instead of retiring from 
an accusation, I step up to meet it, and rather 
give it some kind of colour by an ironical and 
scoffing confession, if I do not sit totally silent, 
as of a thing not worth my answer. But such 
as look upon this kind of behaviour of mine as 
too haughty a confidence, have as little kind- 
ness for me as they who interpret it the weak- 
ness of an indefensible cause; particularly great 
people, towards whom want of submission is the 
extreme fault, and who are rude to all justice 
that knows and feels itself, and is not sub- 
missive, humble, and suppliant: I have often 
knocked my head against this pillar. So it is, 
that at what then befel me an ambitious man 
would have hanged himself, and a covetous one 
would have done the same. I have no manner 
of care of getting; 

Sit mihi quod nunc est etiam minus, et mihi vivani 
Quod superest sevi, si quid superesse volent di : 3 

•' This is my prayer : let me possess 
My present wealth or even less; 
And if the bounteous gods .should deign 
A longer life, that life be mine:" 

but the losses that befel me by the injury of 
others, whether by theft or violence, go almost 
as near my heart, as they would do to that of 
the most avaricious man. The offence troubles 
me, without comparison, more than the loss. 
A thousand several sorts of mischiefs fell upon 
me in the neck of one another ; I could better 
have borne them all at once. 

I had already begun considering to whom 



i Cicero, de JVut. Dear. iii. 
2 Horace, Episl. i. 18, 107. 



amongst my friends I might com- 
mit a necessitous and degraded tie misfortunes. 
old age: and having turned my 
eyes quite round, I found myself altogether at 
a loss. To let one's self fall plump down, 
and from so great a height, it ought to be in 
the arms of a solid, vigorous, and fortunate 
friendship; they are very rare, if there be any. 
At. last I concluded that it was safest for me to 
trust to myself in my necessity ; and if it should 
fall out that I should be put upon cold terms 
in fortune's favour, I should so much more re- 
commend me to my own, and so much the 
closer attach me to myself Men on all occa- 
sions throw themselves upon foreign help, to 
spare their own, which is the only certain and 
sufficient one, for him who knows how to arm 
himself therewith. Every one runs elsewhere, 
and to the future, forasmuch as no one is arrived 
at himself. And I was satisfied that they were 
profitable inconveniences, forasmuch as ill scho- 
lars are to be admonished with the rod, when 
reason will not do; as a crooked piece of 
wood is by fire and straining to be reduced to 
straightness. I have a great while preached to 
myself to keep to myself, and separate myself 
from the affairs of others ; yet I am still turn- 
ing my eyes aside ; a bow, a kind word, or look 
from a great person tempts me; of which God 
knows how little scarcity there is in these days, 
and how little they signify! I still, without 
wrinkling my forehead, hearken to the persua- 
sions that are offered me to draw me into the 
market-place; and so gently refuse, as if I 
were half willing to be overcome. Now, to so 
indocile a spirit, blows are required ; and this 
vessel which thus chops and cleaves, and is 
ready to fall in pieces, must have the hoops 
forced down with good sound strokes of a mal- 
let. Secondly, that this accident served me for 
exercise to prepare for worse ; if I, who, both 
by the benefit of fortune, and by the condition 
of my manners, hoped to be the last, should 
happen to be one of the first that should be 
trapped in this storm; instructing myself be- 
times to constrain my life, and fit it for a new 
condition. The true liberty is to be able to do 
what a man will with himself: Potentissimus 
est qui se habet in potestate. 3 "He is most 
potent, who has himself in his own power." In 
an ordinary and quiet time, a man prepares 
himself for moderate and common accidents; 
but, in the confusion wherein we have been for 
these thirty years, every Frenchman, whether 
in particular or in general, sees himself every 
hour upon the point of the total ruin and over- 
throw of his fortune; by so much the more 
ought he to have his courage furnished with 
stronger and more vigorous provision. Let us 
thank fortune, that has not made us live in an 
effeminate, idle, and languishing age; some, 
who could never have been so by other means, 
will be made famous by their misfortunes. As 



1 Seneca, Epist. 90. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAY! 



511 



I seldom read in histories the confusions of other pone farther, and experienced that, in my pa- 
states, without regret that I was not present, tience, I had some stand against fortune; and 
the better to consider them, so does my curiosity that it must be a great shock could throw me 
make me in some sort please myself with seeing | out of the saddle. I do not say this to provoke 
with my own eyes this notable spectacle of our her to give me a more vigorous charge; I am 
public death, its form and symptoms; and, see- I her humble servant, and submit to her pleasure. 
mg I could not hinder it, am content to be I Let her be content with what she has done, in 
destined to assist in it, and thereby to instruct \ God's name. Do you ask if I am sensible of 
myself. Thus do we greedily covet to see, I her assaults] Yes, certainly. But, as those 
though in shadow, and in the fables of theatres, who are possessed and oppressed with sorrow, 
the tragic representations of human fortune; may sometimes suffer themselves, nevertheless, 



'tis not without compassion of what we hear, 
but Ave please ourselves in rousimr our trouble, 
by the rarity of these pitiable events. Nothing 
tickles that does not pinch. A»(\ good histo- 
rians skip over, as a stagnant water and dead 



by intervals to taste a little pleasure, and are 
sometimes surprised with a smile, so have I so 
much power over myself as to make my ordi- 
nary condition quiet and free from disturbing 
thoughts; but I suffer myself withal, by fits, 



sea, calm narrations, to be again upon the sto- to be surprised with the stings of those un- 
ries of wars and seditions, which they know pleasing imaginations, that assault me whil 



are most acceptable to the reader. 

I question whether or no I can handsomely 
confess wijh how insignificant a sacrifice of the 
repose and tranquillity of my life, I have passed 
over above the one half of it amid the ruin 
of my country. I am a little too liberal of 
patience, in accidents that do not directly 
affect me, and in pitying myself, do not so 
much regard what they take from me, as what 
remains safe, both within and without. There 
is comfort in evading, one while one, another 
while another, of those evils that arc levelled at 
me too at last, but at present hurt others only 
about us: as also that, in matters of public 
interest, the more my affection is universally 
dispersed, the weaker it is; to which may be 
added that it is half true, tantum ex publicis 
mails senlimus, quantum ad privatas res per- 
tinet; 1 "we are only so far sensible of public 
evils, as they respect our private affairs ;" and 
that the health from which we fell was such 
that itself lessens the regret we ought to have. 
It was health, but only in comparison of the 
sickness that has succeeded it; we are not 
fallen from any great height: corruption and 
thievery that is in dignity and office, seems 
to me the most insupportable; 'tis less annoy- 
ing to be rifled in a wood than in a place of 
security. It was a universal junction of par- 
ticular members, rotten in emulation of one 
another, and the most of them with inveterate 
ulcers, that neither required nor admitted of 
any cure. 

This sinking, therefore, did rather animate 
than oppress me, by the assistance of my con- 
science, which was not only at peace within 
itself, but elevated, and I did not find any rea- 
son to complain of myself. Also, as God never 
sends evil, any more than good, absolutely un 



am arming myself to drive them away, or at 
least to wrestle with them. 

But behold another aggravation of the evil, 
which betel me in the tail of the 
rest. Both without doors and Account of a 
within, I was assaulted with a t f,!, a t i^ppem-d 
plague, most violent in compari- at that time in 
son of all others; for, as sound '»f "'"'' tr >' 

. .. ,. ' ' . where Mon- 

bodies are subject to more griev- taigne lived, 
ous maladies, forasmuch as they 
are not to be forced but by such, so my very 
healthful air, where no contagion, though very 
near, in the memory of man, had ever taken 
footing, coming to be corrupted, produced 
strange effects: 



I had to suffer this pleasant condition, that the 
sight of my house was frightful to me ; what- 
ever I had there was without guard, and left to 
the mercy of every one. I myself, who am of 
so hospitable a nature, was myself in very great 
distress for a retreat for my family; a wild and 
scattered family, frightful both to its friends 
and itself, and filling every place with horror 
where it attempted to settle; having to shift 
abode as soon as any one's finger began to 
ache ; all diseases are then concluded to be the 
plague, and people do not stay to examine what 
they are. And the mischief is, that, according 
to the rules of art, in every danger that a man 
comes near, he must undergo a quarantine in 
the suspense of his infirmity, your imagination 
all that while tormenting you at pleasure, and 
turning even your health itself into a fever. 
Yet all this would have gone the less to my 
mixed to men, my health continued at that time j heart, had I not withal been compelled to be 
more than usually good: and, as I can do no- sensible of others' sufferings, and miserably to 
thing witliout it, there are few things that I ' serve six months together for a guide to tins- 
cannot do with it. It afforded me means to ' caravan ; for I carry my antidotes within my- 
rouse up all my provision, and to lay my hand self, which arc resolution and patience. Appre- 
before the wound, that would else perhaps have j hension, which is particularly to be feared in this 



2 Horace, Od. i. 28. 19. 



512 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



disease, does not much trouble me; and if, 
being- alone, I should have taken it, it had 
been a more sprightly and a longer flight : 'tis 
a kind of death that I do not think of the worse 
sort; 'tis usually short, stupid, without pain, 
and consoled by the public condition ; without 
ceremony, without mourning, and without a 
crowd. But as to the people about us, the 
hundredth part of them could not be saved: 

Videas desertaque regna 
Pastorum, el longe saltus lateque vacantes. 1 



In this place, my greatest revenue is manual : 
what an hundred men ploughed for me lay a 
long time fallow. 

But then what example of resolution did we 

not see in the simplicity of all 
of the amnion this P eo P le ■ E vel T one generally 
people in this renounced all care of life : the 
lion ™' deS ° la " g ra P es ' the principal wealth of 

the country, hung in clusters 
upon the vines; every one indifferently pre- 
paring for, and expecting death, either to- 
night or to-morrow, with a countenance and 
voice so far from fear, as if they had con- 
tracted with death in this necessity, and that 
it had been a universal and inevitable sentence. 
'Tis always such : but how slender a hold has 
the resolution of dying ! The distance and 
difference of a few hours, the sole consideration 
of company, renders the apprehension and the 
idea various to us. Do but observe these : by 
reason that they died in the same month, chil- 
dren, young people and old, they were no longer 
astonished at it, they no more lamented. I saw 
some who were afraid of staying behind, as in a 
dreadful solitude; and I did not commonly ob- 
serve any other solicitude amongst them than 
that of sepulture; they were troubled to see the 
dead bodies scattered about the fields at the 
mercy of beasts, which presently began to flock 
about them. How differing are the fancies of 
men! The Neroites, a nation subjected by 
Alexander, threw the bodies of their dead in the 
deepest parts of their woods, on purpose to have 
them there eaten, the only sepulture reputed 
happy amongst them. 2 Some, who were yet in 
health, digged their own graves; others laid them 
down in them whilst yet alive; and a labourer 
of mine, while dying, with his hands and feet 
pulled the earth upon him. Was not this to 
nestle and settle himself to sleep at greater 
easel A bravery, in some sort, like that of the 
Roman soldiers, who, after the battle of Cannae, 
were found with their heads thrust into holes in 
the earth, which they had made, and there suf- 
focated themselves, with their own hands pulling 
the earth about their ears. 3 In short, a whole 
nation by custom was brought to a discipline 



nothing inferior in undauntedness to the most 
studied and premeditated resolution. 

Most of the instructions of learning, to en- 
courage us, have in them more 

of show than of force, and of Whether in the 

ornament than effect. We have "feweTh"™ 
abandoned nature, and would any great ad- 
teach her what to do; she who vantages from 

,., , ., i ' , the instructions 

did so happily and so securely of science. 
lead us; and in the mean lime, 
from the footsteps of her instructions, and that 
little which, by the benefit of ignorance, re- 
mains of her image imprinted in the life of this 
rustic rout of unpolished men, learning is con- 
strained every day to borrow thence to make a 
pattern for her disciples of constancy, tranquil- 
lity, and innocence. 'Tis a fine thing to see, 
that these, full of so much fine knowledge, 
have to imitate this foolish simplicity, and 
that in the principal acts of virtue; and that 
our wisdom must learn, even from beasts, the 
most profitable instructions in the greatest and 
most necessary concerns of human life, as how 
we are to live and die, manage our goods, love 
and bring up our children, and maintain jus- 
tice; a singular testimony of human infirmity: 
and that this reason we so handle at our plea- 
sure, finding evermore some diversity and 
novelty, leaves with us no apparent trace of 
nature; and that they have done with all 
men, as perfumers do with oil; they have so- 
phisticated it with so many argumentations and 
far-fetched discourses, that it is become variable, 
and particular to every one of them, and has 
lost its proper, constant, and universal face, 
and we must seek testimony from beasts, not 
subject to favour, corruption, or diversity of 
opinions; for it is indeed true that even they 
themselves do not always go exactly in the 
path of nature ; but wherein they do swerve, 
'tis so little, that you may always see the 
track: as horses that are led make several 
bounds and curvets, but 'tis always at the 
length of the collar, and they still follow him 
that leads them ; and as a hawk takes his 
flight, but still under the restraint of his string. 4 
Exilia, tormenta, bella,* morbos, nnufragia 
meditare - - - ut nullo sis mnlo tiro : 5 " Medi- 
tate upon banishments, tortures, wars, diseases, 
and shipwrecks, that thou rnayest not be to 
seek in any disaster," what good will this 
curiosity do us, to pre-occupy all the incon- 
veniences of human nature, and to prepare our- 
selves, with so much trouble, against things 
which, peradventure, will never befal us] Pa- 
rem passis tristitiam facit, pali posse ,- 6 "it 
troubles men as much that they may possibly 
suffer, as if they really did ;" not only the 
blow, but the wind of the blow, strikes us: 7 
or like frantic people, for 'tis certainly a 
frenzy, to go now and whip yourself, because 

6 Seneca, Epist. 31, 10T. 
« Id. ib. 74. 
' Id. ib. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



513 



it may so fall out that fortune may one day 
make you undergo it; and to put on your 
furred gown at Midsummer, because you will 
stand in need of it at Christmas'? Throw your- 
selves, say they, into the experience of all the 
evils, the most extreme that can possibly befal 
you ; assure yourselves there. On the contrary, 
the most easy and most natural way would be 
to banish even the thoughts of them : they will 
not come soon enough, forsooth ; their true 
being will not be with us long enough, we must 
lengthen and extend them, and incorporate 
them in us before-hand, and there entertain 
them, as if they would not otherwise sufficiently 
press upon our senses. " We shall find them 
heavy enough when they come," says one of 
our masters, not of one of the tender, but of one 
of the most severe sects ; " in the mean time 
favour thyself, believe what pleases thee best. 
What good will it do thee to anticipate and 
gather in beforehand thy ill fortune, to lose the 
present for fear of the future, and to make 
thyself miserable now, because thou art to be 
so in time'!" ' These are his words. Learning 
indeed, does us one good office, in instructing 
us exactly in the dimension of evils, 

Curis acuens mortalia corda!' 
" He bade sad care make keen the heart ;" 

'twere pity that any part of their grandeur 
should escape our sense and knowledge ! 

'Tis certain that, for the most part, the pre- 
paration for death has adminis- 
?,L^»Hn U n e f^ tered more torment than the 

• >.'i 'iion for , . ,,. _ „ , , , 

death. thing itself. It was of old truly 

said, and by a very judicious 
author: Minus afficit sensus fatigatio quam 
cogilatio. 3 " Suffering itself does less afflict 
the senses than the apprehension of suffering." 
The sentiment of present death sometimes of 
itself animates us with a prompt resolution no 
more to avoid a thing that is utterly inevitable. 
Many gladiators have been seen, in the olden 
time, who, after having fought timorously and 
ill, have courageously entertained death, offer- 
ing their throats to the enemy's sword, and 
bidding them dispatch. The remote sight of 
future death requires a constancy that is slow 
and lazy, and consequently hard to be got. If 
you know not how to die, never trouble your- 
self; nature will fully and sufficiently instruct 
you upon the spot; she will exactly do that 
business for you ; take you no care : 

Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam 

Quajritis, et qua sit mors ariitura via. 
Poena minor, certain soliito preferre ruinam; 

Quod timeas, gravius sustinuisse diu.< 

" Mortals, in vain 's your curiosity 
To know the hour and death that you must die; 
Better your fate strike with :\ sudden blow, 
Than that you long should what you fear foreknow." 



i Seneca, Kpist. 13 and 93. 
o Virgil, Qeorgic, i. 123. 
sauintil. fnstit. Orat.i. 12. 

« The two first verses are in Propcrtius, ii. 27. 1. I know- 
not whence Montaigne took the others. 



We trouble life by the care of death, and death 
by the care of life ; the one tor- 
ments, the other frights us. 'Tis ™* t deafly ^ 
not against death that we pre- premeditated. 
pare, that is too momentary a 
thing; a quarter of an hour's suffering, without 
consequence, without hurt, does not deserve 
particular precepts. To say truth, we prepare 
ourselves against the preparations of death. 
Philosophy orders us always to have death 
before our eyes, to foresee and consider it 
before the time, and after gives us rules and 
precautions to provide that this foresight and 
thought do us no harm. Just so do phy- 
sicians, who throw us into diseases, to the end 
they may have whereon to lay out their drugs 
and their art. If we have not known how to 
live, 'tis wrong to teach us to die, and make 
the end disform from all the rest; if we have 
known how to live constantly and quietly, we 
shall know how to die so too. They may 
boast as much as they please : Tota philoso- 
phorum vita, commentatio mortis est; 6 "the 
whole life of a philosopher is the meditation of 
his death ;" but I fancy that, though it be 
the end, 'tis not the aim of life; 'tis his end, 
his extremity, but nevertheless not his object. 
She ought herself to be to herself _ 
her own aim and design; her ^£ uea,m 
true study is to order, govern, 
and suffer herself. In the number of several 
other offices, that the general and principal 
chapter of knowing how to live comprehends, 
is this article of knowing how to die ; and 
did not our fears give it weight, one of the 
lightest too. 

To judge of them by the utility, and by the 
naked truth, the lessons of sim- 
plicity are not much inferior to d'^es"^""^! 
those which learning preaches to die with a bet- 
us; on the contrary, men differ *. r S'Y . t,ian 
in sentiment and force ; we must ^ nstot e ' 
lead them to their own good, 
according to their capacities by various ways. 
Q.uo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.o 
" For as the tempest drives, I shape my course." 

I never saw any countryman among my neigh- 
bours cogitate with what countenance and assu- 
rance he should pass over his last hour; nature 
teaches him not to dream of death till he is 
dying; and then he does it with a better grace 
than Aristotle, upon whom death presses with a 
double weight, both of itself, and of so long a 
premeditation. Wherefore it was the opinion 
of Caesar that the least premeditated death was 
the easiest and the most happy: 7 Plus dolet 
quam necesse est, qui ante dolet quam necesse 
est. 8 "He grieves more than is necessary, 
who grieves before it is necessary." The 



s Cicero, 7\.ic Quits, i. I 
; Horace, Epist. i. 1, 15. 
' See Suetonius, Ca>sar, 
1 Seneca, Epist. 98. 



514 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sharpness of this imagination springs from our 
curiosity. Thus do we ever hinder ourselves, 
desiring to prevent and govern natural ordi- 
nances. 'Tis only for the learned to dine the 
worse for it, when in the best health, and that 
they have the best stomachs, and to frown and 
be out of humour at the image of death. The 
common sort stand in need of no remedy of 
consolation but just in the shock, and when the 
blow comes, and consider no more about it but 
just what they endure. Is it not then, as we 
say, that the stupidity and want of apprehen- 
sion in the vulgar gives them that patience in 
present evils, and that profound indifference as 
to future ill accidents ; that their souls, being 
more gross and dull, are less penetrable and not 
so easily moved 1 If it be so, let us henceforth, 
in God's name, teach nothing but ignorance; 
'tis the utmost fruit that the sciences promise 
us, to which this stupidity so gently leads its 
disciples. 

We should have no want of good masters, 
who are interpreters of natural simplicity. So- 
crates shall be one ; for, as I remember, he 
speaks something to this purpose to the judges 
who sat upon his life and death : "I am afraid, 
sirs, that if I entreat you to put me to 
death, I shall confirm the charge 
socrates's of my accusers, which is, that I 

pleadings. pretend to be wiser than others, 

as having some more secret know- 
ledge of things that are above and below us. 
I know that I have neither frequented nor 
known death, nor have ever seen any person 
that has tried his qualities, from whom to in- 
form myself. Such as fear it pre-suppose they 
know it; as tor my part, I neither know 
what it is, nor what they do in the other world. 
Death is, perhaps, an indifferent thing; per- 
haps, a tiling to be desired. 'Tis nevertheless 
to be believed, if it be a transmigration from 
one place to another, that it is a bettering of 
one's condition, to go and live with so many 
great persons deceased, and to be exempt from 
having any more to do with unjust and corrupt 
judges. If it be an annihilation of our being, 
'tis yet a bettering of one's condition, to enter 
into a long and peaceable night; we find no- 
thing more sweet in life than a quiet and 
profound sleep without dreams. The things 
that I know to be evil, as to offend one's 
neighbour, and to disobey one's superior, whe- 
ther it be God or man, I carefully avoid : such 
as I do not know whether they be good or evil, 
I cannot fear them. If I go to die, and leave 
you alive, the gods only know whether it will 
go better with you or with me ; wherefore, as 
to what concerns me, you may do as you shall 
think fit. But, according to my method of 
advising just and profitable things, I affirm 
that you will do your conscience more right to 
set me at liberty, unless you see farther into 
the cause than I; and judging according to my 



Plato, Apology for Socr 



past actions, both public and private, according 
to my intentions, and according to the profit so 
many of our citizens, both old and young, daily 
extract from my conversation, and the fruit 
that you reap from me yourselves, you cannot 
more duly acquit yourselves towards my merit 
than by ordering that, my poverty considered, 
I should be maintained in the Prytaneum at 
the public expense; a thing that I have often 
known you with less reason grant to others. 
Do not impute it to obstinacy or disdain that I 
do not, according to the custom, supplicate, and 
go about to move you to commiseration. I 
have both friends and kindred, not being, as 
Homer says, begotten of a block or of a stone, 
no more than others that are able to present 
themselves before you in tears and mourning ; 
and I have three desolate children with which 
to move you to compassion ; but I should do a 
shame to our city, at the age I am, and in the 
reputation of wisdom, wherein I now stand, to 
degrade myself by such an abject form. What 
would men say of the other Athenians 1 I have 
always admonished those who have frequented 
my lectures, not to redeem their lives by an 
unworthy action ; and in the wars of my coun- 
try, at Amphipolis, Potidea, Delia, and other 
expeditions where I have been, I have effec- 
tually manifested how far I was from securing 
my safety by my shame. I should moreover 
interest your duty, and should tempt you to 
unbecoming things : for 'tis not for my prayers 
to persuade you, but the pure and solid rea- 
sons of justice. You have sworn to the gods 
to keep yourselves upright; and it would seem 
as if I suspected or would recriminate upon 
you, should I not believe that you are so ; and 
I should give evidence against myself; not to 
believe them as I ought, mistrusting their con- 
duct, and not purely committing my affair into 
their hands. I do wholly rely upon them, and 
hold myself assured they will do in this what 
shall be most fit both for you and me. Good 
men, whether living or dead, have no reason to 
fear the gods." ' 

Is not this innocent, true, frank, and infan- 
tine pleading of an unimaginable loftiness, and 
just beyond all example, and in what a neces- 
sity employed ? In earnest he had very good 
reason to prefer it to that which the great 
orator Lysias had penned for him ; 2 admirably 
couched indeed in the judiciary style, but un- 
worthy of so noble a criminal. Should a sup- 
pliant voice have been heard out of the mouth 
of Socrates] that lofty virtue have struck sail 
in the height of its glory? and his rich and 
powerful nature have committed his defence to 
art, and, in her highest proof, have renounced 
truth and simplicity, the ornaments of his 
speaking, to adorn and deck itself with the 
embellishments of figures, and equivocations of 
a premeditated speech'! He did very wisely, 
and like himself, not to corrupt the tenour of an 



■ Cicero, de Qrat. i. 54. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



515 



incorrupt life, and so sacred an image of human 
form, to spin out his decrepitude, the poor 
ekeing of a year, and to betray the immortal 
memory of that glorious end. He owed his life 
not to himself, but to the example of the world. 
Had it not been a public damage that he should 
have concluded it after a lazy and obscure man- 
ner 1 ! Doubtless, the careless and indifferent 
consideration of his death very well deserves 
that posterity should consider him so much the 
more, as they indeed do; and there is nothing 
so just in justice as that which fortune ordained 
for his recommendation ; for the Athenians 
abominated all those who had been causers of 
his death to such a degree, that they avoided 
tliem as excommunicated persons, and looked 
upon every thing as polluted that had been but 
touched by them ; no one would wash with 
them in the public baths ; none would salute, 
or own acquaintance with them; so that at 
last, unable longer to support this public hatred, 
they hanged themselves.' 

If any one should think that, amongst so 
many other examples that I had to choose for 
my present purpose, out of the sayings of 
Socrates, I have made an ill choice of this, and 
shall judge that this discourse is elevated above 
common ideas, I must tell them that I have 
purposely done it; for I am of another opinion, 
and hold it a discourse, in rank and simplicity, 
much behind and inferior to common notions. 
He represents, in an artificial boldness and in- 
fantine security, the pure and first impression 
and ignorance of nature ; for it is to be believed 
that we have naturally a fear of pain, but not 

of death, by reason of itself. 'Tis 
Death a part of a p ar t of our being, no less essen- 
very beneficial tial than living. To what end 
to nature. should nature have begot in us a 

hatred and horror of it, consider- 
ing that it is of so great utility to her in main- 
taining the succession and vicissitude of her 
works? and that, in this universal republic, 
it concludes more to truth and augmentation, 
than to loss or ruin? 



Sic rerum sumnia 

"Thus nature doth herself renew." 

Mille animas una necata dedit, 3 

the failing of one life is the passage to a thou- 
sand other lives. Nature has imprinted in beasts 
the care of themselves and of their conservation ; 
nay, they proceed so far as to be timorous of 
being worse, of hitting or hurting themselves, 
and of our haltering and beating them, misfor- 
tunes that are subject to their sense and experi- 
ence; but that wc should kill them, they cannot 
Beasts nam- f ear < nor ha , ve they tlie faculty to 
rally solicitous imagine and conclude such a thing 

wrv'uio» re " aS de£Ltn - Yet 't is Sflitl lliat we 

see them not only cheerfully un- 



dergo it (horses for the most part neighing, and 
swans singing when they die), but moreover 
seek it at need, of which elephants have given 
many examples. 

Besides, this way of arguing which Socrates 
here makes use of, is it not equally admirable, 
both in simplicity and vehemence? Really it 
is much more easy to speak like Aristotle and 
to live like Cresar, than to speak and live as 
Socrates did. There lies the extreme degree of 
perfection and difficulty; art cannot reach it. 
Now, our faculties are not so trained up. We 
do not try, we do not know them ; we invest 
ourselves vvith those of others, and let our own 
lie idle : as some one may say to me that I have 
here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and 
have brought nothing of my own but the thread 
that ties them together. 

In earnest, I have so far yielded to the public 
opinion, that those borrowed ornaments do 
accompany me ; but I would not 
have them totally cover and hide Molll^gne taST 
me ; that is quite contrary to my charged his 
design, who desire to make a uonl < with quo- 

u c .,■ i .. u .. tations. 

show of nothing but what is my 

own, and what is my own by nature; and had 
I taken my own advice, I had at all hazards 
spoken purely alone. I more and more load 
myself every day, beyond my purpose and 
first method, upon the account of idleness and 
the humour of the age. 4 If it misbecomes me, 
as I believe it does, 'tis no matter; it may be 
of use to some other. Such there are who quote 
Plato and Homer, who never saw either of 
them ; and I also have taken passages enough, 
distant from their source. Without pains and 
without learning, having a thousand volumes 
about me in the place where I write, I could 
readily borrow, if I pleased, from a dozen scrap- 
gatherers, people that I do not much trouble 
myself withal, wherewith to embellish this trea- 
tise of physiognomy. There needs no more but 
a preliminary epistle of some German to stuff 
me with such : and we, in this way, go seeking 
! a fine glory to cheat the sottish world. These 
1 hodge-podges of common-places, wherewith so 
! many furnish their studies, are of little use but 
to common subjects, and serve but to show, and 
not to direct us ; a ridiculous fruit of learning, 
that Socrates does so pleasantly canvass against 
Euthydemus. I have seen books made of 
things that were never either studied or under- 
; stood, the author committing to several of his 
I learned friends the examination of this and 
t'other matter to compile it; contenting himself, 
I for his share, to have projected the design, and 
: by his industry to have tied together this faggot 
I or unknown provision : the ink and paper, at 
least, arc his. This is to buy or borrow a book, 
and not to make one; 'tis to show men, not 
that a man can make a book, but that, whereof 



i riuinrch, On Envy and Hatred. few quotations. They are more numerous in the edition 

J Liiran, ii. 74. | of l.W, hut the multitude of ancient authorities which or- 

» Ovid, Fast. i. 380. i lasionally embarrass Montaigne's work, as it now stands, 

* In fact, the first edition of the Essays (1580) has very only date from the post humous edition of 15'J5. 



516 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



they may be in doubt, that he cannot make one. 
A president, in my hearing-, boasted that he had 
clustered two hundred and odd common quota- 
tions in one of his judgments; in telling- which 
he deprived himself of the glory that had been 
attributed to him for the speech ; in my opinion 
'twas a pusillanimous and absurd boast for such 
a subject and such a person. I do quite con- 
trary ; and, amongst so many borrowed things, 
am glad if I can steal one, disguising and alter- 
ing it for some new service. At the hazard of 
having it said that 'tis for want of understanding 
its natural use, I give it some particular address 
of my own, to the end it may not be so abso- 
lutely another's. These set their thefts in show, 
and value themselves upon them: and they 
have more credit with the laws than with me. 
We naturalists think that there is a great and 
incomparable preference in the honour of inven- 
tion to that of quotation. 

If I would have spoken by learning, I had 
spoken sooner ; I had written in a time nearer 
to my studies, when I had more wit, and a 
better memory ; and would rather have trusted 
to the vigour of that age than this, if I would 
have professed writing. And what if this gra- 
cious favour which fortune has lately offered me 
by the means of this work, 1 had befallen me in 
such a time of my life, instead of this, wherein 
'tis equally desirable to possess, and ready to 
lose 1 Two of my acquaintances, great men in 
this faculty, have, in my opinion, lost half, in 
refusing to publish at forty years' old, that they 
might stay till threescore. Maturity has its 
defects as well as greenness, and 

to writing^ worse S and oW a S e is as unfit for 
books. this kind of business as any other; 

he that commits his decrepidness 
to the press is a fool, if he thinks to squeeze any 
thing out thence that does not relish of dotage 
and stupidity; our wits grow costive and thick 
in growing old. I deliver my ignorance in 
pomp and state, and my learning meagrely and 
poorly; this accidentally and accessorily, that 
principally and expressly ; and write purposely 
of nothing, but of nothing ; nor of any science 
but that of inscience. I have chosen a time 
when my life, which I am to give an account 
of, lies wholly before me; what remains has 
more to do with death ; and of my death only 
should I find it a prating death, as others do, 
I would moreover give an account at my 
departure. 

Socrates was a perfect exemplar in all great 

qualities; and I am vexed that he 

formefbody, had so deformed a body and face 

unsuitable to as they say, and so unsuitable to 

Wsmind! y ° f the beaut y of his SOul ! himself 

being so amorous, and such an 

admirer of beauty: nature surely did him 



i The author probably refers to the friendship of Made- 
moiselle de Gournay, which the perusal of his essays pro- 
cured him. 

» Cicero, Tusc. Quas. iv. 33. 

3 Sextus Empiricus adversus Mathematicos, ii. 65, and 



wrong. There is nothing more likely than a 
conformity and relation of the body to the soul: 
Ipsi animi magni refert quali in corpore locati 
sint; multa enim e corpore existu.nl qua 
acuant menlem, multa qua oblundant: 2 "It is 
of great consequence in what bodies souls are 
placed, for many things spring from the body 
that sharpen the mind, and many that blunt and 
dull it." This speaks of an unnatural ugliness 
and deformity of limbs; but we call that ill- 
favoured ness also, an unseemliness at first sight, 
which is principally lodged in the face, and 
distastes us by slight causes, and by the com- 
plexion, a spot, a rude countenance, sometimes 
from some inexplicable cause, in members 
nevertheless of good symmetry and perfect in 
themselves. The ugliness that clothed a very 
beautiful soul in La Boetie was of this predica- 
ment: that superficial ugliness, which never- 
theless is always the most imperious, is of least 
prejudice to the state of the mind, and of little 
certainty in the opinion of men. The other, 
which, by a more proper name, is called de- 
formity, more substantial, strikes deeper in : not 
every shoe of smooth shining leather, but every 
shoe neatly made, shows the interior shape of 
the foot. Socrates said of his ugliness, that it 
accused just as much in his soul, had he not 
corrected it by education ; but, in saying so, I 
believe he did but jest, as his custom was; never 
so excellent a soul made itself. 

I cannot often enough repeat how much I 
hold beauty to be a potent and 
advantageous quality: he called ^^"rmrch 
it a short tyranny, and Plato, the to be esteemed, 
privilege of nature. We have 
nothing that excels it in credit; it holds the 
first rank in the commerce of men ; it presents 
itself to meet us, seduces and prepossesses our 
judgments with great authority and wonderful 
impression. Phryne had lost her cause, though 
in the hands of an excellent advocate, if, open- 
ing her robe, she had not corrupted her judges 
by the lustre of her beauty. 3 And I find that 
Cyrus, Alexander, and Caesar, the three mas- 
ters 'of the world, never neglected beauty in 
their greatest affairs; no more did the first 
Scipio. The same word in Greek signifies 
both fair and good, and the Holy Word often 
calls those good whom it would call fair. 
I readily concur in the high rank given, in 
the song, which Plato 4 calls an idle one, taken 
out of some of the ancient poets, to these 
goods ; " health, beauty, and 
riches." Aristotle says s that the f e n a fJ^ t pP t r 
right of command belongs to the command, 
beautiful; and when there are 
persons whose beauty comes near the images of 
the gods, that then veneration is in like manner 
their due. To one that asked him why people 



Quintilian. ii. 15, who ascribe to Phryne the invention of 
this expedient, but Athenseus gives the honour of thus 
gaining her cause to Hyperides, her advocate. 

4 In the Oorgias. 

6 Politics, i. 3. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



517 



oftener and longer frequented the company of 
handsome persons? " The question," said he, 1 
" is not to be asked by any but one that is 
blind." The most and the greatest philosophers 
paid for their schooling, and acquired wisdom by 
the favour and mediation of their beauty. Not 
only in the men that serve me, but also in the 
beasts, I consider this point within two fingers' 
breadth of goodness. 

And yet I fancy that those features and 
moulds of face, and those lineaments by which 
men guess at our internal complexions, and our 
fortunes to come, are things that do not very 
directly and simply lie under the chapter of 
beauty and deformity, no more than every good 
odour and serenity of air promises health, nor 
all fog and stink infection in a time of pesti- 
lence. Such as accuse ladies of contradicting 
their beauty by their manners, do not always 
hit right; for, in a face which is none of the 
best, there may lie some air of probity and 
trust; as, on the contrary, I have seen betwixt 
two beautiful eyes menaces of a dangerous and 
malignant nature. There are some physiogno- 
mies that are favourable, and in a crowd of 
victorious enemies, you shall presently choose, 
amongst men you never saw before, one rather 
than another, to whom to surrender, and with 
whom to entrust your life, and yet not properly 
upon the consideration of beauty. 

A man's look is but a feeble guarantee, and 
un,„.i.ov ,„., y et ' s 0I * some consideration too ; 

Whether any ' , .- T , , „ , , . x ' 

assurance may and if 1 had to lash them, I would 

be derived from more severely scourge the wicked, 

phyB.ognomy. who belie &nd betray ^ prQ _ 

mises that nature has planted in their fore- 
heads; I should with greater severity punish 
iniquity in a mild and gentle aspect. It seems 
as if there were some happy and some unhappy 
faces ; and I believe there is some art in dis- 
tinguishing affable from simple faces, grave from 
rude, sullen from pensive, scornful from melan- 
cholic, and such other bordering qualities. 
There are beauties which are not only haughty 
but sour; and others that are not only sweet, 
but, more than that, insipid ; to prognosticate 
future adventures from these is a thing that I 
shall leave undecided. 

I have, as to my own concern, as I have said 
elsewhere, simply and nakedly embraced this 
ancient rule ; that " we cannot fail in following 
nature :" " that the sovereign precept is to con- 
form ourselves to her." I have not, as Socrates 
did, corrected my natural complexions by the 
force of reason, and have not in the least mo- 
lested my inclination by art: I have let myself 
go on as I came ; I contend not ; my two prin- 
cipal parts live of their own accord, in peace 
and good intelligence; but my nurse's milk, 
thanks be to God, was tolerably wholesome and 
good. Shall I say this by the way 1 that I see 
a certain image of scholastic propriety, almost 



only in use amongst us, in greater esteem than 
'tis really worth ; a slave to precepts, and fet- 
tered with hope and fear. I would have it such 
as that laws and religions should not make, but 
perfect and authorize it ; that finds it has where- 
withal to support itself without help; born and 
rooted in us from the seed of universal reason, 
and imprinted in every man by nature. That 
reason which rectified Socrates from his vicious 
bent, rendered him obedient to the gods, and to 
men in authority in his city ; courageous in 
death, not because his soul is immortal, but be- 
cause he is mortal. 'Tis a doctrine ruinous to 
all government, and much more hurtful than 
ingenious and subtle, which persuades the 
people that a religious belief is alone sufficient, 
and without conduct, to satisfy the divine justice. 
Custom demonstrates to us a vast distinction 
betwixt devotion and conscience. 

I have a tolerable aspect, both counSnce a 
in form and interpretation ; favourable one. 

ftuid dixi, habere me ? Imo habui, Chreme,? 
Heu ! tantum attriti corporis ossa vides;' ' 



> Laertius in vilu. 

> Terence, Ileaul. i. 1. 42. 

44 



and that makes quite a contrary show to that of 
Socrates. It has often happened to me, that, 
upon the mere credit of my presence and air, 
persons who had no manner of knowledge of 
me, have put a very great confidence in me, 
whether in their own affairs or mine ; and I 
have in foreign parts thence obtained favours 
singular and rare. But amongst the rest these 
two examples are perhaps worth particular re- 
lation : a certain person planned to surprise my 
house and me in it ; his stratagem was to come 
to my gates alone, and to be importunate to be 
let in. I knew him by name, and had reason 
to repose a confidence in him, as being my 
neighbour, and something related to me: I 
caused the gates to be opened to him, as I do 
to every one. There he was, all aghast, his 
horse panting and in a foam. He told me this 
flam : " That about half a league off, he had 
met with a certain enemy of his, whom I also 
knew, and had heard of their quarrel; that this 
enemy had given him a very brisk chase, and 
that, having been surprised in disorder, and his 
party being too weak, he was fled to my gates 
for refuge ; and that he was in great trouble for 
his followers, whom, he said, he concluded to b<2 
all either dead or taken." I innocently did my 
best to comfort, assure, and refresh him. Pre- 
sently after come four or five of his soldiers, 
that presented themselves in the same counte- 
nance and affright to get in too; and after them 
more, and still more, very well mounted and 
armed, to the number of five-and-twenty, or 
thirty, pretending that they had the enemy at 
their heels. The mystery began a little to 



3 I know not whence Montaigne borrowed this verse. 



518 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



awake my suspicion : I was not ignorant what 
an age I lived in, how much my house might 
be envied, and I had several examples of others 
of my acquaintances whom a similar mishap had 
befallen. So it was, that, knowing there was 
nothing to be got in having begun to do a 
courtesy, unless I went through with it, and 
that I could not disengage myself from them 
without spoiling all, I let myself go the most 
natural and simple way, as I always do, and 
invited them all to come in. And in truth, I 
am naturally very little inclined to suspicion 
and distrust; I willingly incline towards excuse, 
and the gentlest interpretation; I take men 
according to the common order, and do not any 
more believe those perverse and unnatural incli- 
nations, unless convinced by manifest evidence, 
than I do monsters and miracles: and am, 
moreover, a man, who willingly commit myself 
to fortune, and throw myself headlong into 
her arms ; and have hitherto found more reason 
to applaud than to condemn my conduct in so 
doing; having ever found her more solicitous of, 
more a friend to my affairs, than I am myself. 
There are some actions in my life wherein the 
conduct may justly be called difficult, or, if they 
please, prudent: yet of those, supposing the 
third part to be my own, certainly the other 
two-thirds were absolutely and solely hers. 
We are, methinks, to blame in not trusting 
Heaven enough with our affairs, and pretend 
more from our own conduct than belongs to us; 
and therefore it is that our designs so often mis- 
carry : God is displeased at the extent we 
attribute to the rights of human prudence above 
his, and cuts them shorter, by how much the 
more we amplify them. The last comers kept 
themselves on horseback in my court, whilst 
their leader was with me in the parlour, who 
would not have his horse set up in the stable, 
saying he would immediately retire, so soon as 
he should have news of his men. He saw him- 
self master of his enterprise, and nothing now 
remained but the execution. He has since 
several times said, for he was not ashamed to 
tell the story himself, that my countenance and 
frankness had snatched the treachery out of his 
hands. He again mounted his horse, his fol- 
lowers having continually their eyes intent 
upon him, to see when he would give the sign ; 
very much astonished to see him leave and give 
up his advantage. 

Another time, relying upon I know not what 
truce, newly published in the army, I took a 
journey through a very fickle country. I had 
not rid far, but I was discovered, and two or 
three parties of horse, from several places, were 
sent out to take me ; one of them the third day 
overtook me, where I was charged by fifteen 
or twenty gentlemen in visors, followed at a 
distance by a band of harquebusiers. Here I 
was surrounded and taken, withdrawn into the 
thick of a neighbouring forest, dismounted, 



I JEneid, vi. 261. 



robbed, my trunks rifled, my cash-box taken, 
and my horses and equipage divided amongst 
new masters. We had in this copse a very long 
contest about my ransom, which they set so 
high, that it very well appeared I was not 
known to them. They were moreover in a 
very great debate about my life ; and, in truth, 
there were several circumstances that threatened 
me in the danger I was in : 



Tunc* 



i opus, jEnea, tunc pectore firmo.i 



I still insisted upon the truce, being willing 
they should only have the gain of what they 
had already taken from me, which was not to 
be despised, without promise of any other ran- 
som. After two or three hours that we had 
been in this place, and that they had mounted 
me on a pitiful jade that was not likely to run 
from them, and committed me to the guard of 
fifteen or twenty harquebussiers, and dispersed 
my servants to others, having given order that 
they should carry us away prisoners different 
ways, and being already got some two or three 
musket-shots from the place, 

Jam prece Pollucis, jam Castoris implorata : 
" Whilst I implor'd Castor and Pollux' aid :" 

behold a sudden and unexpected alteration 
among them. I saw their chief return to me 
with gentler language, making search amongst 
the troopers for my dispersed goods, and causing 
as many as could be recovered to be restored to 
me, even to my casket; but the best present 
they made me was my liberty : for the rest did 
not much concern me in those days. The true 
cause of so sudden a change, and of this recon- 
sideration, without any apparent impulse, and 
of so miraculous a repentance, in such a time, 
in a complotted and deliberate enterprise, and 
become just by custom (for at the first dash, I 
plainly confessed to them of what party I was, 
and whither I was going), was what I really 
do not yet rightly apprehend. The most emi- 
nent amongst them, who pulled off his visor, 
and told me his name, then several times told 
me, over and over again, that I was obliged for 
my deliverance to my countenance, and the 
freedom and firmness of my words, that ren- 
dered me unworthy of such a mischance, and 
demanded assurance from me of the like cour- 
tesy. 'Tis probable that the divine bounty 
would make use of this vain -instrument of my 
preservation, and moreover defended me the 
next day from other and worse ambushes, which 
these themselves gave me warning of. The last 
of these two gentlemen is yet living, to give an 
account of the story : the first was killed not 
long ago. 

If my face did not answer for me, if men did 



' Catullus, Carm. Uvi. 65. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



519 



not read in my eyes and voice the 
^hb'intentioii > nnocence of my intentions, I had 
which was visi- not lived so long without quar- 
tern his eyes, re l s , and without giving offence, 
Kuage? pre- considering the indiscreet liberty 
Milted his free- I take, right or wrong, to say 
(•"iirs" from whatever comes at my tongue's 
being resented, end, and to judge so rashly of 

things. This way may with rea- 
son appear uncivil and ill adapted to our cus- 
toms; but I have never met with any who 
have judged it outrageous or malicious, or that 
took offence at my liberty, if he had it from my 
own mouth : words repeated have another kind 
of sound and sense. Neither do I hate any 
person ; and I am so slow to offend, that I can- 
not do it, even upon the account of reason 
itself; and when occasion has called upon me 
to sentence criminals, I have rather chosen to 
fail in point of justice, than to do it: Ut magis 
peccari nolim quam satis animi ad vindicanda 
peccata habeam. 1 "I had rather men should 
not offend, but I have not the heart to condemn 

them." Aristotle, 'tis said, was 
A /„'f ?"*; rtl reproached for having been too 

proached tor r . o 

being merciful, merciful to a wicked man: "1 
was, indeed," said he, 2 "merciful 
to the man, but not to his wickedness." Ordi- 
nary judgments exasperate themselves to pun- 
ishment, from horror of the fact: 'tis just this 
that cools mine; the horror of the first murder 
makes me fear the second, and the deformity 
of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imita- 
tion of it. That may be applied to me, who am 
but a knave of clubs, which was said of Charil- 
lus, king of Sparta: "He cannot be good, 
because he is not evil to the wicked:" 3 or 
•thus, for Plutarch delivers it both these ways, 
as he does a thousand other things, variously 
and contrary to one another : " He must needs 
be good, because he is so even to the wicked." 4 
Even as in lawful actions, I do not care to em- 
ploy myself; when for such as are displeased at 
it; so to say the truth, in unlawful things, I do 
not make conscience enough of employing my- 
self, when for such as are willing. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OF EXPERIENCE. 

No desire in us is more natural than that of 
knowledge. We try all ways that can lead to 
Whv exnori- '' > wnere reason is wanting, we 



therein employ experience, 



•By several proofs experience art has 

made, 
Example being guide." 



1 Livy, xxix. 21. 
a Laertius, invitd. 

a Plutarch, On the Difference between a Flatterer and a 
Friend, and On Enoy and Hatred. 



which is a means much more weak and low; 
but. truth is so great a thing, that we ought not 
to disdain any mediation that will lead us to it. 
Reason has eo many forms that we know not 
which to take; experience has no fewer; the 
consequence we would draw from the confer- 
ence of events is unsure, by reason they are 
always unlike. There is no quality so universal, 
in this image of things, as diversity and variety. 
Both the Greeks and Latins, and we, for the 
most express example of similitude, have pitched 
upon that of eggs: and yet there have been 
men, particularly one at Delphos, who could 
distinguish marks of difference amongst egos so 
well, that he never mistook one for another; 
and, having many hens, could tell which had 
laid a particular eggl* Dissimilitude intrudes 
itself of itself in our works; no art can arrive 
at a perfect similitude; neither Perrozet, nor 
any other card-maker, can so carefully polish 
and blank the back of his cards, that some 
gamesters will not distinguish them by only 
seeing thern shuffled by another. Resemblance 
does not so much make them one, as a difference 
makes them another. Nature has obliged her- 
self to make nothing other, that is not unlike. 

And yet I am not much pleased with his 
opinion, who thought by the mul- Mont ai» n e's 
titude of laws to curb the autho- opiniorTns to a 
rity of judges, in cutting them out multiplicity of 
their parcels ; he was not aware aw8 ' 
that there is as much liberty and stretch in the 
interpretation of laws, as in their fashion ; and 
they but fool themselves who think to lessen 
and stop our debates, by summoning us to the 
express words of the Bible, forasmuch as human 
wit does not find the field less spacious wherein 
to controvert the sense of another, than to deli- 
ver his own, and, as if there were less animosity 
and tartness in the glossing than in the inven- 
tion. We see how much he was deceived ; for 
we have more laws in France than in all the 
rest of the world besides; and more than would 
be necessary for the government of all the 
worlds of Epicurus: Ut olim flagitiis, sic nunc 
legibus labor amus: 1 "So that as formerly we 
suffered from wickedness, so now we suffer from 
the laws:" and yet we have left so much to 
the opinion and decision of our judges, that 
there never was so full and uncontrolled a 
liberty. What have our legislators got by 
culling out a hundred thousand particular 
cases, and annexing to these a hundred thou- 
sand laws? This number holds no manner of 
proportion with the infinite diversity of human 
actions; the multiplication of our inventions 
will never arrive at the variety of examples: 
add to them a hundred times as many more ; it 
will not, nevertheless, ever happen that, of 
events to come, there shall any one fall out 
that, in this great number of thousands of 



* Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, c. 4. 

» Manil, i. 59. 

« Cicero, Acad. ii. 18. 

' Tacitus, Jlnnal. iii. 25. 



520 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



events so chosen and recorded, shall find any 
one, to which it can be so exactly coupled and 
compared, that there will not remain some cir- 
cumstance and diversity which will require a 
variety of judgment. There is little relation 
betwixt our actions, that are in perpetual muta- 
tion, and fixed and immobile laws : the most to 
be desired, are those that are the most rare, the 
most simple and general ; and I am farther of 
opinion that it would be better for us to have 
none at all, than to have them in so prodigious 
numbers as we have. 

Nature always gives them better than those 

are which we make ourselves; 

The laws of witness the picture of the golden 

nature better , r 6 

than our own. age of the poets, and the state 
wherein we see nations live who 

have no other. Some there are who, for their 
only judge, take the first passer-by 

Passengers tnat travels over their mountains 

made use of for „ , , . ... , . 

judges. to determine their cause ; ' and 

others who on their market-day 
choose out some one amongst them upon the 
spot, to decide all their controversies. What 
danger would there be that the wisest should 
so determine ours, according to occurrences, 
and at sight, without obligation of example 
and consequence'! "Every shoe to his own 
foot." King Ferdinand, sending colonies to 
the Indies, wisely provided that they should 
not carry along with them any law students, 
for fear lest suits should get footing in that new 
world ; as being a science, in its own nature, 
the mother of altercation and division: judging 
with Plato, 2 "That lawyers and physicians 
are the pests of a country." 

Whence does it come to pass that our com- 
mon language, so easy for all 
pass'that'tife l ° otner uses > Decomes obscure and 
vulgar tongue, unintelligible in wills and con- 
which serves tracts 1 and that he who so 
parpowfbe- " clearly expresses himself herein, 
comes obscure whatever he speaks or writes, 

i" covenants " 8 Catln0t find in this an y Wa y ° f 

and testaments, declaring himself that he does 
not fall into doubt and contradic- 
tion ? if it be not that the princes of this art, 
applying themselves with a peculiar attention 
to invent and cull out sounding words, and 
contrive artistical periods, have so weighed 
every syllable, and so thoroughly sifted every 
sort of seam, that they are now confounded and 
entangled in the infinity of figures, and so 
many minute divisions, that they can no more 
fall into any rule or prescription, nor any cer- 
tain intelligence : Confusum est quicquid usque 
in pulverem sectum est. 3 " Whatever is beaten 
into powder is confused." As you have seen 
children trying to bring a mass of quicksilver 
into a certain number of parts, the more they 
press and work it, and endeavour to reduce it 



to their own will, the more they irritate the 
liberty of this generous metal ; it mocks and 
evades their endeavour, and sparkles itself into 
so many separate bodies, as frustrate all ac- 
count: so it is here; for in subdividing these 
subtleties we teach men to increase their doubts ; 
they put us into a way of stretching and diver- 
sifying difficulties, they lengthen and disperse, 
them. In sowing and retailing of questions) 
they make the world to fructify and increase! 
in uncertainties and disputes; as the earth is 
made fertile by being crumbled and moved 
about deep: Difficultatem facil doctrina* 
"Doctrine begets difficulty." We doubted 
upon Ulpian, and are now still more perplexed 
with Bartolus and Bald us. We should efface 
the trace of this innumerable diversity of opi- 
nions, and not stuff ourselves with it, and 
stupify posterity with it. I know not what to 
say to it; but experience makes it manifest 
that so many interpretations dissipate truth and 
break it. Aristotle wrote to be understood ; 
which, if he could not be, much less will 
another less skilful ; and a third than he who 
expressed his own thoughts. We open the 
matter, and spill it in pouring out ; of one sub- 
ject we make a thousand, and, in multiplying 
and subdividing, fall into the infinity of atoms 
of Epicurus. Never did two men make the 
same judgment of the same thing; and 'tis 
impossible to find two opinions exactly alike, 
not only in several men, but in the same men, 
at different times. I often find matter of 
doubt in things that the commentary disdains 
to take notice of. I am most apt to stumble 
in an even country, like some horses that I 
have known, who make most trips in the 
smoothest way. 

Who would not say that glosses augment 
doubts and ignorance, since there's Glosses and 
no one book to be found, either commentaries 
human or divine, which the world on, y serv l t0 
busies itself about, the difficulties ^."and e.pc- 
of which are cleared by interpre- ciaiiy that of 
tation. The hundredth commen- {{JJ; *™ ks ° f 
tator still refers you to the next, 
more knotty and perplexed than he: when 
were we ever agreed amongst ourselves : " this 
book has enough ; there is no more to be said 
about if?" This is most apparent in the law : 
we give the authority of law to infinite doctors, 
infinite decisions, and as many interpretations, 
yet do we find any end of the need of inter- 
preting? Is there, for all that, any progress 
or advancement towards peace'! do we stand 
in need of any fewer advocates or judges than 
when this great mass of law was yet in its 
first infancy 1 ! On the contrary, we darken 
and bury all intelligence; we can no more dis- 
cover it but at the mercy of so many fences 
and barriers. Men do not know the natural 



1 Montaigne probably refers to the little republic of San 
Marino, in the papal states. In the thirteenth century it 
was almost universal throughout Lombardy to entrust the 
i of justice to foreigners. 



" Republic, ill. 

a Seneca, Epist. 89. 

4 Quintil. Inst. Orat. x. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



521 



disease of the mind ; it does nothing but ferret 
and inquire, and is eternally wheeling, juggling, 
and perplexing itself, and, like silk-worms, 
suffocates itself with its own web; Mus in 
pice: "a mouse in a pitch-barrel:" it thinks 
it discovers at a great distance I know not 
what glimpse of light, and imaginary truth; 
but, whilst running to it, so many difficulties, 
hindrances, and new inquisitions cross it, that 
it loses its way, and is made drunk with the 
motion: not much unlike ^Esop's dogs, that, 
seeing something like a dead body floating in 
the sea, and not being able to approach it, 
attempted to drink the water, to lay the passage 
dry, and so burst themselves. To which what 
one Crates 1 said of the writings of Heraclitus 
falls pat enough, "That they required a 
reader who could swim well," that the depth 
and weight of his doctrine might not over- 
whelm and choke him. 'Tis nothing but par- 
ticular weakness that makes us content our- 
selves with what others or ourselves have found 
in this chace after knowledge; one of better 
understanding would not rest so content : there 
is always room for one to succeed us, nay, even 
for ourselves, and a route another way through- 
out; there is no end of our inquisitions, our 
end is in the other world. 'Tis a sign either 
that wit is grown shorter-sighted when it is 
satisfied, or that it is grown weary. No gene- 
rous mind can stop in itself; it will still essay 
farther, and beyond its power; it has sallies 
beyond its effects. If it do not advance and 
press forward, and retire, rush, turn and wheel 
about, 'tis but half alive ; its pursuits are with- 
out bound or method; its aliment is admiration, 
ambiguity the chace; which Apollo sufficiently 
declared, still speaking to us in a double, 
obscure, and oblique sense; not feeding, but 
amusing and puzzling us. 'Tis an irregular 
and perpetual motion, without example and 
without aim ; its inventions heat, pursue, and 
interproduce one another : 



Ainsi veoid on, en un ruisseau conlant, 
Sans fin l'une eau aprcs l'aultre ronlant; 
Et tout de ren<r, d'un clernel condnirt, 
L'une suyt l'aultre, et Tune l'aultre fuyt. 
Par ceste cy cclle la est poulsce, 
Et ceste cy par l'aultre est devancee: 
Tousjours ruisseau, et tousiours eau diverse.j 

■ So in a running stream one wave we see 
After another roll incessantly; 
And, as they glide, each does successively 
Pursue the other, each the other fly: 
P>v this that's evermore push'd on, and this 
llv that ccmlinu.'illv pivreded is: 
The water still does into water swill- 
Still the same brook, but dilfrent water still." 



There is more ado to interpret interpretations 
than to interpret the things, and more books 
upon books than upon all other subjects; we 
do nothing but comment upon one another. 
Every where commentaries abound: of au- 



i Or rather Socrates, as the author probably wrote it. 

a l.nertius, ii. 22. 

i T,a lloelio, in the Collection before referred to. 

' Klines, iv. 13. 

44* 



thors there is great scarcity. Is it not the 
principal and most reputed knowledge of our 
ages to understand the learned ? Is it not the 
common and last end of all studies? Our 
opinions are grafted upon one another; the 
first serves for a stock to the second, the second 
to the third, and so on : thus step by step we 
climb the ladder; whence it comes to pass that 
he who is mounted highest has often more 
honour than merit, for he is got up but a grain 
upon the shoulders of the one before him. 

How often, and perhaps how foolishly, have 
I stretched my book, to make it speak of itself"! 
foolishly, if for no other reason but this, that I 
ought to call to mind what I say of others who 
do the same, "that these frequent amorous 
glances they cast upon their works, witness 
that their hearts pant with self-love, and that 
even the disdainful severity wherewith they 
lash and scourge them, are no other than the 
wanton dissimulations of a maternal kindness;" 
according to Aristotle,* whose valuing and un- 
dervaluing himself often spring from the same 
air of arrogancy; for as to my excuse that I 
ought in this to have more liberty than others, 
forasmuch as I specially write of myself and of 
my writings, as I do of my other actions ; that 
my theme returns to myself; I know not 
whether every one will take it. 

I have observed in Germany, that Luther 
has left as many divisions and 
disputes about the doubt of his £"%„£/ 
opinions, and more, than he him- and most of 
self has raised upon the holy tl,tn ! about 

c, . . _. r . . y words. 

benptures. Our contestation is 
verbal. I demand what nature is; what pleasure, 
circle, and substitution are? The question is 
about words, and is answered accordingly. A 
stone is a body, but if a man should farther urge, 
"and what is a body?" — "substance;" — 
"and what is substance?" and so on, 4 he 
would drive the respondent to the end of his 
common-place book. We exchange one word 
for another, and very often for one less under- 
stood. I know better what man is, than I 
know what animal is, or mortal, or rational. 
To satisfy one doubt, they give me three; 'tis 
the hydra's head. Socrates asked Menon what 
virtue was? "There is," says Menon, "the 
virtue of a man, and of a woman, of a magis- 
trate, and of a private person, of an old man, 
and of a child." " Very well," says Socrates, 
" we were in quest of one virtue, and thou hast 
brought us a whole swarm ;" 6 we put one ques- 
tion, and they return us a whole hive. As no 
event and no face entirely resembles another, 
so do they not entirely differ, an ingenious 
mixture of nature. If our faces were not alike, 
we could not distinguish man from beast; if 
they were not unlike, we could not distinguish 
one man from another. All things hold by 
some similitude, all examples halt, and the 



1 Plato, Menon. 



522 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



relation which is drawn from experience is 
'always faulty and imperfect. Comparisons are 
always coupled at one end or the other ; so do 
the laws serve, and are fitted to every one of 
our affairs, by some wrested, biassed, and forced 
interpretation. 

Since the Ethic laws, that concern the par- 
ticular duty of every one in him- 
tiieTaws that° ee lf> are so hard to be taught and 
concern the observed, as we see they are, 'tis 
Ila b te CtS ° f * no wonder ^ those which govern 
so many particular men are much 
more so. Do but consider the form of this jus- 
tice that governs us; 'tis a true testimony of 
human weakness, so full is it of error and con- 
tradiction! What we find to be favour and 
severity in justice, and we find so much of them 
both, that I know not whether the mean is so 
often met with, are sick parts and improper 
members of the very body and office of justice. 
Some country people have run in to bring me 
news, in great haste, that they just left, in a 
forest of mine, a man with a hundred wounds 
upon him, who was yet breathing, and begged 
of them water for pity's sake, and help to carry 
him to some place of relief; but they said they 
durst not go near him, but ran away, lest 
that the officers of justice should catch them 
there, and, as it falls out with those who are 
found near a murdered person, they should be 
called in question about this accident, to their 
utter ruin, having neither money nor friends to 
defend their innocence. What could I say to 
these people? Tis certain that this office of 
humanity would have brought them into 
trouble. 

How many innocent persons have we known 
that have been punished without the judge's 
fault, and how many that have not arrived at 
our knowledge? This happened in my time. 
Certain men were condemned to die for a 
murder committed ; their sentence, if not pro- 
nounced, at least determined and concluded on. 
The judges, just at the nick, are advertised by 
the officers of an inferior court hard by, that 
they have some men in custody, who have di- 
rectly confessed the said murder, and make an 
indubitable discovery of all the particulars of 
the fact. 'Twas, notwithstanding, put to the 
question, whether or no they ought to suspend 
execution of the sentence already passed upon 
the first accused ; they considered the novelty of 
the example, and the consequence of reversing 
judgments; that the sentence of death was duly 
passed, and the judges deprived of repentance. 
To conclude, these poor devils were sacrificed 
to the forms of justice. Philip, 1 or some other, 
provided against a like inconvenience, after this 
manner: he had condemned a man in a great 
fine towards another, by a determinate judg- 
ment. The truth some time after being disco- 
vered, he found that he had passed an unjust 



i Philip of Maccdon. See Plutarch, Apothegms. 
2 Plutarch, Inst, for those who manage State Affairs. 
»Laertius ii. 92. 



sentence; on one side was the reason of the 
cause, on the other side the reason of the judi- 
cial forms. He in some sort satisfied both, 
leaving the sentence in the state it was, and out 
of his own purse recompensing the interest 
of the condemned party. But he had to do in a 
reparable affair: the people I speak of were 
irreparably hanged. How many sentences 
have I seen more criminal than the crimes 
themselves ! 

All which makes me remember the ancient 
opinions: 2 "That there is a ne- . . . . 

r .. , . , Ancient opi- 

cessity a man must do wrong by nions on the 
detail, who will do right in gross ; subject of jus- 
and injustice in little things, that tice ' 
will come to justice in great; that human jus- 
tice is formed after the model of physic, accord- 
ing to which, all that is useful is also just and 
honest. And of what is held by the Stoics, 
that nature herself proceeds contrary to justice 
in most of her works ; and of what is received 
by the Cyrenaicks, that there is nothing just of 
itself; 3 that customs and laws make justice; 
and what the Theodorians hold, that maintain 
theft, sacrilege, and all sorts of uncleanness, 
just in a wise man, if he knows them to be pro- 
fitable to him." 1 There is no remedy; I am in 
the same case that Alcibiades was, 5 that I will 
never, if I can help it, put myself into the hands 
of a man who shall determine of my head, 
where my life and honour shall more depend 
upon the care and diligence of my attorney, 
than my own innocence. I would venture my- 
self with such a justice as should take notice of 
my good deeds as well as my ill, and where I 
had as much to hope as to fear : indemnity is 
not sufficient pay to a man, who does better 
than not to do amiss. Our justice presents us 
but one hand, and that the left; let him be who 
he will, he shall be sure to go off with loss. 

In China, of which kingdom the government 
and arts, without commerce with, or knowledge 
of ours, surpasses our examples in several parts 
of excellence ; and of which the history gives 
me to understand how much greater and more 
various the world is, than either the ancients or 
we have been able to penetrate; the officers 
deputed by the prince to visit the state of his 
provinces, as they punish those who behave 
themselves ill in their places, so do they libe- 
rally reward those who have carried themselves 
above the common sort, and beyond the neces- 
sity of their duty. They there present them- 
selves, not only to be approved, but to get; 
not simply to be paid, but have presents made 
them. No judge, thank God, has ever yet 
spoken to me, in the quality of a 
judge, upon any account what- Montaigne 
ever, whether my own or that "uYun anjf 
of another, criminal or civil; no court of justice, 
prison has ever received me, even 
as a visitor. Imagination renders the very out- 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



6ide of a gaol disagreeable to me. I so love 
freedom of will and action, that were I inter- 
dicted the remotest corners of the Indies, I 
should live a little more uneasy thereat. And 
whilst I can find either earth or air open in any 
part of the world, I will never live in any place 
where I must hide myself. Good God ! how 
ill should I endure the condition wherein I see 
so many people, nailed to a corner of the king- 
dom, deprived of the privilege of entering into 
the principal cities and courts, and the liberty 
of the public roads, for having quarrelled with 
our laws] If those under which I live should 
but wag a finger at me by way of menace, I 
would immediately go seek out others, let them 
be where they would; all my little prudence, in 
the civil wars wherein we are now engaged, is 
employed, that they may not hinder my liberty 
of going and coming. 

Now the laws keep up their credit, not be- 
cause they are just, but because 



credit of the vice They are often made by 

fools; more often by men that, 
out of hatred to equality, fail in equity; but 
always by men who are vain and irresolute 
authors. There is nothing so much, nor so 
grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as the laws. 
Whoever obeys them because they are just, 
does not justly obey them as he ought. Our 
French laws, by their irregularity and de- 
formity, do in some sort lend a helping hand to 
the disorder and corruption which is manifest 
in their dispensation and execution. The com- 
mand is so perplexed and inconstant, that it in 
some sort excuses both disobedience and defect 
in the interpretation, the administration, and 
the observation of it. What fruit then soever 
we may extract from experience, yet that will 
little advantage our institution, which we draw 
from foreign examples, if we make so little 
profit of that we have of our own, which is 
more familiar to us, and certainly sufficient to 
instruct us in that whereof we have need. I 
study myself more than any other subject ; 'tis 
my metaphysics, 'tis my physics. 

Qua Deus hanc mundi temperet arte domum; 
Qua venit exoriens, qua deficit, unde coactis 

Cornibus in plenum menstrua luna redit ; 
L'niie salu superant venti, quid flauiine captet 

Eurus, et in nulies unde perennis aqua ; 
Sit veniura dies, mundi qrjffi aubruat arces.i 

Qurerite, quos agitat mundi labor. 2 

"By what means God the universe does sway. 
Or how the pale-faced sister of the day, 
When, in increasing, can her horns unite, 
Till they contract into a full-orb'd light; 
Why winds do of the sea the bettor cot, 
Why Eurus blows, anil clouds are always wet ; 
What day the world's creal fabric must o'erthrow, 
Let them inquire, would the world's secrets know." 

In this university, I suffer myself to be igno- 



i Propertius, iii. 5,26. 

1 Lucan, i. 417. 

1 " II est une precieuse ignorance, tresord'une ante pure, 



rantly and negligently led by the general law 
of the world. I shall know it well enough 
when I feel it; my learning cannot make it 
alter its course. It will not change itself for 
me ; 'tis folly to hope it, and a greater folly to 
concern one's self about it, seeing it is necessa- 
rily alike, public, and common. The goodness 
and capacity of the governor ought absolutely 
to discharge us of all care of the government. 
Philosophical inquisitions and contemplations 
serve for no other use but to increase our 
curiosity. Philosophers, with great reason, 
send us back to the rules of nature ; but they 
have nothing to do with so sublime a know- 
ledge. They falsify them, and present us her 
face painted with too high and too sophisticated 
a colour, whence spring so many different 
portraits of so uniform a subject. As she has 
given us feet to walk withal, so has she given 
us prudence to guide us in life; not such an 
ingenious, robust, and majestic prudence as that 
of their invention, but yet one that is easy, 
quiet, and salutiferous; and that very well per- 
forms what the other promises, in him who has 
the good fortune to know how to employ it 
sincerely and regularly, that is to say, accord- 
ing to nature. The most simply to commit a 
man's self to nature, is to do it the most wisely. 
Oh, what a soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is 
ignorance and incuriosity, whereon to repose a 
well-contrived head! 3 

I had rather understand myself well in my- 
self, than in Cicero. 4 Of the experience I have 
of myself, I find enough to make me wise, if I 
were but a good scholar : whoever will call to 
mind the excess of his past anger, and to what 
a degree that fever transported him, will see the 
deformity of this passion better than in Aris- 
totle, and conceive a more just hatred against 
it. Whoever will remember the hazards he has 
run, those that threaten him, and the light 
occasions that have removed him from one state 
to another, will by that prepare himself for 
future changes, and the knowledge of his con- 
dition. The life of Ca?sar himself has no greater 
example for us than our own : both popular 
and imperial, it is still a life to which all human 
accidents may refer. Let us but listen to it, 
and we may apply to ourselves all that we have 
principal need of; whoever shall call to memory 
how many and many times he has been mis- 
taken in his own judgment, is he not a great 
fool if he does not ever after distrust it] When 
I find myself convinced, by the reason of an- 
other, of a false opinion, I do not learn so much 
what he has said to me that is new, and from 
my ignorance in this particular thing; that 
would be no great acquisition, as I do in 
general my own weakness, and the treachery 
of my understanding, whence I extract the 
reformation of the whole mass. In all my 
errors I do the same; and find from this rule 



qui met toute sa felicite a se replier sur < 
Rousseau, Disc, sur Its Lcttres. 
* The edition of 1&& has •• than in Plata" 



524 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



great utility to life ; I regard not the species 
and individual, as a stone that I have stumbled 
at; I learn to suspect my steps throughout, 
and to regulate them. To learn that a man has 
said or done a foolish thing is nothing ; a man 
must learn that he is nothing but a fool, a much 
more ample and important instruction. The 
false steps that my memory has so often made, 
even then when it was most secure and confi- 
dent of itself, are not idly thrown away; it 
may now swear to me and assure me as much 
as it will, I shake my ears, and trust it not; the 
first opposition that is made to my testimony 
puts me into suspense, and I durst not rely 
upon it in any thing of moment, nor warrant it 
in another body's ' concerns ; and were it not 
that what I do for want of memory, others do 
more often for want of faith, I should always, 
in matter of fact, rather choose to take truth 
from another's mouth than my own. If every 
one would pry into the effects and circumstances 
of the passions that sway him, as I have done 
into those which fell to my lot, he would see 
them coming, and would a little break their 
impetuosity and career; they do not always 
6eize us on a sudden ; there is threatening and 
degrees : 

Fluctus uti primo coepit cum albescere vento, 
Paulatim sese tollit mare, et altius undas 
Erigit, inde imo consurgit ad anhera fundo.i 

"As the sea first begins to foam and fret. 
Thence higher swells, higher, anil higher yet, 
Till at the last the waves so hinh do rise, 
They seem to bid defiance to the skies." 

Judgment holds in me a magisterial seat; at 
least, it carefully endeavours to make it so : it 
lets my appetites take their own course, as also 
hatred and friendship; nay, even that I bear 
to myself, without alteration or corruption ; if 
it cannot reform the other parts according to its 
own model, at least, it suffers not itself to be 
corrupted by them, but plays its game apart. 

That advertisement to every one to know 
himself should be of important effect, since 
the god of wisdom and light caused it to be 
writ on the front of his temple, 2 as compre- 
hending all he had to counsel us. Plato says, 
also, that prudence is no other thing but the 
execution of this ordinance; and Socrates 
minutely verifies the same in Xenophon. The 
difficulties and obscurity are not discerned in 
any science, but by those that are got into it; 
for a certain degree of knowledge is required 
to enable a man to know that he knows not; 
and we must thrust against a door to know 
whether it be bolted against us or not; 
whence this Platonic subtlety springs: that 
" neither they who know are to enquire, be- 
cause they know; nor they who do not know, 
because, to enquire, they must know what they 



i JEneid, vii. 528. 

* Apollo, on the front of his temple at Delphi. 

> Plato, Menon. 

i Xenophon, Mem. on Socrates, iv. 2, 24. 

'■' Cicero, Acad. i. 13. 



enquire about." 3 So in this "to know one's 
self," that every man is seen so resolved and 
satisfied with himself, that every man thinks 
himself sufficiently understanding, signifies 
that every one understands nothing at all; 
as Socrates gives Euthydemus to learn. 4 I, 
who profess nothing else, do therein find such 
depth and so infinite a variety, that all the fruit 
I have reaped from my apprenticeship serves 
only to make me sensible how much I have to 
learn. To my weakness, so often confessed, I 
owe the propension I have to modesty, to obe- 
dience, to the beliefs prescribed me, to a constant 
coldness and moderation of opinions, and a 
hatred of that troublesome and wrangling arro- 
gance, wholly believing and trusting in itself, 
the capital enemy of discipline and truth. Do 
but hear them domineer; the first trash they 
utter, 'tis in the style wherewith men establish 
religion and laws: Nihil est turpius, quam 
cognitioni et perceplioni asserlionem approba- 
tionem que prcecurrere. 5 "Nothing is more 
absurd than that assertion and admission should 
precede knowledge and precept." Aristarchus 
said, 6 that anciently there were scarcely seven 
wise men to be found in the world, and in his 
time scarce so many fools: have we not more 
reason than he to say so in this age of ours? 
Affirmation and obstinacy are express signs of 
want of wit. A fellow has stumbled and 
knocked his nose against the ground a hundred 
times in a day, and yet he will be at his ergo- 
tisms as resolute and assured as before ; so that 
one would conclude he had had some new soul 
and vigour of understanding infused into him 
since, and that it happened to him as to that 
ancient son of the earth, 7 who acquired new 
strength, and was made more daring by 
his fall; 



so the incorrigible coxcomb thinks he assumes a 
new understanding by undertaking a new dis- 
pute. 'Tis by my own experience that 1 accuse 
human ignorance, which is, in my opinion, the 
surest part of the world's school. Such as will 
not conclude it in themselves, by so vain an 
example as mine, or of their own, let them 
believe it from Socrates, the master of masters; 
for the philosopher Antisthenes said to his dis- 
ciples: 9 "Let us go and hear Socrates; there I 
will be a pupil with you ;" and maintaining 
the dogma of the Stoical sect, "that virtue 
was sufficient to make a life completely happy, 
having no need of any other thing whatever," 
he added, " except the force of Socrates." 
The long attention that I employ in con- 



Plutarch, On Brotherly Love. 
i Antteus. 
e Luc. iv. 599. 
» Laertius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



sidering myself, does also fit me to judge 
tolerably of others ; and there are few things 
whereof' I speak better, and with better excuse. 
I frequently happen to see and distinguish the 
conditions of my friends more exactly than they 
do themselves; I have astonished some with 
the pertinence of my description, and have 
given them notice of themselves. By having 
from my infancy been accustomed to contem- 
plate my own life in that of others, I have 
acquired a complexion studious in that par- 
ticular ; and when I am once intent upon it, I 
let few things about me, whether countenances, 
humours, or discourses, that serve to that pur- 
pose, escape me. I study all, both what I am 
to avoid, and what I am to do. Also in my 
friends I discover by their productions their 
inward inclinations; not to range this infinite 
variety of actions, so diverse and disconnected, 
into certain sorts and chapters, and distinctly 
to distribute my parcels and divisions under 
known heads and classes ; 



The learned speak and deliver their fancies 
more specifically and minutely. I, who see no 
farther into things than as custom informs me, 
without rule, present mine generally and con- 
jectural ly: as in this, I pronounce my sentence 
by loose and unknit articles, as of a thing that 
cannot be spoken at once and in gross: relation 
and conformity are not to be found in so low 
and common souls as ours. Wisdom is a solid 
and entire building, of which every piece keeps 
its place and carries its mark: Sola sapienta 
in se tola r.onversa est. 2 " Wisdom only is 
wholly turned into itself." I leave it to those 
who are artists, and I know not whether they 
will be able to bring it about in so perplexed a 
thing, to marshal into distinct bodies this infinite 
diversity of faces, to settle our inconstancy, and 
set it in order. I do not only find it hard to 
piece our actions to one another, but I more- 
over find it very hard properly to design them 
every one by themselves, by any principal 
quality, so ambiguous they are and variform 
by several lights. That which is remarked for 
rare in Perseus, King of Macedon, 3 " That his 
mind, fixing itself to no one condition, wan- 
dered about in all sorts of living, and repre- 
sented manners so wild and strange that it was 
neither known by himself nor any other what 
kind of man he was," seems almost to fit all the 
world; and especially I have seen another of 
his stature, to whom I think this conclusion 
might still more properly be applied. 4 No 
moderate settledness; still running headlong 
from one extreme to another, upon occasions 
not to be guessed at; no manner of course 



i Virgil, Oeorgic, ii. 103. 
s Cicero, de Finib. iii. 7. 
s See Livy, xli. 20. 



without traverse and wonderful contrariety ; 
nor simple quality; so that the best guess man 
can one day make will be, that he affected and 
studied to make himself known by being not 
to be known. A man had need have strong 
ears to hear himself frankly censured; and 
there being but few that can endure to hear it 
without being nettled, those who hazard the 
■undertaking it to us manifest a singular effect 
of friendship; for 'tis to love sincerely indeed 
to attempt to hurt and offend us for our own 
good. I think it rude to censure a man whose 
ill qualities are more than his good ones: 
Plato requires three things in him that will 
examine the soul of another, to wit, knowledge, 
good will, and boldness. 5 

I have been asked, what I should have thought 
myself fit for, had any one wished to make use 
of me, in my younger years ; 

Dum melior vires sanguis dabat, oemula necdum 
Temporibus geininis canebat sparsa senectus: 6 

" Ere age unstrung my nerves, or time had snowed my 
head :" 

For nothing, said I. And I am willing enough 
not to know how to do anything 
that would enslave me to another. ■*■£}££ 
But I would have told truths to been a fit per- 
my master, and had controlled son to talk 
his manners, if he had so pleased ; sovereign, 'to 
not in gross, by scholastic les- tell him truths, 
sons, which I understand not, ^toknow 
and from which I see no true himself, 
reformation spring in those that 
do; but by observing them by leisure, at all 
opportunities, and judging them, an eye-witness, 
one by one, simply and naturally, giving him 
to understand upon what terms he was in the 
common opinion, in opposition to his flat- 
terers. There is none of us that would not be 
worse than kings, if so continually corrupted 
as they are with that sort of vermin; Alex- 
ander, that great king and philosopher, could 
not defend himself from them. I should have 
fidelity, judgment, and freedom enough for 
that. It would be a nameless office, otherwise 
it would lose both its grace and its effect ; and 
'tis a part that is not indifferently fit for all 
men, for truth itself has not the privilege to be 
spoken at all times, and in all sorts ; the use of 
it, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions arid 
limits. It often falls out, as the world now 
goes, that a man lets it slip into the ear of a 
prince, not only to no purpose, but moreover 
injuriously and unjustly; and no one shall 
make me believe that a virtuous remonstrance 
may not be viciously applied, and that the 
interest of the substance is not often to give 
place to that of the form. 

For such a purpose I would have a man that 
is content with his own fortune, 



* The author speaks of himself. 

* Plato, Oorgiaa. 
> JEncid, v. 415. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



Quod sit, esse velit ; nihilque malit,' 



and but of middling rank, so that on the one 
hand, he would not be afraid to touch his master's 
heart to the quick, through fear by that means 
of losing his preferment; and on the other, 
being of middling quality, he would have 
more easy communion with all sorts of people. 
And I would have this office limited to only 
one ; for to allow the privilege of this liberty 
and privacy to many, would beget an incon- 
venient irreverence ; and even of that one too, 
I would, above all things, require the fidelity 
of silence. 

A king is not to be believed when he brags 
of his constancy in awaiting the shock of the 
enemy for his glory, if, for his profit and amend- 
ment, he cannot stand the freedom of a friend's 
advice, which has no other power but to pinch 
his ear, the remainder of its effect being still in 
his own hands. Now there is no condition of 
man which stands in so great need of true and 
free warnings as they do: they sustain a public 
life, and have to satisfy the opinion of so many 
spectators, that, men having used to conceal 
from them whatever should divert 

Free advice t] f th ■ they 

necessary for . ... , c , , J ' J 

kings. insensibly have found themselves 

involved in the hatred and de- 
testation of their people, sometimes upon such 
occasions as they might have avoided, without 
any prejudice even of their pleasures themselves, 
had they been advised and set right in time. 
Their favourites, commonly, have more an eye 
to themselves than to their master ; and indeed 
'tis to be expected, forasmuch as in truth most 
of the offices of true friendship, when applied 
to the sovereign, are under a rude and dangerous 
proof; so that therein there is great need, not 
only of very great affection and freedom, but of 
courage too. 

In short, all this hodge-podge that I scrib- 
ble here, is nothing but a register of the essays 
„, . of my life, 2 which for the internal 

The advantage , ,f, ■ ' , , . 

that may be health is exemplary enough to 

derived from take instruction against the grain; 

KK'the buta * to. bod"/ health, no man 

health of the can furnish out more profitable 

soul, and much experience than I, who present it 

more for that r , r . j a 

of the body. pure, and noway corrupted and 
changed by art or opinion. Ex- 
perience is properly upon its own dunghill in 
the subject of physic, where reason wholly 
gives it place : Tiberius said that whoever had 
lived twenty years ought to be responsible to 
himself for all things that were hurtful or whole- 
some to him, and know how to order himself 



without physic; 3 and he might have learnt it 
of Socrates, who, advising his disciples to be 
solicitous of their health, as a chief study, added 
that it was hard if a man of sense, having a 
care of his exercise and diet, did not better 
know than any physician, what was good or ill 
for him. 4 Indeed, physic professes itself always 
to have experience for the touch of its opera- 
tions: and Plato had reason to say, that, to be 
a thorough physician, it would be necessary 
that he who would take it upon him should 
first himself have passed through all the dis- 
eases he pretends to cure, and through all the 
accidents and circumstances whereof he is to 
judge. 5 'Tis but reason they should get the 
pox, if they will know how to cure it. For 
my part I should put myself into such hands; 
for the others but guide us, like him who paints 
the sea, rocks, and ports, seated at his table, 
and there makes the figure of a ship sail in all 
security: put him to it in earnest, he knows 
not at which end to begin. They make such a 
description of our maladies, as a town-crier does 
of a lost horse or dog ; such a colour, such a 
height, such an ear ; but bring him to him, and 
he knows it not for all that. God grant that 
physic may one day give me some good and 
visible relief, to see how I shall cry out in good 
earnest, 

Tandem efficaci do manus sciential 
"At length I own the power of the pill." 

The arts that promise to keep our bodies and 
souls in health, promise a great deal ; but 
withal, there is none that less keep their pro- 
mise. And, in our times, those that make pro- 
fession of these arts amongst us, less manifest 
the effects than any other sort of men: one 
may say of them, at the most, that they sell 
medicinal drugs, but that they are physicians 
one cannot say. I have lived long enough to 
be able to give an account of the usage that has 
carried me so far; for whoever has a mind to 
read it, as his taster, I give him an essay. Here 
are some articles as my memory shall supply 
me with them : I have no custom that has not 
varied according to accidents; but I only re- 
cord those that I have been best acquainted 
with, and that hitherto have had the greatest 
possession of me. 

My form of life is the same in sickness that it 
is in health ; the same bed, the 
same hours, the same meat, and course oNife 
the same drink, serve me in both the same in 
conditions alike; I add nothing j^"^, 8 ,, 3 * 
to them but the moderation of 
more or less, according to my strength and 
appetite. My health consists in maintaining 



i Martial, x. 47. 12. 

2 " Nam saudere principi, quod oportcat, multi laboris." 
Tacit. Hist. i. 15. 

a Montaigne here probably had in his mind Tacitus 
(Annul, vi. 40), where the historian, speaking of Tiberius, 
says: "Solitusque eludere medicorum artes, atqne eos, 
post triccsimum tetatis annum, arl internoscenda corporis 
suoutilia, vel noxia, alieni consilii indisercnt." Suetonius 
(Life of Tiberius, c. '28,) on!y says that Tiberius, after lie was 



30 years of aje, governed his health after his own fancy, 
and without the help and advice of physicians. And Plu- 
tarch tells us in his treatise Of the Rules and Precepts for 
Health, that he remembered to have heard that Tiberius 
used to say, that the man who after threescore years of age 
held his hand out to a physician to feel his pulse, deserved 
to be laughpd at for a fool." 

i Xenophon, Mem. on Socrates, iv. 7. 9. 

5 Plato, Republic, iii. • Horace. Epod. xvii. i. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



527 



my wonted state without disturbance. I see 
that sickness puts me off it on one side ; if I 
will be ruled by the physicians, they will put 
me off on the other ; so that by fortune and by 
art I am altogether displaced. I believe no- 
thing more certainly than this, that I cannot 
be hurt by the use of things to which I have 
been so long accustomed. 'Tis for custom to 
give a form to a man's life, such as it pleases ; 
in that she is all in all ; 'tis the cup of Circe 
that varies our nature as she likes. How many 
nations, and but three steps from us, think the 
fear of the dew, that so manifestly is hurtful to 
us, a ridiculous fancy, and our watermen and 
peasants despise it. You make a German sick 
if you lay him upon a mattress, as you do an 
Italian if you lay him upon a feather-bed, and 
a Frenchman without curtains or fire. A Spa- 
nish stomach cannot endure our form of eating, 
nor ours to drink like the Swiss. A German 
made me very merry at Augusta, 1 with dis- 
puting the convenience of our hearths, by the 
same arguments which we commonly make use 
of in decrying their stoves ; for, to say the 
truth, that smothered heat, and then the scent 
of that heated matter of which the fire is com- 
posed, gets into the head of such as are not 
used to them, though not into mine ; but as to 
the rest, the heat being always equal, constant 
and universal, without flame, without smoke. 
and without the wind that comes down our 
chimneys, they may in many ways endure com- 
parison with ours. Why do we not imitate the 
Roman architecture] For they say that an- 
ciently fires were not made in their houses, but 
on the outside, and at the foot of them ; 
whence the heat was conveyed to the whole 
fabric by pipes contrived in the wall, which 
went twining about the places that were to be 
warmed : which I have seen plainly described 
somewhere in Seneca. 2 This gentleman, hear- 
ing me commend the conveniences and beauties 
of his city, which truly deserves it, began to 
pity me that I had to go away; and the first 
inconvenience he alleged to me was, the heavi- 
ness in the head that the chimneys elsewhere 
would bring upon me. He had heard some one 
make this complaint, and fixed it upon us, being 
by custom deprived of the opportunity of per- 
ceiving it at home. All heat that comes from 
the fire makes me weak and dull, and yet 
Evenus said that fire was the best condiment of 
life. 3 I rather choose any other way of making 
myself warm. 

We are afraid to drink our wines when 
towards the bottom of a vessel ; in Portugal, 
this is thought delicious, and it is the beve- 
rage of princes. In fine, every nation has 
several modes and customs, that are not only 
unknown, but would seem savage and miracu- 
lous to others. What should we do with those 



i Augsburgh (Augusta Vindelicorum) through which 
Montaigne passed on his way to Italy, in October, 15rt). 
He does not mention this discourse about stoves and 
chimneys in his Journey. 



people who admit of no testimonies, if not 
printed, who believe not men if not in a book, 
not truth herself, if not of competent age? We 
dignify our nonsense when we commit it to 
the press. 'Tis of a great deal more weight to 
what you speak of, to say : " I have read 6uch 
thing," than if you only say : " I have heard 
such a thing." But I, who no more dis- 
believe a man's mouth than his pen, and who 
know that men write as indiscreetly as they 
speak, and who esteem this age as much as 
one that's past, do as soon quote a friend I 
know as Aulus Gellius or Macrobius, and what 
I have seen, as what they have written : and 
as they held of virtue, that it is not greater for 
having continued longer, so do I hold of truth, 
that for being older it is not wiser. I often say 
that it is mere folly that makes us run aftef 
foreign and scholastic examples: their fertility 
is the same now that it was. in the time of 
Homer and Plato. But is it not that we seek 
more the honour of the quotation, than the 
truth of the discourse 1 ! As if it were more to 
borrow our proofs from the shops of Vascosan 
or of Plantin, than from what is to be seen in 
our own village ; or else, indeed, that we have 
not the wit to cull out and make useful what 
we see before us, and judge of it vividly enough 
to draw it into example ; for if we say that we 
want authority to procure faith to our testi- 
mony, we speak from the purpose ; forasmuch 
as, in my opinion, of the most ordinary, com- 
mon, and known things, could we but find out 
their light, the greatest miracles of nature might 
be formed, and the most wonderful examples, 
especially upon the subject of human actions. 

Now, upon this subject I am speaking of, 
setting aside the examples I have gathered from 
books, and what Aristotle says 4 of Andro the 
Argian, that he travelled over the arid sands of 
Libya without drinking; a gentleman who has 
behaved himself well in several employments, 
said, in a place where I was, that he had rid 
from Madrid to Lisbon in the heat of summer, 
without drinking. He is very healthy and 
vigorous for his age, and has nothing extraor- 
dinary in his course and method of living but 
this, to live sometimes two or three months, 
nay, a whole year, without drinking. He is 
sometimes dry, but he lets his drought pass over, 
and holds it an appetite which easily goes of 
itself; he drinks more out of caprice, than either 
for need or pleasure. 

Here is another example : 'tis not long ago 
that I met one of the learnedest men in France, 
among those of the greatest fortune, studying 
in a corner of a hall that they had separated for 
him with tapestry, and about him a rabble of 
his servants, full of noise. He told me, and 
Seneca almost says the same of himself, 5 he 
made an advantage of this hubbub; as if, 



i Epjst no. 

Plutarch, Platonic Questions. 
I.aertius, Life of PyYrho. 
Bpist. 56. 



529 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



beaten with this rattle, he so much the more 
collected and retired himself into himself for 
contemplation, and that this tempest of voices 
drove back his thoughts within himself. When 
a scholar at Padua, he had his study so long 
situated in the rattle of coaches, and the tumult 
of the public place, that he not only formed 
himself to the contempt, but even to the use of 
noise, for the service of his studies. Socrates 
answered Alcibiades, who being astonished at 
his patience, asked him how he could endure 
the perpetual scolding of his wife : " Why,'' 
said he, " as those do who are accustomed to 
the ordinary noise of wheels to draw water." 1 
I am quite otherwise; 1 have a tender head, 
and easily discomposed ; when 'tis bent upon 
any thing, the least buzzing of a fly tears it 
into pieces. 

Seneca, in his youth, having, by the example 
of Sextus, put on»a positive resolution of eating 
nothing that had received death, passed over a 
whole year without it, and, as he said, with 
pleasure, 2 and only left off that he might not 
be suspected of taking up this rule from some 
new religions, by which it was prescribed. He 
took up withal, from the precepts of Attalus, 
a custom, not to lie any more upon any sort of 
bedding that yielded under a man's weight, 
and even to his old age made use of such as 
would not yield to any pressure. What the 
custom of his time made him account austerity, 
that of ours makes us look upon as effeminacy. 

Do but observe the difference betwixt- the 
way of living of my labourers and mine: 
Scythia and the Indies have nothing more re- 
mote both from my force and method. I have 
picked up boys from begging to serve me, who 
soon after have quitted both my kitchen and 
livery, only that they might return to their for- 
mer course of life : and I found one afterwards 
picking up muscels in our neighbourhood for 
his dinner, whom I could neither by entreaties 
nor threats reclaim from the sweetness he found 
in indigence. Beggars have their magnificences 
and delights as well as the rich ; and, 'tis said, 
their dignities and orders. These are the effects 
of custom; she can mould us not only into what 
form she pleases (and yet the sages say 3 we 
ought to apply ourselves to the best, which she 
would soon make easy to us), but also to change 
and variation, which is the most noble and 
most useful of her apprenticeships. The best 
of my bodily attributes is that I am flexi- 
ble, and very little obstinate ; I have inclina- 
tions more proper and ordinary, and more 
agreeable than others ; but I am diverted from 
them with very little struggle, and easily slip 
into a contrary course. A young man ought 
to cross his own rules, to awake his vigour, and 
to keep it from growing faint and rusty ; and 
there is no course of life so weak and foolish as 
that which is carried on by rule and discipline; 



i Laertius, in vitu. 

a Epist. 108. 

8 Pythagoras, in Stobseus, Serm. 29. 



Ad primum lapidein victari cum placet, hora 

Sumitur ex Hiiro ; si prurit t'rii-tiis ocelli 

Angulus, inspecta genesi, collyria quajrit : * 

" If he but walk a mile he first must look 

For the fit hour and minute in the book. 

If his eye itch, the pain will still endure, 

Nor till a scheme be raised, apply the cure : 

he shall often throw himself even into excesses, 
if he will take my advice ; otherwise the least 
debauch will ruin him, and he will render him- 
self uneasy and disagreeable in company. The 
worst quality in a gentleman is delicateness, and 
an obligation to a certain particular way ; and 
it is particular, if not pliable and stipple. It is 
a kind of reproach not to be able, or not to 
dare, to do what we see others do before us ; let 
such as these sit at home. It is in every man 
unbecoming; but in a soldier it is vicious and 
intolerable; who, as Philopoemen said, 6 ought 
to accustom himself to all variety and inequality 
of life. 

Though I have been brought up as much as 
possible, to liberty and indifference, yet so it is 
that having, in growing old, 'more 
settled upon certain forms (my t0 ^ch^Mon- 
age is now past instruction, and I taigne was a 
have henceforward nothing to do * la e ve in his old 
but to keep it up as well as I 
can), custom has already, ere I was aware, so 
imprinted its character in me, in certain things, 
that I look upon it as a kind of excess to leave 
them off; and, without a force upon myself, I 
cannot sleep in the day-time, nor eat between 
meals, nor breakfast, nor go to bed, without a 
great interval betwixt eating and sleeping, as 
of three good hours after supper; nor get chil- 
dren but before I sleep, and never standing upon 
my feet, nor endure my own sweat, nor quench 
my thirst either with pure water or pure wine, 
nor keep my head long bare, nor have my hair 
cut after dinner; and I should be as uneasy 
without my gloves as without my shirt, or with- 
out washing when I rise from table, or get 
out of bed ; and could not lie without a canopy 
and curtains, as if these were all-essential 
things. I could dine without a table-cloth, but 
without a clean napkin, after the German 
fashion, very incommodiously ; I soil them 
more than they or the Italians do, and make 
but little use either of spoon or fork. I am 
sorry that the same is not in use amongst us, 
that I see the example of in kings ; which is to 
change our napkins at every service, as they do 
our plates. We are told of that laborious sol- 
dier Marius, that, growing old, he became nice 
in his drinking, and never drank but out of a 
particular cup of his own ; 6 I, in like manner, 
have suffered myself to fancy a certain form of 
glasses, and do not willingly drink in a common 
glass, no more than from a common hand ; all 
metal offends me in comparison of a clear and 
transparent matter; let my eyes taste too, 
according to their capacity. I owe several 



* Juvenal, vi. 576. 

6 Or rather, as it was said to Philopamen. See Plutarch, 

Plutarch, How we should restrain Anger, 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



529 



other such niceties to custom. Nature has also, 
on the other hand, helped me to some of hers ; 
as not to be able to endure two full meals in 
one day without overcharging my stomach, nor 
a total abstinence from one of those meals, 
without filling myself with wind, drying up my 
mouth, and dulling my appetite; as finding 
great inconvenience from much evening air; 
for of late years, in night marches, which often 
happen to be all night long, after five or six 
hours my stomach begins to be queasy, with a 
violent pain in my head, so that I always 
vomit before the day breaks. When others go 
to breakfast, I go to sleep, and when I rise I 
am as brisk and gay as before. I had always 
been told that the evening dew never spread 
itself but at the beginning of the night: but 
for some years past, long and familiarly fre- 
quenting a lord possessed with this opinion, 
that the dew is more sharp and dangerous about 
the declining of the sun, an hour o'r two before 
he sets, which he carefully avoids, and despises 
that of the night; he has almost imprinted in 
me not only his reasoning, but his opinion. 
What, shall doubt itself and inquiry strike our 
imagination, and change us! Such as abso- 
lutely and on a sudden give way to these pro- 
pensions, totally ruin themselves; and I am 
grieved for several gentlemen who, through the 
folly of their physicians, have in their youth 
and health put themselves into consumptions ; 
it were yet better to endure a cold, than, by dis- 
use, for ever to lose the commerce of common 
life, in an action of so great use. Ill-natured 
science, to interdict us the sweetest and most 
pleasant hour of the day ! Let us keep pos- 
session of it to the last; for the most part a 
man hardens himself by being obstinate, and 
corrects his constitution, as Ceesar did the fall- 
ing sickness, by dint of contempt. 1 A man 
should addict himself to the best rules, but not 
enslave himself to them ; except not to such, if 
there be any such, the obligation and servitude 
to which are of profit. 

Botli kings and philosophers go to stool, and 
ladies too ; public lives are bound to ceremony, 
The care that m ' ne > lnat > s obscure and private, 
Bioiitai»iietook enjoys all natural dispensation; 
to keep his body soldier and Gascon are also quali- 
ties a little subject to indiscretion; 
wherefore I shall say of this action, that it is 
necessary to refer it to certain prescribed and 
nocturnal hours, and force a man's self to it by 
custom, as I have done; but not to subject 
himself, as has been my practice in my declining 
years, to a particular convenience of place and 
seat for this purpose, and making it trouble- 
some by long sitting: and yet, in foul offices, 
is it not in some measure excusable to require 
more care and cleanliness? ISalura homo mun- 
dum et elegans animal est; 2 "Man is by 
nature a clean and delicate creature." Of all 



I Plutarch, in rilii. 
» Seneca, Bpiat. 98. 

45 



the actions of nature, I am the most impatient 
of being interrupted in that. I have seen many 
soldiers troubled with the unruliness of their 
stomachs; whilst mine and I never fail of our 
punctual assignation, which is at leaping out of 
bed, if some indispensable business or sickness 
do not interfere with us. 

I do not then think, as I said before, that 
sick men can better place them- The surest 
selves any where in safety, than course to be 
in keeping quietly in that course taken by vale - 
of life wherein they have been tud ' naria » s - 
bred and trained up; alteration, be it what it 
will, distempers and confuses them. Chesnuts 
will never hurt a Perigordian, or one of Lucca; 
or milk and cheese the inhabitants of the moun- 
tains. People are ordered not only a new, 
but a contrary method of life, a change that the 
most healthful cannot endure. Prescribe water 
to a Breton of threescore and ten, shut a sea- 
man up in a stove, and forbid a Basque footman 
walking; you will deprive them of motion, and 
in the end of air and light. 



Cogimur a suetis animum suspendere rebus, 
Atque, ut vivamus, vivere desinimus - - - 

Hos superrsse rrnr, quihus ft spir.'ibilis aer, 
Et lux, qua regimur, reddjtur ipsa gravis? 3 

" Is life of such a mighty consequence? 
Must we accustom'd tilings quite over give. 
And cease to live, that we may longer live? 
Surely their life they once for all must leave, 
Whom light and air, by which they live, do grieve." 

If they do no other good, they do this at least, 
that they prepare the patients betimes for death, 
by little and little undermining and cutting off 
the use of life. 

Both well and sick I have ever willingly 
suffered myself to obey the appe- 
tites that pressed upon me. I give whet'hefweii or 
great authority to my inclinations sick, indulged 
and desires; 1 do not love to cure ™^f^ s ral 
one disease by another ; I hate 
remedies that are more troublesome than the 
disease itself. To be subject to the stone, 
and subject to abstain from, eating oysters, 
are two evils instead of one; the disease 
torments us on the one side, and the remedy 
on the other. Since we ever run the hazard 
of mistaking, let us run it as a consequence 
of pleasure. The world proceeds quite con- 
trary, and thinks nothing profitable that is 
not painful : facility stands suspected. My 
appetite is in several things of itself happily 
enough accommodated to the health of my 
stomach ; high-flavoured sauces were pleasant 
to me when young, but my stomach disliking 
them afterwards, my taste incontinently did the 
same; wine is hurtful to sick people; and 'tis 
the first thing that my mouth disrelishes when 
I am sick, and witli an invincible distaste. 
Whatever I take against my liking does me 



a Pseudo-Gall. F.lr?. i. J ."5, 047. The words, Jin vivere 
tanti est, are not in the text. 

2i 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



harm, and nothing hurts me that I eat with 
appetite and pleasure. I never received harm 
by any action that was very agreeable to me ; 
and accordingly I have made all medicinal con- 
clusions mightily give way to my pleasure; and 
I have, when I was young, 



Quern circnmcursans liac atque hue siepe Cupido 
Fulgebat crocina splendidus in tunica,' 



given myself the reins as freely and incon- 
siderately as any other whatever to the desire 
that was predominant in me ; 

Et militavi non sine gloria,* 

" And in the field of Love have honour won ;" 

yet more in continuation and holding out, than 
in sally : 

" sustinuisse vices.s 



Tis certainly a misfortune and a miracle at 
once, to confess at what a tender age I was 
subjected to love. It was indeed by chance; 
for it was long before the years of choice or 
discretion. 1 do not remember myself so long 
ago ; and my fortune may very well be coupled 
to that of Quartilla, who could not remember 
the time she was a maid. 4 



" My early budding beard my friends amazed." 

Physicians commonly submit their rules to 
the violent longings that happen to sick per- 
sons, with very good success. This great desire, 
so strange and vicious, cannot be imagined to 
be, but that nature must have a hand in it. 
And then how easy a thing is it to satisfy the 
fancy! In my opinion, this part wholly carries 
it, at least, above all the rest. The most 
grievous and ordinary wills are those that fancy 
loads us with. This Spanish saying mightily 
pleases in several points of view : Defenda me 
Bios de my. " God defend me from myself." 
I am sorry, when I am sick, that I have not 
some longing that might give me the content- 
ment of satisfying it; all the rules of physic 
would hardly be able to divert me from it. I 
do the same when I am well, I see very little 
more than to wish and to will. 'Tis pity a man 
should be so weak and languishing, that he 
can't even wish. 

The art of physic is not so resolved that we 



i Catullus, Carm. Ixvi. 133. 

2 Horace, Oil. iii. 2(5. 2. 

a Ovid, Amor. iii. 7. 27. Some very curious inquirers will 
blame me for not having explained this little verse; and 
there are others, whom I rather wish to keep fair with, 
would give me a rap on the knuckles if I had. All I can 
do to oblige the first, is to refer them to Fontaine's tale 
called he Berceau, verse 246. 

1 Petronius, c. 25. 

o Martial, xi. 22. 7. 

o Femcl, physician to Henry 11., born 1497, died 1556.— 



need be without authority for 
whatever we do; it changes ac- Sntyofphy* 
cording to the climates and gives asancimn 
moons, according to Fernel and J° "i 081 of our 
according to L'Escale. 6 If your onsinss ' 
physician does not think it good for you to 
sleep, to drink wine, or to eat such and such 
meats, never trouble yourself; I will find you 
another that shall not be of his opinion. The 
diversity of physical arguments and opinions 
embraces all sorts of methods. I saw a mise- 
rable sick man panting and burning with thirst, 
that he might be cured, who was afterwards 
laughed at for his pains by another physician, 
who condemned that advice as prejudicial to 
him. Had he not tormented himself to good 
purpose] A man of that profession is lately 
dead of the stone, who had made use of extreme 
abstinence to contend with his disease. His 
fellow physicians said that, on the contrary, 
this abstinence from drink had dried his body 
up and baked^the gravel in his bladder. 

I have observed that, both in wounds and 
sickness, speaking discomposes 
and hurts me as much as any dis- T al ^i n ". ,umful 

, T „,. •> . to Moiitaiine 

order 1 can commit. My voice in his sickness, 
spends and tires me, for 'tis loud 
and high; so that when I have gone to 
whisper some great person about an affair of 
consequence, they have often had to moderate 
my voice. 

This story deserves a place here. Some one, 7 
in a certain Greek school, was speaking loud, 
as I do; the master of the ceremonies sent to 
him to speak lower. " Tell him then he must 
send me," replied the other, "the tone he 
would have me speak in." To which the other 
replied, " That he should take the tone from 
the ear of him to whom he spake." It was well 
said, if it be understood : " Speak according to 
the affair you are speaking about to your audi- 
tor;" for if it mean, "'tis sufficient that he 
hears you, or, govern yourself by him," I do 
not find it to be reason. The tone and motion 
of my voice carries with it a great deal of the 
expression and signification of my meaning, 
and 'tis I who am to govern it, to make myself 
understood. There is a voice to instruct, a 
voice to flatter, and a voice to reprehend. I 
would not only have my voice reach my 
hearer, but, peradventure, that it strike and 
pierce him. When I rattle my footman in a 
sharp and bitter tone, it would be very fine for 
him to say, " Pray, master, speak lower ; I hear 
you very well." Est quadam vox ad auditum 
accommodata, non mugniludine, sed .proprie- 



L'Escale, better known as J.C. Scaliger, one of the greatest 
scholars of that age. No one was at this period accredited 
as a learned man, who did not give some Greek or Latin 
turn to his real name. Fernel became Fcrndius ; I.'Escalc, 
Scti/iger; Tonrnebn, Tnrnchus ; llude, Buila-us : Filandrier, 
Flrilutidcr; Casaubon, Hortibonus or Hortusbonus; Schwart- 
zerde, Melancthon {fiiXahu ^OwiO. Sans-?.Talice, physician 
to Francis I., took the Greek appellation Makia ; and, 
later, Van der Beken called himself Torrentius, &c. &c. 

7 Carjtcadcs. See Laertius, in vita. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



531 



tate. 1 " There is a certain voice accommodated 
to the hearing, not by the loudness, but by its 
propriety." Speaking is half his that speaks, 
and half his that hears; the last ought to pre- 
pare himself to receive it, according to its 
motion, as with tennis-players; he that receives 
the ball, shifts, draws back, and prepares him- 
self, according as he sees him move who strikes 
the stroke, and according to the stroke itself. 
Experience has moreover taught me this, 
that we damage ourselves by im- 
gESKTpe. Patience. Evils have their life 
rioda, \\ hicli and limits, their diseases and their 
for with T'' ruCm ' et y- Tne constitution of 
ulnce. ' Pa maladies is formed after the pat- 
tern of the constitution of ani- 
mals; they have their fortunes and days limited 
from their birth. Whoever attempts imperi- 
ously to cut them short by force in the middle 
of their course, lengthens and multiplies them, 
and incenses instead of appeasing them. I am 
of Crantor's opinion, " that we are neither ob- 
stinately and wilfully to oppose maladies, nor 
to truckle to them tor want of courage ; but 
that we are naturally to give way to them, ac- 
cording to their condition and our own." We 
ought to grant free passage to diseases, and I 
find they stay less with me, who let them alone, 
and I have lost those which are reputed the 
most tenacious and obstinate, by their own 
decay, without any help or art, and contrary 
to rule. Let us a little permit nature to take 
her own way ; she better understands her own 
affairs than we. "But such a one died : — " and 
so will you, if not of that disease, of another; 
and how many have not escaped dying who 
have had three physicians always at their 
tails! Example is a vague and universal mir- 
ror, and has all aspects. If it be a pleasant 
medicine, take it; 'tis always so much present 
good. I will never stick at the name or the 
colour, if it be grateful to the palate: pleasure is 
one of the chief kinds of profit. I have suffered 
colds, gouty defluxions, relaxations, palpitations 
of the heart, megrims, and other accidents, to 
grow old and die in me a natural death, which 
I have been rid of when I was half prepared to 
nourish and keep them." They are sooner pre- 
vailed upon by courtesy than by huffing. We 
must patiently suffer the laws of our condition : 
we are born to grow old, to grow weak, and to 
be sick, in spite of all physic. 'Tis the first 
lesson the Mexicans teach their children ; so 
soon as ever they are born, they thus salute 
them: "Child, thou art come into the world to 
endure, suffer, and say nothing." 'Tis injus- 
tice to lament that that has befallen any one, 
which may befal every one : Indignare, si quid 
in te inique proprie constilutum est. 2 "He 
angry when there is anything unjustly decreed 
against thee alone." 

Take an old man begging of God Almighty 



i Quintil, xi. 3. 

2 Seneca, F.pisl. 91. 

3 OviJ, Tnst. iii. g, 11. 



that he will maintain his health vigorous and 
entire, that is to say, that he will restore him 
to youth : 

Stulte, quid h.-ec frustra votis puerilibus optas?' 
" Wliy pray'st thou, fool, such childish prayers in vain ?" 

is it not folly? his condition is not capable of 
it. The gout, the stone, indigestion, are all 
symptoms of long years, as heat, rains, and 
winds of long voyages. Plato 4 does not believe 
that yEsculapius troubled himself to seek, by 
regimen, to prolong life in a weak and wasted 
body, useless to his country and to his profes- 
sion, and to beget healthful and robust children ; 
and does not think such solicitude suitable to 
the divine justice and prudence, which is to 
direct all things to utility. My good friend, 
your business is done: nobody can restore you; 
they can at the most but patch you up, and 
prop you a little, and prolong your misery an 
hour or two: 



Non secus instantom cupiens fulcire ruinam, 

Diversis contra nititur objicibus; 
Donee certa dies, omni compage soluta, 

Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium.a 

" Like one who, willing to defer a while 
A sudden ruin, props the tottering pile, 
Till in short space the house, the props and all 
Together with a dreadful havoc fall." 

We must learn to suffer what we cannot avoid. 
Our life, like the harmony of the world, is com- 
posed of contrary things, of various tones, sweet 
and harsh, sharp and flat, sprightly and solemn. 
And the musician who should only affect one of 
these, what would he be able to do ? He must 
know how to make use of them all, and to mix 
them ; and so we likewise.the good and evil, which 
are consubstantial with life. Our being cannot 
subsist without this mixture, and the one is no 
less necessary to it than the other. To attempt 
to kick against natural necessity, is to represent 
the folly of Ctesiphon, who undertook to out- 
kick his mule. 6 

I consult little about the alterations I feel ; 
for those people take advantage 
when they have you at their Wn v Mon- 
mercy. They stun your ears with lo a, * on J^v 
their prognostics, and having once sicians. 
formerly surprised me, weakened 
with sickness, injuriously handled me with their 
dogmas and magisterial fopperies; one while 
menacing me with great pains, and another 
with approaching death. By this I was indeed 
moved and shaken, but not subdued nor jostled 
from my place. Though my judgment was 
neither altered nor distracted, yet it was at least 
disturbed ; 'tis always agitation and combat. 

Now I use my imagination as 
gently as I can, and would dis- natter hi8°ims- 
charge it ofall trouble and contest, gii.ation in ius 
if I could. A man must assist, ]I1|K " S 



' Republic, iii. 

» Pseudo-Gallus, i. 171. 

» Plutarch, How ice should restrain Anger. 



532 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



flatter, and deceive it if he can. My mind is 
fit for that office; it wants no appearances 
throughout. And, could it persuade as it 
preaches, it would successfully relieve me. 
Will you have an example? It tells me, "that 
'tis for my good to have the stone; that the 
buildings of my age are naturally to suffer some 



decay ; that it is now time they should begin to/ thee, whilst all the while thou entertainest the 
disjoint. 'Tis a common necessity, and I could (.company with an ordinary countenance, drol- 



not expect a miracle to be performed in my 
favour; I therein pay what is due to old age,, 
and I cannot expect a better bargain. That< 
company ought to comfort me, being fallen intol 
the most common infirmity of my 
The stone ordi- time. I see everywhere men tor- 



especially 



mented with the same dis 



ind 



men of quality, am honoured by the fellowship, 
forasmuch as men of the best qua- 
lity are most frequently afflicted with it; 'tis a 
noble and dignified disease. That of such as 
are pestered with it, few have it to a less degree 
of pain, and while others are put to the trouble 
of a strict diet, and the daily taking of nauseous 
drugs and potions, I owe my good intervals 
purely to my good fortune. For some ordinary 
broths of Eringo's, or burst-wort, that I have 
twice or thrice taken to oblige ladies, who, with 
kindness greater than my pain, would needs 
present me half of theirs, seemed to me equally 
easy to take, and fruitless in operation. They 
are to pay a thousand vows to ^Esculapius, and 
as many crowns to their physician, for the void- 
ing a little gravel, which I often do by the 
benefit of nature. Even the decency of my 
countenance is not disturbed by it in company, 
and I can hold my water ten hours, and as long 
as any man that is in health. "The fear of 
this disease," it says, "did formerly affright 
thee, when it was unknown to thee; the cries 
and despair of those that make it worse by their 
impatience begot a horror in thee. 'Tis a ma- 
lady that punishes the members by which thou 
hast most offended. Thou art a conscientious 
fellow, 

ftuae venit indigne psena, dolenda venit :• 
" To guiltless suff 'rers our regret is due :" 

" consider this chastisement ; 'tis very easy in 
comparison with that of others, and inflicted 
with a paternal tenderness. Do but observe 
how late it came ; it only seizes on and incom- 
modes that part of thy life which is, as it were, 
sterile and lost, having, as it were by compact, 
given full room to the licence and pleasures of 
thy youth. The fear and the compassion that 
people have of this disease serves thee for mat- 
ter of glory, a quality whereof, if thou hast 
thy own judgment purified, and if thy reason is 
therein right and sound, yet thy friends will 
notwithstanding discover some tincture in thy 
complexion. 'Tis a pleasure to hear it said of 
one's self: ' Here is great force, here is great 



patience.' Thou art seen to sweat with pain, 
to look pale and red, to tremble, to vomit well 
nigh to blood, to suffer strange contractions and 
convulsions, by starts to let tears drop from 
thine eyes, to urine thick, black and frightful 
water, or to have it suppressed by some sharp 
and craggy stone, that cruelly pricks and tears 



Ovid, Heroid. v. 



ling by fits with thy people, making one in 
continued discourse, now and then excusing thy 
pain, and making thy sufferance less than it is. 
Dost thou call to mind the men of past times, 
who so greedily sought diseases to keep their 
virtue in breath and exercise? Put the case 
that nature forced, and lead thee on to this glo- 
rious schooling, into which thou wouldst never 
have entered of thy own free-will. If thou 
tellest me that it is a dangerous and mortal 
disease, what others are not? For 'tis a phy- 
sician's cheat to except any, and to say, that 
they do not go directly to death: what matter 
is it, if they tend that way by accident, or if 
they slide and slip into the path that leads to 
it? But thou dost not die because thou art 
sick, thou diest because thou art living. Death 
kills thee without the help of sickness, and in 
some, sickness has deferred death, who have 
lived longer by reason of that they thought 
themselves dying withal. To which may be 
added that, as there are wounds, so there are 
diseases, medicinal and wholesome. The stone 
is often no less long-lived than you. We see men 
with whom it has continued from their infancy, 
even to an extreme old age, and if they had not 
broken company, it would have gone on with 
them longer still. You oftener kill it than it 
kills you. And though it presented you the 
image of approaching death, were it not a good 
office to a man of such an age, to put him in 
mind of his end ? And, which is worse, thou 
hast no longer any thing that should make thee 
desire to be cured. From the first day, common 
necessity calls thee away. Do but consider how 
artificially and gently she puts thee out of taste 
with life, and weans thee from the world ; not. 
forcing and compelling thee with a tyrannical 
subjection, like so many other infirmities which 
thou seest old men afflicted withal, that hold 
them in continual torment, and keep them in 
perpetual, unintermitted pains and dolours, 
but by warnings and instructions at. intervals, 
intermixing long pauses of repose, as it were, to 
give thee leave to meditate upon and repeat her 
lesson at thy own ease and leisure. To give 
thee means to judge aright, and to assume the 
resolution of a man of courage, she presents to 
thee the entire state of thy condition, both in 
good and evil, and one while a very cheerful, 
and another an insupportable life, in one and 
the same day. If thou embracest not death, at 
least thou shakest hands with it once a month ; 
by which thou hast the more cause to hope that 
it will one day surprise thee without warning, 
and that being so often conducted to the water- 



J 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



side, and thinking thyself to be still upon the 
accustomed terms, thou and thy confidence will 
at one time or another be unexpectedly wafted 
over. 1 A man cannot reasonably complain of 
diseases that fairly divide the time with health." 
I am obliged to fortune for having so often 
assaulted me with the same class of weapons ; 
she forms and fashions me thereto, hardens and 
habituates me by custom ; I know within a 
little for how much I shall be quit. For want 
of natural memory, I make one of paper, and 
as any new symptom happens in my disease, I 
set it down ; whence it falls out that, having 
now passed through almost all sorts of examples, 
if any surprise threatens me, tumbling over 
these little loose notes, as sibyl's leaves, I 
never fail of finding matter of consolation from 
some favourable prognostic in my past experi- 
ence. 2 Custom also makes me hope better 
for the time to come ; for the conduct of this 
evacuation having so long continued, 'tis to be 
believed that nature will not alter her course, 
and that no other worse accident will happen 
than what I already feel. And besides, the 
condition of this disease is not unsuitable to 
my prompt and sudden complexion ; when it 
assaults me gently, I am afraid, for 'tis then for 
a great while; but it has naturally brisk and 
vigorous attacks. It claws me to purpose for 
a day or two. My reins held out an age with- 
out alteration, and I have almost now lived 
another since they changed their state ; ills have 
their periods as well as good ; perhaps the in- 
firmity draws towards an end. Age weakens 
the heat of my stomach, the digestion of which 
being less perfect, it sends this crude matter to 
my reins : why, at a certain revolution, may 
not the heat of my reins be also abated, so that 
they can no more petrify my phlegm, and na- 
ture find out some other way of purgation ] 
Years have evidently helped me to drain certain 
rheums; and why not those excrements which 
furnish matter for gravel? But is there any 
thing so sweet as the sudden change, when 
from an excessive pain, I come, by the voiding 
of a stone, to recover, as from a flash of light- 
ning, the beautiful light of health, so free and' 
full, as it happens in our sudden and most sharp 
cholics? Is there any thing in the pain suf- 
fered, that a man can counter- 
Heaitii more pyj se to the pleasure of so sudden 
pleasant after ? . v „ .^. . , , 

sickness. an amendment ! Oh ! how much 

does health seem the more plea- 
sant to me after sickness, so near and contiguous 
that I can distinguish them in the presence of 
one another in their greatest height, where they 
present themselves in emulation, as if to make 
head against and to dispute it with one another! 
As the Stoics say, that the vices are profitably 
introduced, to give value to and set off vir- 



i An allusion to what was fabled by the ancient Greeks 
and Romans, that the dead were transported over the river 
Stvx in Charon's ferry-boat. 

2 It is these Hitlr. unit-.* whii-h partly constitute the Jour- 
ney through Italy. His visits to the mineral waters of 



tue; 3 we can with better reason, and less 
temerity of conjecture, say of nature, that she 
has given us pain for the honour and service of 
pleasure and ease. When Socrates, after his 
fetters were knocked ofF, felt the pleasure 
of that itching which the weight of them 
had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider 
the strict alliance betwixt pain and pleasure; 
how they are linked together by a necessary 
connexion, so that by turns they follow and 
mutually beget one another ; and cried out to 
the good fellow TEsop, that he ought, out of his 
consideration, to have taken the materials 
proper for a fine fable. 4 

The worst that I see in other diseases is that 
they are not so grievous in their effect as they 
are in their result : a man is a whole year re- 
covering, and all the while full of weakness 
and fear. There is so much hazard, and so 
many steps to arrive at safety, that one has 
never done. Before they have unmuffled you 
of a wrapper, and then a cap, before they 
allow you to walk abroad and take the air, to 
drink wine, lie with your wife, or eat melons, 
'tis odds but you relapse into some new dis- 
temper. The stone has this privi- 
lege, that it carries itself clean off; The advantage 
whereas other maladies always a UO ve aii°other 
leave behind them some impres- distempers. 
sion and alteration, that renders 
the body subject to some new disease, lending a 
hand to one another. Those are excusable, that 
content themselves with possessing us, without 
extending it farther, and introducing others to 
succeed them : but courteous and kind are 
those whose passage brings us any profitable 
issue. Since I have been troubled with the 
stone, 1 find my self free from all other accidents ; 
much more, methinks, than I was before, and 
have never had any fever since. I argue that 
the extreme and frequent vomitings that I am 
subject to, purge me : and, on the other side, 
■my distastes, and the strange fasts I keep, 
digest my peccant humours; and nature in 
those stones voids whatever there is in me of 
superfluous and hurtful. Let them never tell 
me that it is a medicine too dear bought; for 
what are so many stinking potions, caustics, 
.incisions, sweats, setons, diets, and so many 
Wher methods of cure, which often, by reason 
)we are not able to undergo their violence and 
importunity, bring us to our graves 1 So that 
when I am ill I look upon it as physic ; when 
well, for an absolute deliverance. 

And here is another particular benefit of my 
disease; which is, that it most plays its game 
by itself, and lets me play mine, or else I only 
want courage to do it ; for in its greatest fury 
I have endured it ten hours together on horse- 
back. Do but endure it, you need no other 



Lorraine, Switzerland, and Tuscany, were principally 
occasioned by the stone, with which he was afflicted. 

3 Plutarch, On the Common Conceptions against the 
Stoics. 

« l'lato, Phxdo. 



45 



534 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



regimen ; play, dine, run, do this and do that, 
if yuu can ; your excess will do you more good 
than harm : say as much to one that has the 
pox, the gout, or hernia. The other diseases 
have more universal obligations, rack all our 
actions after another kind of nfanner, disturb 
our whole order, and to their consideration 
engage the whole state of life ; this only pinches 
the skin; it leaves the understanding and will 
wholly at our disposal, and the tongue, hands, 
and feet; it rather awakens than stnpifies you. 
The soul is over-excited with the ardour of a 
fever, prostrated with the epilepsy, and dis- 
placed by a sharp megrirn, and, in short, 
astounded by all the diseases that hurt the 
whole mass, and the most noble parts. This 
never meddles with the soul ; if anything goes 
amiss with her, 'tis her own fault : she betrays, 
dismounts, and abandons herself. 'Tis only 
fools who suffer themselves to be persuaded that 
this hard and massy body, which is baked in 
our reins, is to be dissolved by drinks : where- 
fore, when it is once stirred, there is nothing 
to be done but to give it passage; it will take 
it of itself. 

I moreover observe this particular conve- 
nience in it, that it is a disease wherein we 
have little to guess at : we are dispensed from 
the trouble into which other diseases throw us 
by the incertainty of their causes, conditions, 
and progress ; a trouble that is infinitely pain- 
ful : we have no need of consultation and 
doctoral interpretations ; the senses well enough 
inform us what it is and where it is. 

By such-like arguments, weak and strong, 
as Cicero ' did the disease of his old age, I try 
to rock asleep and amuse my imagination, and 
to dress its wounds. If I find them worse 
to-morrow, I will provide new remedies and 
applications. To show that this is true : I am 
come to that pass of late, that the least motion 
forces pure blood out of my reins : what of 
that] I stir nevertheless as before, and ride 
after my hounds with a juvenile and reckless 
ardour, and find that I have a very good bar- 
gain in a malady of that importance, when it 
costs me no more than a little heaviness and 
uneasiness in that part; 'tis some great stone 
that wastes and consumes the substance of my 
kidneys and of my life, which I by little and 
little evacuate, not without some natural plea- 
sure, as an excrement henceforward superfluous 
and troublesome. Now, if I feel anything to roll 
and stir, do not expect that I should trouble 
myself to consult my pulse, or my urine, in order 
to find there some vexatious sign : I shall soon 
enough feel the pain, without making it more 
and longer by the disease of fear. Who fears to 
suffer, already suffers what he fears : to which 
may be added, that the doubts and ignorance 
of those who take upon them to expound the 
springs of nature, and her internal progressions, 



Plato, Laws, viii. 13. 



and the many false prognostics of their art, 
ought to give us to understand that her ways 
are inscrutable and utterly unknown: there 
is great uncertainty, variety, and obscurity in 
all that she either promises or threatens. Old 
age excepted, which is an indubitable sign of 
the approach of death; in all other mishaps I 
see few signs of the future, whereon we may 
ground our divination. I only judge of myself 
by my real senses, and not by reason. To 
what end! since I am resolved to bring nothing 
to it but expectation and patience. Will you 
know how much I get by this ! Observe those 
that do otherwise, and who rely upon so many 
divers persuasions and counsels; how often 
and how much they labour under imagination, 
without any bodily pain at all. I have many 
times amused myself, being well and in safety, 
and delivered from these dangerous ills, by 
describing them to the physicians, as but 
then beginning to discover themselves in me ; 
undergoing the sentence of their dreadful 
conclusions very much at my ease; and so 
much the more obliged to the favour of God, 
and better satisfied of the vanity of this art. 

There is nothing that ought so much to be 
recommended to youth as activity and vigi- 
lance ; our life is nothing but motion : I move 
with great difficulty, and am slow 
in everything ; in rising, going great^ieeper. 
to bed, or eating: seven of the 
clock in the morning is early for me; and 
where I govern I never dine before eleven, nor 
sup till after six. I have formerly attributed 
the cause of the fevers and other diseases I have 
fallen into, to the heaviness that long sleeping 
had brought upon me, and have ever repented 
going to sleep again in the morning. Plato is 
more angry at the excess of sleeping, than at 
that of drinking. 2 I love to lie hard and 
alone, even without my wife, as kings do; well 
covered with clothes. They never warm my 
bed ; but, since I have grown old, they give me 
at need warm clothes to lay to my feet and 
stomach. They find fault with the great 
Scipio, 3 that he was a heavy sleeper ; and, in 
my opinion, for no other reason but that men 
were displeased that he alone should have 
nothing in him to be found fault withal. If I 
have anything curious in my way of living, 'tis 
rather in my lying than anything else ; but 
generally I give way and accommodate myself 
as much as any one to necessity. Sleep has 
taken up a great part of my life, and I yet con- 
tinue, at the age I now am, to sleep eight or 
nine hours together. I wean 
myself, to my advantage, from "f^Xbiffn 
this propensity to sloth, and am hjg latter days, 
evidently better for so doing. I and found the 
find the change a little hard in- Soing 
deed, but in three days 'tis over, 
and I see but few that live with less sleep when 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



535 



need requires, and that more constantly exercise 
themselves, nor to whom long journeys are less 
troublesome. My body is capable of a firm, 
but not of a violent or sudden agitation. I 
avoid of late all violent exercises, and such as 
make me sweat, wherein my limbs grow weary 
before they are hot. I can stand a whole day 
together, and am not wearied with walking; 
but not on a high-road, for there, from my youth 
upwards, I have never loved to travel, except on 
horseback; on foot I mud myself up to the 
breech, and little fellows like me are subject, 
in the streets, to be elbowed and jostled, for 
want of appearance: I have ever loved to 
repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with 
my heels as high, or higher, than my seat. 

There is no profession so pleasant as the mili- 
The military tar ^ ' a P r °f ess ' on Dotn n °bl e in 
profession very its execution (for valour is the 
pleasant and strongest, proudest, and most ge- 
honourabie. nerQus of aU virtues)) and noWe 

in its cause: there is no utility either more 
universal, or more just, than the protection of 
the peace and greatness of one's country. The 
company of so many noble, young, and active 
men delights you; the ordinary sight of so 
many tragic spectacles; the freedom of this 
conversation without art, and a masculine and 
unceremonious way of living, pleases you ; the 
variety of a thousand several actions, the inspi- 
riting harmony of martial music, that ravishes 
and enflames both your ears and soul ; the 
honour of this vocation, nay, even its sufferings 
and difficulties, which Plato so little heeds, 
that, in his Republics, he makes women and 
children share in them, are delightful to you. 
You put yourselves voluntarily upon particular 
exploits and hazards, according as you judge of 
their lustre and importance ; and see when even 
life itself is excusably employed, 

Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis. 1 
" How beautiful it is to die in arms." 

To fear common dangers that concern so 
great a multitude of men, not to dare to do 
what so many sorts of souls, and a whole peo- 
ple do, is for a heart that is low and mean 
beyond all measure : company encourages even 
children themselves. If others excel you in 
knowledge, in gracefulness, and strength, or 
fortune, you have third causes to blame for 
that; but to give place to them in stability of 
mind, you can blume no one for that but your- 
self. Death is more abject, more languishing 
and painful in bed than in battle; fevers and 
catarrhs as painful and mortal as a musket- 
shot: whoever has fortified himself valiantly to 
bear the accidents of common life, would not 
need to raise his courage to be a soldier. Vi- 
vere, mi Lucili, militare est. 2 "To live, my 
Lucilius, is to make war." 



I do not remember that I ever had the itch, 
and yet scratching is one of nature's sweetest 
gratifications, and nearest at hand; but the 
smart follows too near. I use it most in my 
ears, which are often apt to itch. 

I came into the world with all my senses 
entire, even to perfection. My 
stomach is commodiously good, ^''^'^"iuu. 
as also is my head and my tion. 
breath; and, for the most part, 
uphold themselves so in the height of fevers. 
I have passed the age to which some na- 
tions, not without reason, have prescribed so 
just a term of life, that they would not suffer 
men to exceed it; 3 and yet I have some inter- 
missions, though short and inconstant, so clean 
and sound, as are little inferior to the health 
and elasticity of my youth. I do not speak of 
vigour and sprightliness ; 'tis not reason that it 
should follow me beyond its limits ; 



My face and eyes presently discover me : all 
my alterations begin there, and 
appear worse than they really His mind not 
are; my friends often pity me, ^LtZlt 
before I feel the cause in myself, of the body. 
My looking-glass does not fright 
me ; for even in my youth, it has befallen me 
more than once to have a scurvy complexion, 
and of ill prognostic, without any great con- 
sequences; insomuch that the physicians, not 
finding any cause within answerable to that 
outward alteration, attributed it to the mind, 
and that some secret passion had tormented me 
within; but they were deceived. If my body 
would govern itself as well under my rule as 
my mind does, we should move a little more at 
our ease : my mind was then not only free from 
trouble, but moreover full of joy and satisfac- 
tion, as it commonly is, half by complexion, 
half by its own design: 

Nee vitiant artns trgrie contagia mentis.' 



I am of opinion that this temperature of my 
soul has often raised my body from its lapses: 
this is often depressed ; while, if the other be 
not brisk and gay, 'tis at least quiet, and 
at rest. I had a quartan ague four or five 
months, that made me look miserably ill; yet my 
mind was always, not only calm, but pleasant. 
If the pain be without me, the weakness and 
languor do not much afflict me: I feel several 
bodily faintings, that beget a horror in me but 
to name, which yet I should less fear than a 
thousand passions and agitations of mind that I 



1 JBnrid, ii. H17. 
» Seneca, Kpist. 90. 
* Fi:., filly years. 



1 Ovid, Tristia, iii. 8, 25. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



see about. I resolve no more to run, 'tis enough 
that I crawl along : and I complain not of the 
natural decadence that I feel in myself: 

Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus? ' 
" Say, whom do goitres in the Alps surprise?" 

any more than I reget that my duration shall 
not be as long and entire as that of an oak. 

I have no reason to complain of my imagi- 
nation: I have had few thoughts in my life 
that have so much as broken my sleep, if not 
those of desire, which have awakened without 
afflicting me. I dream but seldom, and then 
of chimeras and fantastic things, commonly 
produced from pleasant thoughts, and rather 
ridiculous than sad : and believe it to be true 
that dreams are the true interpreters of our 
inclinations; but there is art required to sort 
and understand them: 

Res, quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant 

vident. 
Q.uaeque agunt vigilantes, agitantque, ea si cui somno 

accidunt 
Minus mirandum est.a 

" Tis no wonder if what men practise, think, 
care for, and do when awake, should also run 
in their heads, and move them when they are 
asleep." Plato moreover says, 3 that 'tis the 
office of prudence to draw instructions of divi- 
nation of future things from dreams. I see 
nothing in it, if not the wonderful experiences 
that Socrates, Xenophon, and Aristotle, all 
men of irreproachable authority, relate. The 
historians say 4 that the Atlantes never dream; 
who also never eat any thing that has received 
death : which 1* add, forasmuch as it is, per- 
haps, the reason why they never dream; for 
Pythagoras ordered a certain preparation of 
diet, to beget appropriate dreams. 5 Mine are 
always very gentle, without any agitation of 
body, or expression of voice. I have seen seve- 
ral of my time wonderfully disturbed in them ; 
Theon the philosopher walked in his sleep; as 
also did Pericles' servant, and that upon the 
tiles and tops of the house. 

I hardly ever choose my dish at table, but 

fall to of the next at hand, and 
d^int^inhis unwillingly change my course. A 
diet! y m confusion of meats, and a clutter 

of dishes, displease me as much as 
any other confusion. I am easily satisfied with 
few viands, and am an enemy to the opinion of 
Favorinus, 7 that in a feast they should snatch 
from you the meat you like, and set another 
plate of another sort before you ; and that it is 
a pitiful supper if you do not sate your guests 
with the rumps of birds, the beccafico being the 
only one that deserves to be all eaten. I 
usually eat salt meats; and yet I love bread 



i Juvenal, xiii. 162. 

2 These Latin verses, which are to be found in Cicero, de 
Divinat. i. 22, are taken from a tragedy of Accius, entitled 
Brutus, wherein they are addressed by a soothsayer to Tar- 
quinius Superbus, one of the principal dramatis personm. 

8 In the Timaus. 



that has no salt in it; and my baker never 
sends up any other to my table, contrary to the 
custom of the country. In my infancy, what 
they had most to correct in me was the refusal 
of things that children commonly best love, as 
sugar, sweet -meats, and march -pane. My 
tutor contended with this aversion to delicacies, 
as a kind of over-nicety; and indeed 'tis no- 
thing else but a difficulty of taste in any thing 
to which it applies itself. Whoever shall cure 
a child of an obstinate affection to brown bread, 
bacon, or garlic, will cure him of all kind of 
delicateness. There are some who pretend to 
hardiness and patience, by v wishing for beef and 
ham amongst pheasant and partridge; they 
have a good time on't; 'tis the delicacy of deli- 
cacies ; 'tis the taste of an effeminate fortune, 
that disrelishes ordinary and accustomed things, 
per quas luxuria divitiarum teedio ludit. 8 Not 
to make good cheer with what another does, 
and to be curious in what a man eats, is the 
essence of this vice: 

Si modica ccenare times olus omne patella. 9 
" If an herb soup in a small dish thou fear'st." 

There is indeed this difference, that 'tis better 
to oblige one's appetite to things that are 
most easy to be had ; but 'tis always a vice to 
oblige one's self: I formerly said a kinsman of 
mine was nice, who, by being in our galleys, 
had unlearned the use of beds, and to put off 
his clothes when he wgnt to sleep. 

If I had any sons, I should readily wish 
them my fortune. The good 
father that God gave me, who Montaigne was 
has nothing of me but the ac- fr^W^cradle 
knowledgment of his bounty, but in the meanest 
truly 'tis a very hearty one, sent ^ ™°„ n £°™f 
me from my cradle to be brought living. 
up in a poor village of his, and 
there continued me all the while I was at 
nurse, and even longer, bringing me up to the 
meanest and most common way of living: 
Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus ven- 
ter. 10 "A well-governed stomach is a great part 
of liberty." Never take upon _ 
yourselves, and much less give J^Ct to* 
up to your wives, the care of have the edu- 
their bringing up; leave the ^liarer.** their 
forming them to fortune, under 
popular and natural laws ; leave it to custom 
to train them up to frugality and austerity, 
that they may rather descend from hardships 
than mount up to them. This humour of his 
yet aimed at another end, that is, to make me 
familiar with those people, and that condition 
of men, which most need our assistance; be- 
lieving that I should be more holden to regard 
them who extended their arms to me, than those 



* Herod, iv. 184. Pomponius Mela, i. 8. 
6 Cicero, de Divinat. ii. 58. 
6 Laertius, Life of Pyrrho. 

i Favorinus expresses the directly contrary opinion. 

Aulus Gellius, xv. 8. 8 Seneca, Epist. 18. 

i Horace, Epist. i. 5. 2. i° Senec. Epist. 123. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



537 



who turned their backs upon me : and for this 
reason also it was that he provided me god- 
fathers of the meanest fortune, to oblige and 
bind me to them. 

Neither has his design succeeded altogether 
ill; for, whether be it upon the 
K,™ T account of S^h because there is 
his education, more honour in such a condescen- 
sion, or out of natural compas- 
sion, that has a very great power over me, I 
have a very kind inclination towards the meaner 
sort of people. The faction which I condemn 
in our civil wars, I shall more sharply condemn 
when I see them flourish : it will half reconcile 
me to them when I shall see them miserable 
and oppressed. How much do I admire the 
generous humour of Chelonis, daughter and 
wife to kings of Sparta !' Whilst her husband 
Cleombrotus, in the commotion of her city, 
had the advantage over Leonidas, her father, 
she, like a good daughter, stuck close to her 
father in all his misery and exile, in opposition 
to the conqueror. But so soon as the chance 
of war turned, she changed her will with the 
change of fortune, and generously turned to 
her husband's side, whom she accompanied 
throughout, where his ruin carried him ; having, 
as it appears, no other wish than to cleave to 
that side that stood most in need of her, and 
where she could best manifest her compassion. 
I am naturally more apt to follow the example 
of Flaminius, 2 who more readily gave his as- 
sistance to those that had most need of him, 
than to those who had power to do him good, 
than I am that of Pyrrhus, who was of a 
humour to truckle to the great, and to domineer 
over the small. 

Long sittings at meat both trouble me and 
do me harm; for perhaps from 
Mtlovfklsit havin g' for want of something 
long at table. better to do, accustomed myself 
to it from a child, I eat all the 
while I sit. Therefore it is that, at my own 
house, though the meals there are of the 
shortest, I usually sit down a little after the 
rest, after the manner of Augustus ; 3 but I do 
not imitate him in rising also before the rest of 
the company; on the contrary, I love to sit 
still a long time after and to hear them talk, 
provided I am none of the talkers; for I tire 
and hurt myself with speaking upon a full 
stomach, as much as I find it pleasant and very 
wholesome to argue and to strain my voice 
before dinner. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans 4 had more 
reason than we in setting apart for eating, 
which is a principal action of life, if not diverted 
by other extraordinary business, many hours, 
indeed the greatest part of the night; eating 
and drinking more deliberately than we do, 
who perform all our actions in post haste ; and, 
in extending this natural pleasure to more 



i Plutarch, /,i*rs of Jlgis and Cltomcnes. 
> Plutarch, in vita. 
s Id, in vita. 



leisure and better use, intermixing with their 
meals several pleasant and profitable offices of 
conversation. 

They whose concern it is to have a care of 
me, may very easily hinder me 
from eating anything they think Tne abstinence 
will do me harm ; for in such "l^t"™' 
things I never covet nor miss any capable, 
thing I do not see: but withal, 
if it once comes in my sight, 'tis in vain to 
persuade me to forbear ; so that when I design 
to fast, I must be parted from those that eat 
suppers, and must only have so much given me 
as is required for a limited collation ; for if I 
sit down to table I forget my resolution. When 
I order my cook to alter the manner of dressing 
any dish of meat, all my family knows what it 
means; that my stomach is out of order, and 
that I shall not touch it. 

I love to have all meats that will endure it 
very little boiled or roasted, and 
love them very high, even to Account of his 

i, o •- • tvt ., • taste, with its 

smell or it, in many. Nothing changes and 
but toughness generally offends revolutions, 
me (of any other quality I am as 
patient and indifferent as any man I have 
known); so that, contrary to the common 
humour, even in fish it often happens that I find 
them both too fresh and too firm : not for want 
of teeth, which I ever had good, even to excel- 
lence, and which age does but now begin to 
threaten ; I have ever been used every morning 
to rub them with a napkin, and before and 
after dinner. God is favourable to those whom 
he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only 
benefit of old age; the last death will be so 
much the less full and painful ; it will kill but 
a half or quarter of a man. I had one tooth 
lately fall out without drawing, and without 
pain: it was the natural term of its duration; 
both that part of my being, and several others, 
are already dead, and others half dead, of 
those that were most active and in highest 
esteem during my vigorous years, so that I 
melt and steal away from myself. What folly 
would it be in my understanding to fear this 
fall, when already so much of it is got over, 
as if it were from its utmost height] I hope I 
shall not. I in truth receive a principal con- 
solation in the meditation of my death, that it 
will be just and natural ; and that hencefor- 
ward I cannot herein either require or hope 
from destiny any other but unlawful favours. 
Men make themselves believe that they formerly 
had, as greater stature, so longer lives; but 
they deceive themselves ; and Solon, who was 
of those elder times, does nevertheless limit the 
duration of life to threescore and ten years. 5 
I, who have so much and so universally adored 
this opicw nitpov "excellent mediocrity" of 
ancient times, 6 and who have concluded the 
most moderate measure the most perfect, shall 



« Suetonius, in vili. 

" Herod, i. 32. 

« Sse Laertius, i. 93. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



■ I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious 
old age? Whatever happens contrary to the 
course of nature may be troublesome ; but what 
comes according to her, must always be ac- 
ceptable and pleasant : Omnia quae secundum 
naturam fiunt, sunt habenda in bonis : 1 " All 
things that are done according to nature are to 
be accounted good :" and thus, Plato says, 2 the 
death which is occasioned by wounds or disease 
is violent ; but that which surprises us, old age 
conducting us to it, is of all others the most 
easy, and in some sort delicious. Vitam ado- 
lescentibus vis aufert, senibus maturitas. 3 
"Young men are taken away by force, old 
men by maturity." Death mixes and con- 
founds itself throughout with life: decay anti- 
cipates its hour, and shoulders itself even into 
the course of our growing up. I have pictures 
of myself, taken at five and twenty, and five 
and thirty years of age ; I compare them with 
that lately drawn; by how much more is my 
present image unlike the former, than to that I 
shall have after death ! It is too much to abuse 
nature, to make her trot so far, that she must 
be forced to leave us, and abandon our conduct, 
our eyes, teeth, legs, and all the rest, to the 
mercy of a foreign and begged assistance ; and 
to resign us into the hands of art, being weary 
of following us herself. 

I am not very fond either of salads or fruits, 
except melons: my father hated all sorts of 
sauces, and I love them all. Eating too much 
hurts me ; but for the quality of what I eat, I 
do not yet certainly know that any sort of meat 
disagrees with my stomach; neither have I 
observed that either full moon or decrease, 
spring or autumn, make any difference to me. 
We have in us motions that are inconstant, and 
for which no reason can be given ; for example, I 
first found radishes very grateful to my stomach, 
since that nauseous, and now grateful again. 
In several other things, likewise, I find my 
stomach and appetite to vary after the same 
manner; I have changed and changed again 
from white wine to claret, from claret to 
white. 

I am a great lover of fish, and consequently 
. make my fasts feasts, and my 

fond of nsh.Ind feasts fasts; and believe what 
did not love to some people say, that it is more 
flesV' With eas y of digestion than flesh. As 
I make a conscience of eating 
flesh upon fish-days, so does my taste make a 
conscience of mixing fish and flesh ; the differ- 
ence betwixt them seems to me to be too great 
so to do. From my youth I have used myself 
to be out of the way occasionally at some meal, 
either to sharpen my appetite against the next 
morning (for, as Epicurus fasted and made lean 
meals to accustom his pleasure to make shift 
without abundance, 4 1, on the contrary, do it to 



i Cicero, de Senect. c. 19. 
2 In the Timccus. 
» Cicero, nt supra. 



prepare my pleasure to make better and more 
cheerful use of abundance); or else I fasted to 
preserve my vigour for the service of some 
action of body or mind ; for both the one and 
the other of these are cruelly dulled in me by 
repletion; and, above all, I hate that foolish 
coupling of so healthful and sprightly a goddess 
with that little belching god, bloated with the 
fume of his liquor ; or to cure my sick stomach, 
and for want of fit company ; for I say as the 
same Epicurus did, 5 that a man is not so much 
to regard what he eats, as with whom he eats ; 
and commend Chilo, that he would not engage 
himself to be at Periander's feast, till he was 
informed who were to be the other guests. No 
dish is so acceptable to me, nor no sauce so 
alluring, as that which is extracted from the 
society. I think it to be more wholesome to 
eat more leisurely and less, and to eat oftener ; 
but I would have the value of appetite and 
hunger done justice to. I should take no 
pleasure to be fed with three or four stinted 
repasts a-day, at fixed hours, after a medical 
manner ; who will assure me that, if I have a 
good appetite in the morning, I shall have the 
same at supper - ! Let us old fellows, especially, 
take the first opportune time of eating, and 
leave to almanac-makers the hopes and prog- 
nostics. The utmost fruit of my health is 
pleasure ; let us take hold of the present and 
known. I avoid constancy in these laws of 
fasting; who will have one form serve him, let 
him avoid the continuing of it; we harden our- 
selves in it; our forces are there laid asleep; six 
months after, you shall find your stomach so 
inured unto it, that all you have got is only the 
loss of your liberty of doing otherwise but to 
your prejudice. 

I never keep my legs and thighs warmer in 
winter than in summer; one single pair of silk 
stockings is all : I have suffered 
myself, for the relief of my R,l,es wnicn ne 
rheums, to keep my head warmer, ^7™ 
and my belly, upon the account clothing, 
of my cholic: my diseases in a 
few days habituated themselves thereto, and 
disdained my ordinary provisions; I presently 
got from a single cap to a whole one, and 
from this to a double one. The quilting 
of my doublet serves only appearance; it 
signifies nothing, if I do not add a hare's 
or vulture's skin, and wear an under cap 
upon my head. Follow this gradation, and 
you will go a very fine way to work. I am 
resolved to proceed no farther, and would leave 
off what I have begun, if I durst. You fall 
into some new inconvenience : all this is labour 
lost ; you are accustomed to it ; seek out some 
other. Thus do such ruin and destroy them- 
selves, who submit to be pestered with these 
enforced and superstitious rules ; they must add 



i Seneca, Epist. 18. 

6 Id. ib. 

e Plutarch, Banquet of the Seven Sages. 



:ONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



539 



something more, and something more after that ; 
there is no end on't. 

For what concerns our affairs and pleasures, 

it is much more commodious, as 

EUe i preference the anc ; ents did, to lose a man's 

of ilm inra to ... . , i , . . 

suppers; and dinner, and defer making good 
the measure he c heer, till the hour of retirement, 
observed in h.s and repoS6) without breaking a 

day ; and so was I formerly used 
to do. For health, I since by experience find, 
on the contrary, that it is better to dine, and 
that the digestion goes on better waking. I am 
not very apt to be thirsty, either well or sick, 
my mouth is indeed apt to be dry, but without 
thirst; and commonly I never drink but with 
thirst that is created by eating and some time 
after I've been eating. I drink pretty well for 
a man of my pitch ; in summer, and at a relish- 
ing meal, I do not only exceed the limits of 
Augustus,' that drank but thrice precisely : but 
not to offend the rule of Democritus, who for- 
bade that man should stop at four, as an unlucky 
number, 2 I proceed, at need, to the fifth glass, 
about three half pints. For the little glasses 
are my favourites, and I take a delight to drink 
them off, which other people avoid as an unbe- 
coming thing. I mix my wine sometimes with 
half, sometimes the third part water ; and when 
I am at home, by an ancient custom that my 
father's physician prescribed both to him and 
himself, they mix that which is designed for me 
in the buttery two or three hours before 'tis 
brought in. "Pis said that Cranaus, 3 king of 
the Athenians, was the inventor of this custom 
of mixing wine with water; whether profitably 
or no, I have heard disputed. I think it more 
decent and wholesome for children to drink no 
wine till after sixteen or eighteen years of age. 
The most usual and common method of living 
is the most becoming : all particularity, in my 
opinion, is to be avoided, and I should as much 
hate a German that mixed water with his 
wine, as I should do a Frenchman that drank 
it pure. Public custom gives the law in these 
things. 

I fear a fog, and fly from smoke as from the 
His notion plague : the first repairs I fell 

with regard to upon in my own house were the 
air, tempera- chimneys and houses of office, the 
common and insupportable nui- 
sances of all old buildings; and amongst the 
difficulties of war, reckon the choking dust 
they make us ride in a whole day together. I 
have a free and easy respiration ; and my colds 
for the most part go oft' without offence to the 
lungs, and without a cough. 

The heat of summer is more an enemy to me 
than the cold of winter; for, besides the incom- 
modity of heat, less remediable than cold, and 
besides the force of the sunbeams that strike 



i Suetonius, in viti:., c. 77. 

a For Democritus read Demetrius. See Pliny, JVat. Hist. 
xxviii. fi. 

» According to Athenams, ii. 2, it was not Cranaus, but 
Amphycton, his .successor, who introduced this custom. 



upon the head, all glittering light offends my 
eyes; I could not now sit at dinner over-against 
a flaming fire. 

To dull the whiteness of paper, in those times 
when I was more used to read, I laid a piece of 
glass upon my book, and found my eyes much 
relieved by it. I am to this hour ignorant of 
the use of spectacles, and can see as far as ever 
I did, or as any other ; 'tis true that, in the 
evening, I begin to find a little trouble and 
weakness in my sight, if I read: an exercise 
that I have always found troublesome, espe- 
cially by night. Here is one step back, and a 
very sensible one ; I shall retire another, from 
the second to the third, and so to the fourth, so 
gently, that I shall be stark blind before I shall 
be sensible of the age and decay of my sight; 
so artificially do the fatal sisters untwist our 
lives. And I doubt that my hearing begins to 
grow thick, and you shall see I shall have lost 
it, when I shall still lay the fault on the voices 
of those that speak to me ; man must screw up 
his soul to a high pitch, to make it sensible how 
it ebbs away. 

My walking is quick and firm : and I know 
not which of the two, my mind, or my body, I 
have most to do to keep in the same state. 
That preacher is very much my friend, that can 
oblige my attention a whole sermon through. 
In places of ceremony, where every one's coun- 
tenance is so starched, where I have seen the 
ladies keep even their eyes so fixed, I could 
never order it so, that some part or other of me 
did not lash out ! so that, though I was seated, 
I was never settled. 4 As the 
philosopher Chrysippus's cham- ™Z?TL 
bermaid said of her master, that legs, 
he was only drunk in his legs, 5 for 
it was his custom to be always kicking them 
about in what place soever he sat, and said it at 
a time when, the wine having made all his 
companions drunk, he found no alteration in 
himself at all; the same may also be said of 
me from my infancy, that I had either folly or 
quicksilver in my feet, so much stirring anjl 
unsettledness there is in them wherever they 
are placed. 

Tis indecent, besides the hurt it does to one's 
health, and even to the pleasure 

of eating, to eat so greedily as I He ™ as . l °° 
, T p ' , . & . J . greedy in his 

do : 1 often bite my tongue, and appetite, 
sometimes my fingers, from haste. 
Diogenes meeting a boy eating after that man- 
ner, gave his tutor a box on the ear. 6 There 
were men at Rome who taught people to chew, 
as well as to walk, with a good grace. I lose 
the leisure of speaking, which gives the best 
relish to tables, provided the discourse be suit- 
able, pleasant, and short. 

There is jealousy and envy amongst our plea- 



4 The edition of 1588 has J "and as to gesticulation, I 
am never without a switch in my hand, riding or walk- 
ing." 

o Lnertius, in vita. 

o Plutarch, That Virtue maybe taught. 



540 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



His judgment 



sures; they cross and hinder one 
concerning the another ; Alcibiades, a man very 
pleasures of the we il re ad, understanding how to 

make good cheer, banished even 
music from tables, that they might not disturb 
the pleasantness of discourse, by the reason 
that Plato lends him : ' " That it is a custom 
of common men to call fiddlers and singing-men 
to feasts, for want of good discourse and plea- 
sant talk, with which men of understanding 
know how to entertain one another." Varro 
requires this in entertainments : 2 " Persons of 
graceful presence and agreeable conversation, 
that are neither silent nor babblers; neatness 
and delicacy both of meat and place, and fair 
weather."' To dine your friends well requires 
no slight skill, and gives no slight pleasure ; 
the greatest captains aud the greatest philoso- 
phers have not disdained to give their attention 
to this science. My imagination has delivered 
three banquets to the custody of my memory, 
which fortune rendered sovereignly sweet to 
me, upon different occasions, in my most flou- 
rishing age : my present state excludes me ; for 
each guest, in the good temper of body and 
mind wherein he then finds himself, supplies 
for his own use the principal grace and savour. 
I, who but crawl upon the earth, hate this 
inhuman wisdom, that will have us despise 
and hate all culture of body ; I look upon it as 
an equal injustice to loath natural pleasures, as 
to be too much in love with them. Xerxes was 
a fool, who, environed with all human delights, 
proposed a reward to him that could find him 
out others;* but he is not much less so, who 
cuts off any of those pleasures that nature has 
provided for him. A man should neither pursue 
nor fly, but receive them. I receive them, I 
confess, a little too affectionately and kindly, 
and easily suffer myself to follow my natural 
inclinations. We have nothing to do to exag- 
gerate their inanity ; they themselves will make 
us sufficiently sensible of it ; thanks be to our 
sickly minds, that abate our joys, and put us 
eut of taste with them, as with ourselves ; they 
entertain both themselves and all they receive, 
one while better, and another worse, according to 
their insatiable, vagabond, and versatile essence : 

Sincerumest nisi vas, quodcunque infundis, acescit."6 
"Your wine grows acid when the cask is foul." 

I, who boast that I so curiously and particularly 
embrace the conveniences of life, find, when I 
nearly consider them, very little more than 
wind. But what then 1 We are wind through- 
out : and, moreover, the wind itself, more dis- 
creetly than we, loves to bluster and shift here 
and there, and contents itself with its proper 
office, without desiring stability and solidity, 
qualities that belong not to it. 



i In the dialogue entitled Protagoras. 

2 Aulus Gellius, vii. 2. 

3 Cicero, Tusc. Quas. 

* Horace, Epist. i. 2, 54. 

o In my opinion (says M. Coste), Montaigne here applies 



The pure pleasures, as well as the pure dis- 
pleasures of the imagination, say 
some, are the greatest, as was ex- *", ^ea^he 
pressed by the balance of Crito- pleasures of the 
laus. 5 'Tis no wonder ; it makes imagination 
them to its own liking, and cuts £ntUhoseoftbe 
them out of the whole cloth, of 
which every day I see notable examples, and, 
peradventure, to be desired. But I, who am 
of a mixed and heavy condition, cannot snap 
so soon at this one simple object, but that I 
negligently suffer myself to be carried away 
with the present pleasures of the general human 
law, intellectually sensible, and sensibly intel- 
lectual. The Cyrenaic philosophers hold that 
as corporal pains, so corporal pleasures are more 
powerful, both as double, and more just. 6 There 
are some, as Aristotle says, 7 who, out of a 
savage kind of stupidity, are disgusted with 
them: and I know others who, out of ambi- 
tion, are the same. Why do they not moreover 
forswear breathing 1 Why do they not live of 
their own, and refuse light because it shines 
gratis, and costs them neither pains nor inven- 
tion] Let Mars, Pallas, or Mercury afford 
them their light by which to see, instead of 
Venus, Ceres, and Bacchus. Will they not 
seek the squaring of the circle, even when 
mounted upon their wives'? I hate that we 
should be enjoined to have our minds in the 
clouds when our bodies are at table : I would not 
have the mind there nailed, nor that it should 
wallow there ; but I would have it apply itself 
to that place ; to sit, but not to lie down there. 
Aristippus maintained nothing but the body, 
as if we had no soul ; Zeno stickled only for 
the soul, as if we had no body : both of them 
faultily. Pythagoras, say they, followed a phi- 
losophy that was all contemplation; Socrates, 
one that was all manners and action ; Plato 
found out a mean betwixt both. But they only 
say so for discourse' sake. For the true mean 
is found in Socrates ; and Plato is more Socra- 
tic than Pythagoric, and it becomes him better. 
When I dance, I dance ; when I sleep, I sleep : 
nay, and when I walk alone in a beautiful 
orchard, if my thoughts are some part of the 
time taken up with extrinsic occurrences, I 
some other part of the time call them back 
again to my walk, to the orchard, to the sweet- 
ness of the solitude, and to myself. 

Nature has with a motherly tenderness ob- 
served this, that the actions she Nature has ren- 
has enjoined us for our necessity dered those ac- 
should be also pleasant to us ; t ^ 1 ^ n ag m s a e n ab !| 
and invites us to them, not only aw } er a neces- 
by reason, but also by appetite: sity of perform- 
and 'tis injustice to corrupt her ms- 
laws. When I see both Caesar and Alex- 
der, in the thickest of their greatest busi- 



tliis balance to a purpose very different from that which 
Critolaus applied it to, if we may judge of this balance by 
what Cicero says of it.— Tusc. Quas. v. 17. 

u Laortius, ii. 90. 

7 Ethics, ii. vii. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



541 



ness, so fully enjoy human and bodily plea- 
sures, I do not say that they slackened their 
souls, but wound them up higher by vigour of 
courage, subjecting these violent employments 
and laborious thoughts to the ordinary use of 
life: wise, had they believed that the last was 
their ordinary employment; the first, their ex- 
traordinary vocation. We are great fools. " He 
has passed his life in ease," say we : "I have 
done nothing to-day." What! have you not 
lived 1 "i'is not only the fundamental, but the 
most illustrious of your occupations. " Had I 
been put to the management of great affairs, I 
should have shown what I could do." Have 
you known how to meditate, and manage your 
life? you have performed the greatest work 
of all : for a man to show and set himself out, 
nature has no need of fortune; she equally 
shows herself in all degrees, and behind a cur- 
tain, as well as without one. Have you known 
how to compose your manners'? You have 
done a great deal more than he who has com- 
posed books. Have you known how to take" 
repose ? You have done more than he who has, 
taken cities and empires. 

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is 
to know how to live to purpose ; 

^"master""' 3 a11 ° ther thin g s - to rei £ n > to % 

piece. up treasure, to build, are at the 

most but mere appendixes and 
little props. I take a delight to see a general 
of an army at the foot of a breach he intends 
presently to assault, giving himself up entire and 
free at dinner, to talk and be merry with his 
friends; and Brutus, when heaven and earth 
were conspired against him and the Roman 
liberty, stealing some hour of the night from his 
rounds to read and abridge Polybius, as in all 
security. 1 'Tis for little souls, that truckle 
under the weight of affairs, not to know how 
clearly to disengage themselves, and not to 
know how to lay them aside, and take them 
up again : 

O fortes, pejoraque pessi 
Mecum smpe viri ! nunc vino pellite ctiras: 
Cras ingens iterabimus aquor.» 

"Brave spirits, who with me have suffered sorrow, 
Drink cares away, we 'II set up sails tomorrow." 

Whether it be in jest or earnest that the theolo- 
gical and sorbonical wine, and their feasts, are 
turned into a proverb, I find it reason they 
should dine so much more commodiously and 
pleasantly, as they have profitably and seriously 
employed the morning in the exercise of their 
schools: the consciousness of having well spent 
the other hours is the just and savoury sauce of 
tables. The sages lived after that manner: 
and that inimitable emulation to virtue, which 
astonishes us both in the one and the other Cato, 



> Plutarch, in vita. 
» Horace, Od. i. 7. 30. 

3 Cicero, de Finib. ii. 8. 

4 Nepos, in vita, c. 2. 

6 Sec Aulus Gellius, vii. 1. 

"Cicero, de Orat. ii. 6.; but this refers to Scipio 



that humour of theirs, severe even to trouble- 
someness, did thus gently submit itself and 
yield to the laws of the human condition, both 
of Venus and Bacchus; according to the pre- 
cepts of their sect, that require a perfect wise 
man should be as expert and intelligent in the 
use of pleasures, as in all other duties of life: — 
Cui cor sapiat, ei et sapiat palatus? "He 
that has a learned soul, has a learned palate 
too." 

Yielding and facility do, methinks, wonder- 
fully honour, and best become a strong and 
generous soul: Epaminondas did 
not think that to dance, sing, and 



Relaxation and 
affability speci- 



play, and be intent upon them, ally becoming 
with the young men of his city, ^ u f s ^, d 3 gene 
were tilings that did any way 
derogate from the honour of his glorious vic- 
tories, and the perfect reformation of manners 
that was in him. 4 And amongst so many ad- 
mirable actions of Scipio, the grandfather, a 
person worthy the opinion of a heavenly ex- 
traction, 8 there is nothing that gives him a 
greater grace than to see him earnestly and 
childishly trifling, in gathering and choosing 
shells,* and playing at ducks and drakes upon 
the sea-shore with Lcelius : and, if it was bad 
weather, amusing and pleasing himself by re- 
presenting in comedies, 7 he wrote, the meanest 
and most popular actions of men ; and having 
his head full of that wonderful enterprise of 
Hannibal and Africa, visiting the schools in 
Sicily, and being continually present at the 
philosophical lectures, improving himself eve:i 
to the blind envy of his enemies at Rome. 3 Nor 
is there any thing more remarkable in Socrates, 
than that, old as he was, he found time to mak'j 
himself be instructed in dancing and playing 
upon instruments, and thought it time well 
spent. Yet this same man has been seen in an 
extasy standing upon his feet a whole day and 
a night together, in the presence of all the Gre- 
cian army, surprised and ravished with some 
profound thought: he was the first who, among 
so many valiant men of the army, ran to the 
relief of Alcibiades, oppressed with the enemy, 
shielded him with his own body, and disen- 
gaged him from the crowd by absolute force of 
arm. It was he who, in the Delian battle, 
relieved and saved Xenophon, when dismounted 
from his horse; and who, amongst all the people 
of Athens, enraged like himself at so unworthy 
a spectacle, first presented himself to rescue 
Theramcnes, whom the thirty tyrants were 
having dragged to execution by their guards, 
and desisted not from his bold enterprise, but 
at the remonstrances of Theramenes himself, 
though he was only followed by two more in 
all. He has been seen, when courted by a 
beauty, with whom he was in love, yet main- 



Younger. Indeed, in the edition of 15&, Montaigne speaks 
of him. 

' Those of Terence, in the composition of which, accord- 
ing to Suetonius, Scipio (tin- Younger, however, not the 
Elder.) anil his friend Lodius had a large share. 

» Livy, xxix. 19. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



tain a severe abstinence in time of need. He 
has been seen continually to go to the war, and 
with his bare feet, to walk upon ice; to wear 
the same robe winter and summer ; to surpass 
all his companions in endurance of labour; and 
to eat no more at a feast than at his own private 
dinner; he was seen seven and twenty years to- 
gether to endure hunger, poverty, the indocility 
of his children, and the claws of his wife, with 
the same countenance; and in the end calumny, 
tyranny, imprisonment, fetters, and poison: but 
was he invited to a drinking bout, on any occa- 
sion of civility ! he was also the man of the 
party to whom the advantage remained; and 
he never refused to play at cob-nut, nor to ride 
the hobby-horse with the boys, and it became 
him well ; for all actions, says philosophy, 
equally become, and equally honour a wise 
man. We have enough wherewithal to do it, 
and we ought never to be weary of representing 
the image of this great man in all the patterns 
and forms of perfection. There are very few 
examples of life full and pure; and they wrong 
us in our instruction to propose to us every day 
those that are weak and imperfect, scarce good 
for any one service, that pull us back, and that 
are rather corrupters than correctors of manners. 
The people deceive themselves; a man goes 
much more easily indeed by the ends, where 
the extremity serves for a bound, a stop, and 
guide, than by the middle way, which is large 
and open ; and according to art, than accord- 
ing to nature ; but withal much less nobly and 
commendably. 

Grandeur of soul consists not so much in 
mounting and in proceeding forward, as in 
knowing how to govern and cir- 
Wha' ■.«■ covers cumscribe itse lf. It takes every 
greatness of . *.«.!_«.■ i 

soul. thing for great that is enough; 

and shows its height better in 
loving moderate than eminent things. There 
is nothing so handsome and lawful as well and 
duly to play the man ; nor science so hard as 
well to know how to live this life; and of all 
the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to 
despise our being. 

Whoever has a mind to send his soul abroad, 
let him do it, if he can, when the body is ill at 
ease, to preserve it from the contagion : but 
otherwise let him, on the contrary, favour and 
assist it, and not refuse to participate of its 
natural pleasures and delights with a conjugal 
complacency; bringing to it withal, if it be 
wiser, moderation, lest by indiscretion they 
should confound themselves with displeasures. 
Intemperance is the pest of pleasure ; and tem- 
perance is not its scourge, but its seasoning: 
Eudoxus, who therein established the sovereign 
good, and his companions, who set so high a 
value upon it, tasted it in its most charming 
sweetness by the means of temperance, which 
in them was singular and exemplary. 1 

I enjoin my soul to look upon pain and plea- 



sure with an eye equally regular: 
Eodem enim vitio est effusio "7eh7ve°iv1th 
animi in Ixlilia, quo in dolore regard both to 
contraction "For 'tis by the P ain and P lea- 
same vice that we dilate our- 
selves in mirth, and contract in sorrow," and 
equally firm ; but the one gaily, and the other 
severely, and according to what it is able, 
to be as careful to restrain the one as to ex- 
tend the other. The judging rightly of goods 
brings along with it the judging soundly of 
evils ; and pain has something not to be avoided 
in its tender beginnings, and pleasure has 
something that may be avoided in its ex- 
cessive end. Plato 3 couples them together, 
and will that it should be equally the office 
of fortitude to fight against pain, and against 
the immoderate and charming blandishments 
of pleasure: they are two fountains, from 
which whoever draws, when, and as much as 
he needs, whether city, man, or beast, is very 
happy. The first is to be taken physically and 
upon necessity, more scarcely; the other for 
thirst, but not to drunkenness. Pain, pleasure, 
love, hatred, are the first things that a child is 
sensible of: if, when reason comes, they apply 
themselves to it, that is virtue. 

I have a peculiar method of my own ; I pass 
over my time, when it is ill and 
uneasy; but when 'tis good, I J¥ use ^ on : 

.„ } ' . T s ' taigne made of 

will not pass it over. I savour >if e ! 
and stick to it ; a man must run 
over the ill, and insist upon the good. This 
ordinary phrase of pastime, and passing away 
the time, represents the custom of that wise 
sort of people, who think they cannot have a 
better account of their lives, than to let them 
run out and slide away, to pass them over, and 
to baulk them, and, as much as they can, to 
take no notice of them, and to shun them, as a 
thing of troublesome and contemptible quality : 
but I know it to b,e another kind of thing, and 
find it both valuable and commodious, even in 
its latest decay, wherein I now enjoy it; and 
nature has delivered it into our hands, furnished 
with such and so favourable circumstances, that 
we have only ourselves to blame if it be trouble- 
some to us, or slide unprofitably away : Stulti 
vita ingrata est, trepida est, tola in futurum 
fertur: 4 " The life of a fool is uneasy, timorous, 
and wholly bent upon the future." Neverthe- 
less, I compose myself to lose mine without 
regret, but withal as a thing that is loseable by 
its condition, not that is troublesome or impor- 
tunate: neither properly does it well become 
any not to be displeased when they die, except- 
ing such as are pleased to live. There is good 
husbandry in enjoying it : I enjoy it double to 
what others do; for the measure in fruition 
depends more or less on our application to it. 
Now, especially, that I perceive mine to be so 
short in time, I would extend it in weight; I 
would stop the rapidity of its flight, by the 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



543 



suddenness of my seizing upon it; and by the 
vigour of using it compensate the speed of its 
running away : by how much the possession of 
living is more short, I must take it so much 
deeper and more full. 

Others are sensible of the sweetness of con- 
tentment and of prosperity ; I feel it too as well 
as they, but not as it slides and passes by ; 
a man ought to study, taste, and ruminate upon 
it, to render worthy thanks to him that grants 
it to us. They enjoy the other pleasures as they 
do that of sleep, without knowing it. To the 
end that even sleep itself should not so stupidly 
escape from me, I have formerly caused myself 
to be disturbed in my sleep, that 1 might the 
better 1 and more sensibly relish and savour it. I 
consult myself about a contentment; I do not 
skim, but sound it; and bend my reason, now 
grown perverse and ill-humoured, to entertain 
it. Do I find myself in calm composednessl 
Is there any pleasure that tickles me"! I do not 
suffer it to dally with my senses only ; I asso- 
ciate my soul to it too ; not there to engage 
herself, but therein to take delight; not there 
to lose herself, but to be present there ; and 
employ her on her part to view herself in this 
prosperous estate, to weigh, esteem, and amplify 
its happiness : she reckons how much she 
stands indebted to God, to be in repose of con- 
science and other intestine passions ; to have 
the body in its natural disposition, orderly and 
competently enjoying the soft and flattering 
functions, by which he of his bounty is pleased 
to recompense the sufferings wherewith his jus- 
tice, at his good pleasure, does scourge and 
chastise us; how great a benefit it is to her to 
be so seated, that which way soever she turns 
her eye, the heaven is calm and serene about 
her; no desire, no fear or doubt, that troubles 
the air; nor any difficulty past, present, or to 
come, that her imagination may not pass over 
without offence. This consideration takes great 
lustre from the comparison of different condi- 
tions, and therefore it is that I propose to 
myself, in a thousand aspects, those whom for- 
tune, or their own error, torment and whirl 
about, and moreover those nearer me, that so 
negligently and incuriously receive their good 
fortune: these are men who pass away their 
time indeed ; they pass over the present and 
that which they possess, to look after hope and 
vain shadows and images, which fancy puts into 
their heads, 



which hasten and prolong their flight according 
as they are pursued. The fruit and aim of their 



1 JRncid, X. 641. 

2 Arrian, dc Expid. Jllcx. V. 26. 

• Lucan, ii. (J57. Tile poet speaks here of Ctrsar, vvh 
vas altogether as active and indefatigable as Alexander. 



pursuit is to pursue ; as Alexander said, 
the end of his labour was to labour:* 



Nil actum credens, i 
"Thinking nought i 



uid superesset agendum.s 
if aught was left to do." 



For my part, then, I love life, and cultivate it, 
such as it has pleased God to bestow it upon 
us. I do not desire it should be without the 
necessity of eating and drinking; and 1 should 
think to offend no less excusably to wish this 
necessity had been double : Sapiens divitiarum 
naturalium qusesitor acerrimus. 4 "A wise 
man seeks with avidity natural riches ;" nor 
that we should support ourselves by putting 
only a little of that drug into our mouths, by 
which Epimenides took away his appetite, and 
kept himself alive; 5 nor that a man should 
stupidly create children with his fingers or 
heels; but rather, with reverence I speak it, 
that we might voluptuously create them with 
our fingers and heels; not that the body 
should be without desire, and void of delight : 
these are ungrateful and wicked complaints. 
I accept kindly, and with acknowledgment, 
what nature has done for me ; am well pleased 
with it and proud of it. A man does wrong to 
the great and omnipotent giver, to refuse, dis- 
annul, and disfigure his gift ; he has made every 
thing well : Omnia quae secundum naturam 
sunt xslimalione digna sunt? "All things 
that are according to nature are worthy of 
esteem." 

Of philosophical opinions, I more willingly 
embrace those that are the most solid, that is 
to say, the most human, and most our own ; my 
discourse is suitable to my man- 
ners, low and hi 
plays 

when she puts herself upon her 
ergos, to prove : that 'tis a barbarous alliance 
to marry the divine with the earthly, the rea- 
sonable with the unreasonable, the severe with 
the indulgent, the honest with the dishonest: 
that pleasure is a brutish quality, unworthy to 
be tasted by a wise man ; that the sole pleasure 
he extracts from the enjoyment of a fair young 
wife, is the pleasure of his conscience to perform 
an action according to order, as to put on his 
boots for a profitable journey. Oh, that his 
followers had no more right, or nerve, or juice, 
in getting their wives' maidenheads, than in 
these lessons ! 

This is not what Socrates says, who is both 
her master and ours : he values, as 
he ought, bodily pleasure; but he ^f^.f 03 ' 
prefers that of the soul, as having v .-iinr. Hi>. !L -i, 
more force, constancy, facility, it is inferior to 

, ,. -. J L ■ • that ol the 

variety, and dignity, lhis, ac- ,„ jml 

cording to him, goes by no means 

alone (he is not so fantastic), but only it goes 



* Seneca, Epist. 1 19. 
' Laertius, in vita. 

"Cicero, dc Finib. iii. C: where the sense is the 
though not in the very words 'luotcd by Montaigne. 



5-14 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. 



first; temperance in him is the moderatrix, not 
the adversary of pleasure. Nature is a gentle 
guide, but not more gentle than prudent and just: 
Intrandum est in rerum naturam, el penitus 
quid ea postulet pervidendum. 1 "A man must 
search into the nature of things, and examine 
what she requires." I hunt after the print of 
her foot throughout, but we have confounded 
it with artificial traces ; and that academic and 
peripatetic sovereign good, which is "to live 
according to it," becomes by this means hard to 
limit and explain; and that of the Stoics, 
cousin-german to it, which is " to consent to 
nature." Is it not an error to esteem any actions 
less worthy, because they are necessary ? and 
yet they cannot beat it out of my head that it 
is not a convenient marriage of pleasure with 
necessity, to which, says an ancient, the gods 
do always consent. To what end do we dis- 
member by divorce, a building united by so 
joint and brotherly a correspondence ? Let us, 
on the contrary, repair and strengthen it by 
mutual offices : let the mind rouse and quicken 
the heaviness of the body, and the body stop 
and fix the levity of the soul : Qui, velut sum- 
mum bonum, laudat animce naturam, et, tan- 
quam malum, naturam carnis accusat, profecto 
et animam carnaliter appetit, et carnem car- 
naliter fugit ; quoniam id vanilate sentit 
humana, non veritale divina. 2 " He that com- 
mends the nature of the soul as the supreme 
good, and accuses the nature of the flesh as evil, 
does certainly both carnally affect the soul, and 
carnally flies the flesh, because he is so possessed 
through human vanity, and not by divine 
truth." In this present which God has made 
us, there is nothing unworthy our care; we 
stand accountable even to a hair: and 'tis no 
slight commission to man, to conduct man ac- 
cording to his condition ; 'tis express, plain, 
and the principal injunction of all, and the 
Creator has seriously and strictly enjoined it. 
Authority has alone the power to work upon 
common understandings, and is of more weight 
in a foreign language; and therefore let us 
again charge with it in this place: Stultitim 
proprium quis non dixerit ignava et contuma- 
citer facere qua facienda sunt, et alio corpus 
impellere, alio animum ,- distrahique inter di- 
versissimos motus ? 3 " Who will not say that it 
is the property of folly, slothfully and contu- 
maciously to perform what is to be done, and 
to bend the body one way, and the mind 
another, and to be distracted betwixt quite 
different motions?" 

To make this apparent, get one of these fel- 
lows one day to tell you what whimsies and 
imaginations he puts into his pate, and upon 
the account of which he diverted his thoughts 
from a good dinner, and complains of the time 
he spends in eating: you will find there is 



i Cicero, de Mnib. v. 16. 

2 St. August, de Civit. Dei, xiv. 5. 

3 Seneca, Epist. 74. 



nothing so insipid in all the dishes at your table 
as this wise meditation of his soul (for the most 
part we had better sleep than wake to the pur- 
pose we do) ; and that his discourses and no- 
tions are not worth your partridge-pie. Though 
they were the raptures of Archimedes himself, 
what then'? I do not here speak of, nor mix 
with, the rabble of us ordinary men, and the 
vanity of the thoughts and desires that divert 
us, those venerable souls, elevated by the ardour 
of devotion and religion, to a constant and con- 
scientious meditation of divine things, who by 
a lively endeavour, and vehement hope, pro- 
fessing the use of the eternal nourishment, the 
final aim, and last step of Christian desires, the 
sole, constant and incorruptible pleasure, dis- 
dain to apply themselves to our necessitous, 
fluid, and ambiguous conveniences, and easily 
resign to the body the care and use of sensual 
and temperate feeding. 'Tis a privileged study. 
I have ever amongst us observed supercelestial 
opinions, and subterranean manners, to be of 
singular acccord. 

iEsop, that great man, saw his master make 
water as he walked: "What," 
said he, " must we then dung as The foll y °f . 
we run?" 4 Let us manage our Z^Jov"'^ 
time as well as we can, there will what he is. 
yet remain a great deal that will 
be idle and ill employed: the mind has no 
other hours wherein it would willingly do its 
business, without disassociating itself from the 
body, in that little space it needs for its neces- 
sity. They will put themselves out of them- 
selves, and escape from being men ; 'tis folly ; 
instead of transforming themselves into angels, 
they transform themselves into beasts : instead 
of elevating, abase themselves. These transcen- 
dant humours affright me, like high and inac- 
cessible cliffs and precipices; and nothing is 
hard for me to digest in the life of Socrates but 
his ecstasies and communication with demons; 
nothing so human in Plato as that for which 
they say he was called divine ; and of our sci- 
ences, those seem to me the most terrestrial and 
low that are highest mounted, and I find 
nothing so humble and mortal in the life of 
Alexander as his fancies about his immortalisa- 
tion. Philotas pleasantly quipt him in his an- 
swer : Alexander had congratulated himself by 
letter, concerning the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, 
who had placed him amongst the gods ; " Upon 
thy account I am glad of it," said Philotas, 
" but the men are to be pitied who are to live 
with a man, and to obey him, who exceeds and 
is not contented with the measure of a man :" 5 

Diis te minorem quod geris, imperas. 6 



The pretty inscription wherewith the Athenians 



i Planudus, in vita. 
' auintus Curtius, vi. 
i Horat. Od. iii. 6, 5. 



MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS 



54."> 



honoured the entry of Pompey into their city is 
conformable to my notion : 

" The more thou acknowledgest thyself man. 
The more thou secmest a god." 
Tis an absolute, and, as it were, a divine per- 
fection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy 
his being. We seek other conditions, by reason 
we do not understand the use of our own ; and 
go out of ourselves, because we know not how 
to reside there. 'Tis to much purpose to go 
upon stilts, for when upon stilts we must yet 
walk upon our legs; and, when seated upon 
the most elevated throne in the world, we are 
still but seated upon our breech. The fairest 
lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly 

l Plutarch, in vita 



accommodate themselves to the common and 
human model, without miracle, without extra- 
vagance. But old age stands a little in need 
of a more gentle' treatment. Let us recommend 
it to that God, the protector of health and wis- 
dom, but, withal, a wisdom gay and sociable. 

Frui paratus et valido mihi, 
Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra 

Cum mente; nee turpem senectam 
Degere, nee cithara carentem.* 

" Nor ask I more than sense and health 
Still to enjoy my present wealth. 
From age and all its weakness free, 
O, son of Jove, preserved by thee, 
Give me to strike the tuneful lyre. 
And thou my latest song inspire. 

« Horace, Od. i. 31. 17. 



40' 



INDEX TO THE CHAPTERS. 



BOOK I. 

CHAP. PAGE 

1. That Men by various Ways arrive at the 

same end 27 

2. Of Sorrow 29 

3. That our Affections carry themselves be- 

yond us 31 

4. That the Soul discharges its Passions 

upon False Objects where the true are 
wanting 34 

5. Whether the Governor of a place besieged 

ought himself to go out to Parley 35 

6. That the Hour of Parley is dangerous ... 36 

7. That the Intention is Judge of our Actions 38 

8. Of Idleness ib. 

9. Of Liars 39 

10. Of Quick or Slow Speech 42 

11. Of Prognostications 43 

12. Of Constancy, or Firmness 45 

13. The Ceremony of the Interview of Princes 46 

14. That Men are justly Punished for being 

Obstinate in the Defence of a Fort that 

is not in Reason to be Defended 46 

15. Of the Punishment of Cowardice 47 

16. A Proceeding of some Ambassadors .... 48 

17. Of Fear 49 

18. That Men are not to Judge of our Happi- 

ness till after Death 51 

19. That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to 

Die 52 

20. Of the Force of Imagination 60 

21. That the Profit of One Man is the Incon- 

venience of Another 66 

22. Of Custom, and that we should not easily 

change a Law received ib. 

23. Various Events from the same Counsel . . 74 

24. Of Pedantry 79 

25. Of the Education of Children 85 

26. That it is Folly to Measure Truth and 

Error by our own Capacity 102 

27. Of Friendship 104 

28. Nine-and-Twenty Sonnets of Estienne de 

laBoetie 110 

29. Of Moderation 110 

30 Of Cannibals 113 

31. That a Man is soberly to Judge of Divine 

Ordinances 119 

32. That we are to avoid Pleasures, even at 

the Expense of Life 120 

33. That Fortune is oftentimes observed to 

act by the Rule of Reason 121 

34. Of one Delect in our Government 123 

35. Of the Custom of wearing Clothes 123 

36. Of Cato the Younger 125 

37. That we laugh and' cry for the same thing 127 

38. Of Solitude 128 

39. A Consideration upon Cicero 133 

40. That the Relish of Good and Evil in a 

great meaaure depends upon the Opinion 
■we have of them 136 

41. Not to communicate a Man's Honour or 

Glory 145 

42. Of the Inequality amongst us 117 

43. Of Sumptuary Laws 15] 

44. Of Sleep 152 

45. Of the Battle of Dreux 153 

46. Of Names 154 

1". ot i he Uncertainty of our Judgment 157 

48. Of Destriers 160 



49. Of Ancient Customs 164 

50. Of Democritus and Heraclitus 166 

51. Of the Vanity of Words 167 

52. Of the Parsimony of the Ancients 169 

53. Of a Saying of Caesar's ib. 

54. Of Vain Subleties 170 

55. Of Smells 171 

56. Of Prayers 172 

57. Of Age 177 

BOOK II. 

1. Of the Inconsistency of our Actions 178 

2. Of Drunkenness 181 

3. The Custom of the Isle of Cea 186 

4. Business to-morrow 192 

5. Of Conscience 193 

6. Use makes perfect 195 

7. Of Recompenses of Honour 200 

8. Of the Affection of Fathers to their Chil- 

dren 201 

9. Of the Arms of the Parthians 210 

10. Of Books 212 

11. Of Cruelty 218 

12. Apology for Raimond Sebond 225 

13. Of Judging of the Death of another 308 

14. That the Mind hinders itself 311 

15. That our Desires are augmented by Diffi- 

culties 312 

16. Of Glory 314 

17. Of Presumption 321 

18. Of giving the Lie 335 

19. Of Liberty of Conscience 337 

20. That we Taste nothing Pure 339 

21. Against Idleness 341 

22. Of Riding Post 343 

23. Of 111 Means employed to a Good End . . ib. 

24. Of the Roman Grandeur 345 

25. Not to Counterfeit being Sick 346 

26. OfThumbs ib. 

27. Cowardice the Mother of Cruelty 347 

28. All things have their Season 351 

29. OfVirtue 352 

30. Ofa Monstrous Child 356 

31. Of Anger ib. 

32. Defence of Seneca and Plutarch 360 

33. The Story of Spurina 363 

34. Observation on the Mode of carrying on 

War according to Julius Caesar 366 

35. Of Three Good Women 370 

36. Of the most Excellent Men 373 

37. Of the Resemblance of Children to their 

Fathers 376 

BOOK III. 

1. Of Profit and Honesty 390 

2. Of Repentance 397 

3. Of Three Commerces 403 

4. Of Diversion 409 

5. Upon some verses of Virgil 414 

6. Of Coaches 441 

7. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness 

8. Of the Art of Conversation 452 

9. Of Vanity (63 

10. Of Managing One's Will 490 

11. Of Cripples » 501 

12. Of Physiognomy 506 

13. Of Experience ^.519 

^— (547) 



A 

DIARY OF THE JOURNEY 

OF 

MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE 

INTO ITALY, THROUGH SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY, 

IN THE YEARS 1580 AND 1581. 

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM HAZLITT. 



INTRODUCTION 



Montaigne, in the third book of his Es- 
says, chap, ix., speaks of his travels, and 
particularly of his visit to Rome. It being 
known, then, that our author had made 
journeys through Switzerland, through 
Germany, and through Italy, it was mat- 
ter of natural surprise that so close an 
observer, a writer who had filled his Es- 
says with such continual domestic and 
personal details, should have drawn up no 
account of his travels ; but, as no trace of 
any such work was discovered for 180 
years after his death, the matter was 
thought no more of. 

Towards the end of the last century, M. 
Prunis, a Regular Canon of Chancelade, in 
Perigord, was making researches through 
that province relative to a History of Peri- 
gord, which he had undertaken. Among 
other places, he visited the old Chateau de 
Montaigne, at this time the property of M. 
le Comte de Segur de la Roquette, a de- 
scendant, in the sixth generation, from 
Eleanora de Montaigne, only daughter of 
our Essayist. Upon making an application 
here to inspect any archives that the family 
might possess, he was shown an old coffer, 
containing a variety of papers, long since 
laid by and forgotten, which he was in- 
formed he might make what use of he 
pleased. Among them he discovered the 
original manuscript of the Journey of Mon- 
taigne, in all probability the only copy in 
existence. He obtained permission from 
M. de Segur to take the manuscript away 
with him, that he might have an opportu- 
nity of giving it a mature examination. 
After having thoroughly convinced himself 
of its genuineness, he made a journey to 
Paris, for the purpose of corroborating his 
own conviction by the opinion of the men 
of letters there. The manuscript was care- 
fully examined by several literary gentle- 
men of note, and more especially by M. 
Capperonnier, Librarian to the King's Li- 



brary ; and it was unanimously recognised 
as the genuine manuscript of Montaigne's 
Journey. 

This manuscript forms a small folio vo- 
lume, of 278 pages. The hand- writing and 
the paper incontestably belong to the latter 
end of the sixteenth century. As to the 
style, there can be no mistake about it; in 
every page you recognise the naivete, the 
frankness, and the force of expression, 
which stamp all Montaigne's writings as 
with a signet, marking them for his own. 
One part'of the manuscript, rather more 
than a third, is in the hand-writing of a do- 
mestic, who acted as secretary to Mon- 
taigne, and who always speaks of his mas- 
ter in the third person : but it is obvious 
that he wrote to Montaigne's dictation, for 
each page teems with our Essayist's pecu- 
liar manner and expressions ; and here and 
there we come upon a touch of that delight- 
ful egotism which Montaigne so often dis- 
plays, and which never sat so amiably and 
so well on any writer before or since. The 
rest of the manuscript, where Montaigne 
speaks in the first person, is in his own 
hand-writing, which the greatest pains were 
taken, and successfully, to verify ; and of 
this portion more than one-half is in Italian. 
At the beginning of the manuscript one or 
two pages are wanting, and appear to have 
been torn off. The manuscript thus hap- 
pily discovered had evidently not received 
any sort of correction on the part of Mon- 
taigne after it was once written; and it 
required much time and infinite pains to 
decipher it, so miserable was the hand- 
writing of the Secretary, and so ludicrously 
inaccurate, irregular, and various, the or- 
thography of the master. A correct copy, 
however, having at length been realized, 
by the joint efforts of M. Capperonnier and 
several other zealous and competent per- 
sons, this copy was placed in the hands of 
M. de Querlon, who, assisted by M. Jamet 
(SMJ 



552 



INTRODUCTION 



the younger, added a variety of notes, ex- 
plaining the obsolete words and expres- 
sions, and giving historical notices of many 
of the persons and events referred to. 

The object which induced Montaigne 
thus, at the age of forty-seven, to leave his 
family and undertake a journey of seven- 
teen months' duration, seems principally 
to have been the improvement of his health; 
a desire to see whether the mineral waters 
of Lorraine, Switzerland, and Tuscany, 
would be more successful in removing his 
malady, the stone, than those of France 
had proved. The details which he is con- 
stantly giving of the nature and effects of 
these various waters are sometimes rather 
tiresome and distasteful; and had Mon- 
taigne revised the manuscript, for the pur- 
pose of printing it, he would, no doubt, 
have materially abridged much of this por- 
tion of his work. After all, it is interesting, 
as illustrative of the man; and, indeed, the 
other personal details which abound in the 
Essays, have been regarded by very many 
readers as by no means the least entertain- 
ing portion of that work. 

The following extracts from M. de Q.uer- 
lon's Discours Preliminaire are added, for 
the purpose of making this portion of the 
present edition equally complete with the 
rest, and as an agreeable commentary not 
only upon the Journey, but upon our tra- 
veller : — 

" A 1' epoque du voyage de Montaigne en 
Italie, 1580, cette belle contree, couverte 
des ruines et des debris de 1'antiquite, etoit 
encore depuis deux siecles devenue la patrie 
des arts. Elle etoit enrichie des travaux de 
Palladio, de Vignole, de Michel-Ange, de 
Raphael, de Jules Romain, du Correge, du 
Titien, de Paul Veronese, du Tintoret, &c. 
II est vrai que l'Algarde, le Guide, l'Albane, 
le Dominiquin, Lafranc, Pietre de Cortone, 
Annibal Carrache, et une foule d'autres 
grands maitres, qui suivirent de pres les 
premiers, n'avoient point encore produit 
ce nombre infini d'ouvrages en tous genres 
qui decorent les eglises et les palais d'ltalie. 
Le Pape qui regnoit alors, Gregoire XIII., 
s'etoit beaucoup moins occupe des arts de 
decoration et d agrement, que d'etablisse- 
mens utiles et de quelques ouvrages publics. 
Sixte-Q,uint, son successeur, elu quatre ans 
apres ce voyage, embellit beaucoup plus 
Rome, en moins de six ans que dura son 
regne, que n'avoit fait Gregoire XIII. pen- 
dant plus de douze de pontificat. Cepen- 
dant cette capitale, ainsi que Florence et 
Venise, ainsi que plusieurs autres villes 
visitees par Montaigne, avoient des-lors de 
quoi remplir toute 1'attention des voyageurs, 
par les richesses et les monumens de toute 
espece que les arts y avoient deja repandus. 
Montaigne y trouva done de quoi s'occuper. 
Avec une imagination aussi vive que celle 



qui perce dans ses Essais, et d'une tournure 
pittoresque, pouvoit-il voir froidement les 
arts de la Grece dont il etoit entoure ? Si 
le journal de son voyage contient peu de 
ces descriptions de statues, 1 de tableaux, 
d'autres monumens dont tous les voya- 
geurs modernes chargent successivement 
leurs relations, (la plupart en se repetant 
ou se copiant les uns les autres): e'est, 
comme il le dit, qu'il y avoit des ce tems-la 
des livres ou tout cela se trouvoit; e'est 
encore qu'il ne voyoit que pour soi, ou qu'il 
n'entroit point dans son plan d'observation 
de faire montre des impressions que les 
objets faisoient sur lui. ni de se parer de 
connoissances dont il laissoit la possession 
aux artistes. Mais il paroit que tous les 
anciens monumens, que tous les restes des 
Romains l'avoient singulierement frappe. 
C'est-la qu'il cherchoit la genie de Rome 
qui lui etoit si present, qu'il avoit mieux 
senti, mieux appercu que personne dans 
les ecrits des Romains qui lui etoient fa- 
miliers, et particulierement dans ceux de 
Plutarque. II le voyoit ce genie respirer 
encore sous les vastes ruines de la capi- 
tale du monde. Jamais peut-etre on ne 
l'a concju ni represents, d'aucune maniere, 
aussi fortement, qu'il Test dans ses belles 
reflexions sur l'immense tombeau de Rome. 
II est sur au moins que dans le grand nom- 
bre de relations, de descriptions en toutes 
langues, qu'on a des anciens restes ou des 
ruines de cette ville, rien n'approche de 
cet eloquent morceau, rien ne donne une 
aussi grande idee du siege de l'empire 
Romain. 

" Avant de lire ces reflexions, on verra 
comment Montaigne, avec des cartes et 
des livres, avoit etudie cette ville, et 1'on 
concevra que peu de voyageurs l'ont mieux 
pu voir, avant ou meme apres lui. On ne 
peut douter encore qu'il n'eut partage son 
attention entre l'ancienne Rome et la nou- 
velle ; qu'il n'eut egalement bien examine 
les restes de la grandeur Romaine, et les 
eglises, les palais, les jardins modernes, 
avec tous les embellissemens dont ils etoi- 
ent deja decores. Siu du peu de descrip- 
tions de Rome et de ses environs qu'il a 
mises dans son journal, on inferoit que le 
gout des arts lui manquoit, on se trompe- 
roit evidemmenr, pisque, pour ne point s'en 
faire une tache, il renvoye aux livres, ainsi 
qu'on l'a deja dit. Les statues antiques de 
Florence (la ville qu'il vit le mieux, apres 
Rome), et les chefs-d'oeuvres de son ecole, 
ne lui etoint point echappes. II ne marque 
point une admiration outree pour Venise, 
ou il ne resta que sept jours, parce qu'il 
s'etoit propose de revoir cette belle ville a 



i II dit que ec sont les Slafues ijvi lui aui k plus agrees a 
Rome. I] comparoit done notre philosophe ; il avoit done 
le sentiment des arts. 



NTRODUCTION. 



son aise; mais on remarquera que Mon- 
taigne, sans etre insensible aux belles cho- 
ses, etoit assez sombre admirateur. 1 Ce 
qui paroit le toucher le plus, ce sont les 
beautes, les varietes locales, un site agre- 
able ou singulier, quelquefois la vue d'un 
lieu desert et sauvage, ou des terreins bien 
cultives, l'aspect imposant des montagnes, 
&c. &c. Cependant l'histoire naturelle 
n'entre pour rien dans ses observations, 
s'il n'est question d'eaux minerales; les 
arbres, les plantes, les animaux l'occupent 
fort peu. II se repentit a la verite de n'avoir 
pas vu sur la route de Florence le Volcan 
de Pietra mala, qu'il laissa par pur oubli, 
sans se detourner. On le voit assez curieux 
des machines hydrauliques et autres, et de 
toutes les inventions utiles. II en decrit 
meme quelquesunes, et ses descriptions, 
pour n'etre pas fort claires, pour manquer 
souvent de precision, parce que les termes 
apparemment lui manquoient, n'en prou- 
vent pas moins son attrait, son gout pour 
ce genre de curiosites. Un autre objet 
d'observation plus conforme a sa philoso- 
phic, c'etoient les mceurs et les usages des 
peuples, des contrees, des conditions diffe- 
rentes, qu'il consideroit avec un soin par- 
ticulier. II voulut voir et entretenir quelques 
courtisanes a Rome, a Florence, a Venise, 
et ne crut point cet ordre indigne de son 
attention. II aimoit naturellement le com- 
merce des femmes ; mais comme il fut tou- 
jours bien plus regie dans ses moeurs, ou 
plus chaste dans sa personne que dans ses 
ecrits, qu'il etoit assez maitre de ses sens, 
et qu'il etoit fort attentif sur sa sante, la 
continence, a pres de cinquante ans, ne 
dut pas lui couter beaucoup. A Pegard de 
la galanterie a laquelle sa philosophie ne 
l'avoit pas fait renoncer, comme on le verra 
dans son sejour aux bains de Lucques, il 
s'en permettoit un peu selon l'occasion et 
les circonstances. 

"Montaigne au reste avoit toutes les 
qualites necessaires a un voyageur. Natu- 
rellement sobre et peu sensible au plaisir 
de la table, peu difficile sur le choix ou sur 
Pappret des alimens, quoiqu'assez friand de 
poisson, il s'accommodoit partout de ce qu'il 
trouvoit; il se conformoit sans peine au 
gout, aux usages difierens de tous les lieux 
qu'il rencontroit : cette variete meme etoit 
un plaisir de plus pour lui. Veritable cos- 
mopolite, qui regardoit tous les hommes 
comme ses concitoyens naturels, il n'etoit 
pas moins accommodant, moins aise dans 
le commerce de la vie. II aimoit beaucoup 
la conversation, et il trouvoit bien a se sa- 
tisfaire chez une nation spirituelle ou sa 



Aujouril'hui I'on admire nop. el la plupart de nns pi 

mill's, mi il<' ci'ii v ii ni. ii:iriin nous, m nrcnneiit le mil 



ui, piirmi miiis, en prcnneiit le 



losopliis, un il,' iTiiv ipn, p:iriin nous, en proiinciit le noil), 

or Be dependent pa i plus que les autres d'un sentiment qui 
ne prouve point toute 1'etendue d'eBprit que l'on voudroit 
bien montrer. 

47 



reputation l'avoit devance, et lui avoit fait 
des amis. Loin d'y porter cette prevention 
que Ton reproche aux Francois de trop 
laisser voir aux etrangers, il comparoit 
leurs usages aux notres, et quand les pre- 
miers lui paroissoient prevaloir, il en con- 
venoit sans hesiter. Ainsi sa franchise ne 
pouvoit manquer de le rendre tres-agreable 
a ceux memes qui ne s'en piquoient pas 
autant que lui. Ajoutons a tous ces avan- 
tages l'habitude du cheval, si commode 
pour lui qui souffroit difficilement les voi- 
tures, et par cette heureuse habitude, un 
corps capable de fatigues qui lui faisoit sup- 
porter et les mauvais gites, et le change- 
ment d'air presque continuel, et toutes les 
autres incommodites des voyages. 

" Montaigne voyageoit comme il ecrivoit : 
ce n'etoit ordinairement ni la reputation 
des lieux, ni moins encore un plan forme 
de suivre telle ou telle partie pour la con- 
noitre exactement, ni la marche des autres 
voyageurs, qui regloient la sienne; il sui- 
voit peu les routes ordinaires, et Ton ne 
voit pas que dans ses voyages (excepte 
toujours son attrait pour les eaux mine- 
rales), il eut un objet plus determine qu'il 
n'en avoit en composant ses Essais. A 
peine a-t-il le pied en Italie qu'il paroit 
regretter l'Allemagne." 

- - - " Les deux premiers livres des Essais 
furent imprimes pour la premiere fois a Bor- 
deaux en 1580; ils parurent par consequent 
au moins quelques mois avant le voyage 
de Montaigne en Italie. Or, dans cette edi- 
tion de Bordeaux, il n'est fait aucune men- 
tion de ce Voyage d'ltalie. Mais, comme 
toutes les editions posterieures, depuis et 
compris la cinquieme, sont augmentees 
d'un troisieme livre, et d'environ 600 addi- 
tions faites aux deux premiers, on trouve 
parmi ces additions plusieurs faits relatifs 
a ce meme Voyage. Ils pourroient done 
embarrasser ceux qui, ne pouvant les faire 
cadrer avec la date des editions anterieures 
aux additions de Montaigne, ne sauroient 
pas que ces faits en font partie, et qu'il les 
a lui-meme inseres apres coup dans les 
deux premiers livres des Essais. 

" Mais ce qui rendra ce Journal in- 

teressant pour les lecteurs qui cherchent 
Phomme dans ses ecrits, e'est qu'il leur 
ferra beaucoup mieux connoifre Pauteur 
des Essais, que les Essais meme. Ceci 
doit paroitre un peu paradoxe ; allons a la 
preuve. Dans ces Essais, oil pourtant Mon- 
taigne parle tant et si souvent de lui-meme, 
son veritable caractere est noye sous la 
' multitude des traits que peuvent en former 
Pensemble, et qu'il n'est pas toujours aise 
de rapprocher exactement, ou de bien faire 
cadrer, comme par le moyen d'un verre 
optique on reunit les traits disperses dans 
toutes les parties de certains tableaux, pour 
qu'il en resulte une figure reguliere. Ce 



554 



INTRODUCTION. 



qui preuve que les Essais de Montaigne ne 
l'ont pas suffisamment fait connoitre, c'est 
la diversite des jugemens qu'on a portes 
de lui. Ici Ton ne voit plus l'ecrivain, non 
pas meme dans le moment le plus froid de 
la composition la moins meditee: c'est 
l'homme, c'est Montaigne lui-meme, sans 
dessein, sans aucun appret, livre a son im- 
pulsion naturelle, a sa maniere de penser 
spontanee, naive, aux mouvemens les plus 
soudains, les plus libres de son esprit, de sa 
volonte, &c. On le voit mieux que dans 
ses Essais, parce que c'est bien moins lui 
qui parle, qui rend temoinage de lui-meme, 
que les faits ecrits de sa main pour la de- 
charge de sa memoire, sans autre vue, 
sans la moindre idee d'ostentation pro- 
chaine, eloignee, presente ou future. Par- 
mi les faits de ce Journal qui donneront 
de l'auteur (et sur-tout de sa pbilosophie) 
une idee plus vraie que tous les jugemens 
qu'on en a portes, 1 nous nous bornons a 
celui-ci : 

"De tous les lieux d'ltalie dignes de at- 
tirer l'attention de Montaigne, celui qu'on 
pourroit le moins soupQonner qu'il eut ete 
curieux de voir, c'est Lorette : cependant 



i Mallebranche, entre autres. est un des pins mauvais 
juges de Montaigne. Un methodiste, un homme a systemes, 
ne devoit pas le trouver supportable. Ce philosophe Carte- 
sien, par une inconsequence a la fois formelle et reelle, 
s'etant toujours declare contre I'imagination, sa faculte do- 
minante (quoiqu'il en eut bien eprouve les surprises), ne 



lui qui n'etoit reste qu'un jour et demi tout 
au plus a Tivoli, passa pres de trois jours 
a Lorette. II est vrai qu'une partie de ce 
terns fut employe tant a faire construire un 
riche Ex voto compose de quatre figures 
d'argent, l'une de la Vierge (devant laquelle 
etoient a genoux les trois autres, la sienne, 
celle de sa femme, et celle de sa fille), qu' a 
solliciter pour son tableau une place qu'il 
n'obtint qu' avec beaucoup de faveur. II y 
fit de plus ses devotions ; ce qui surprendra 
peutetre encore plus que le Voyage et YEx 
voto meme. Si l'auteur de la 'Dissertation 
sur la Religion de Montaigne,' qui vient de 
paroitre, avoit lu le Journal que nous pub- 
lions, il en auroit tire les plus fortes preuves 
en faveur de son Christianisme, contre ceux 
qui croyent bien l'honorer en lui refusant 
toute religion : comme si, malgre son scep- 
ticisme, on n'appercevoit pas la sienne dans 
vingt endroits de ses Essais, et si sa con- 
stant aversion pour les sectes nouvelles 
n'en etoit point une preuve eclatante et 
nullement equivoque, ainsi que l'avoit bien 
remarque sa fille d'alliance, Mademoiselle 
de Gournay, la meilleure apologiste de 
Montaigne." 



pouvoit gueres gouter un homme qui en avoit autant que 
lui, mais qui en avoit fait un tout autre usage. On ne con- 
noi't done point assez Montaigne, parce qu'on ne l'a gueres 
juge que sur ce qu'il dit de lui-meme sur ses personnalites 
continuelles, et sur les traits vagues, indecis, formes de sa 
main. Son caractere phil<jsophique n'a point ete developpe. 



DIARY OF A JOURNEY, 

&c. 



[The first two or three pages of the manuscript are 

missing, having apparently been torn off a long time be- 
fore the work was discovered ; but after all the loss is not 
very considerable, as regards the journey itself. Montaigne 
left his chateau, 22nd July, 1580, as he tells us at the end 
of his journal, and stopped for some time at the camp of 
the Marshal Matignon, who was besieging the town of 
La Fere, on the part of the League ; a siege which lasted 
for six weeks, commencing at the end of July 1580, and 
the place surrendering 12th September. The Count de 
Grammont being killed at this siege, Montaigne, with 
other friends of that nobleman, conducted his body to 
Soissons (see Essays, book iii. c. 4,) ; and on the 5th Sep- 
tember he had only got to lieauinont-sur-Oise, whence he 
proceeded on his route for Lorraine. The hiatus, however, 
certainly leaves us in ignorance of the circumstances of 
his departure, of the adventure, and the name of the 
wounded count (perhaps wounded at the siege) whom 
Montaigne sent one of his brothers to visit ; and more- 
over, of the number and quality of his travelling compa- 
nions. Those whom the course of the journal introduces 
us to are : 1st, the Sieur de Mattecoulon.i who, during his 
residence at Rome, was engaged in a duel (as related in 
the Essays, book ii. c. 37) ; hat of whom no mention is 
made in the journal ; 2. M. d'Estissac, the son, in all pro- 
bability, of the Madame d'Estissac, to whom Montaigne 
addressed the eighth chapter of his second book ; 3. M. de 
Caselis, whom the party left at Padua ; 4. M. de Hautoy, 
a gentleman of Lorraine, who seems to have made the 
entire journey with Montaigne.] 

- - - Monsieur de Montaigne dispatched Mon- 
sieur deMattecoulon 1 post with the esquire to visit 
the count, and found that his wounds were not 
mortal. At Beaumont, 2 M. d'Estissac joined our 
party for the purpose of ma kino; the journey with 
us, accompanied by a gentleman, a valet-de- 
chambre, a sumpter-mule, and, on foot, a mule- 
teer and two lacqueys, amounting to the same 
number in all as our party, and who were to pay 
their half of the expenses. Monday, 5th of Sep- 
tember, 1580, we set out from Beaumont, after 
dinner, and went on, without stopping, to sup at 
Meaux, a small and pretty town, situated on 
the river Marne. It consists of three sections ; 
the town and the fauxbourg being- on this 
side the river, nearest Paris, and the third 
lying over the bridges. This latter, which is a 
very considerable place, and which they call 
the marche (market), is surrounded on all sides 



should have been brought all the way to St. Faron, to be 
buried. There was an Ogier de Charmontre, or Channon- 



by the river and a well-constructed fosse, and 
is thickly populated. This place was formerly 
well fortified with thick high walls and 
towers ; but in our second Huguenot troubles, 
on account of the majority of the inhabitants 
belonging to that party, all these fortifications 
were demolished. This district of the town 
once sustained the attack of the English, after 
the other parts had surrendered ; in recompense 
of which service, the Marche has ever since 
been exempt from taxes and other imposts. 
They show upon the river Marne an inlet of two 
or three hundred paces long, which, they say, 
was in the first instance merely a hillock thrown 
up by the English, from which to batter the 
Marche with their engines, but which has 
since, with the progress of time, become thus 
consolidated. In the fauxbourg we saw the 
abbey of Saint Faron, a very old building, 
where they show the apartments of Ogier the 
Dane. There is an ancient refectory, with long 
wide tables of stone, of an unusual size, extend- 
ing along each side and end, in the centre of 
which, before our civil wars, rose a fountain of 
water, which served for their repasts. The 
majority of the monks are men of some birth. 
Among other things there is an antique and 
once magnificent tomb, exhibiting the statues 
of two knights, in stone, of extraordinary size. 
They believe these to be the effigies of Ogier 
the Dane and some other Paladin. 3 There is 
neither inscription nor coat-of-arms, but merely 
a Latin sentence, one of the abbots placed on it 
about a hundred years ago, purporting that 
"Here two unknown heroes were buried." 
Among their reliques they show the bones of 
these knights. The arm-bone, from the shoulder 
to the elbow, is about the entire length of the 
arm of a man of the present time, ordinary mea- 
sure, or somewhat longer than M. de Mon- 
taigne's arm. They also show two of their 



tray, who gave all his possessions to the monastery of St. 
Faron, in 1085. and he is prolcibh the Ogier in question, if 
indeed there he anv i igier in the case. There is, however, 
in an old necrology of the monastery, this notice : •• (Jilio- 
lina, soror Ogerii le Itauois. conv.rs.-i " winch". 
as though this Paladin had some connexion with the place. 

(555) 



556 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



swords, which are about the length of our two- 
handed swords ; and are very much hacked all 
along the edge. 

At Meaux, M. de Montaigne wnnt to visit 
the treasurer of the church of St. Stephen, 1 by 
name Justus Terreille, well known among the 
savans of France; a little man, sixty years old, 
who has travelled in Egypt, been to Jerusalem, 
and resided seven years at Constantinople. He 
showed M. de Montaigne his library, and the 
rarities in his garden, amongst which we most 
particularly remarked a box-tree, spreading its 
branches in a circular form, and become, by 
training and cropping, so thick and round, that 
it appears like a massive polished ball, of the 
height of a man. 

From Meaux, where we dined in the morning, 
we went to sleep at 

Charly, seven leagues. Next day, Thursday 
morning, we went on to dine at 

Dormans, seven leagues. Next day, we went 
on to dine at 

Esprenei, 2 five leagues ; where being arrived, 
Messieurs d'Estissac and de Montaigne went to 
mass, as is their custom, in the church of Notre 
Dame ; and M. de Montaigne having observed 
on a former occasion, when M. the Marshal 
Strozzi was killed at the siege of Teonville, 3 
that his body was brought to this church, he 
inquired where he had been deposited, and 
found he had been buried there without any 
memorial, stone, arms, or epitaph, right against 
the high altar ; and we were told that the 
queen had caused him to be buried thus without 
pomp and ceremony, at the express wish of the 
Marshal himself. The Bishop of Renes, 4 a mem- 
ber of the family of Hanequins 5 of Paris, was 
at that time officiating in this church, of which 
he is abbot : for it was the day of the Festival 
of our Lady in September. M. de Montaigne, 
after mass, accosted M. Maldonat, 6 Jesuit, 
whose name is very famous for erudition in 
theology and philosophy. They had a long 
talk upon learned subjects, both then and after 
dinner at our lodging, where M. Maldonat 
came to visit us. And, among other things, 
M. Maldonat, who had just returned from the 
baths of Aspa, 7 at Liege, where he had been 
with M. de Nevers, told M. de Montaigne 
that the waters there are very cold, and that 
it Was considered the colder you could take 
them the better. Indeed, they are so cold that 
they make some of those who use them shiver 
and tremble ; and soon after, you feel a terrible 
pain in the stomach. He said that, for his 
portion, he had taken a hundred ounces ; for 
there are persons in attendance who furnish 



i The ancient cathedral, since placed under the patron- 
age of the Virgin. 

2 Epernay, in Champagne. 

» Theonville. 

* Rennes. 

s Hennequin. 

« Juan Maldonado, the learned Spanish Jesuit, author 
of some excellent commentaries on the Gospels; died at 
Rome, 1583. 



you with glasses which hold the exact quantity 
you wish to have. They are not only taken 
fasting, but also after eating. Their operation, 
as he described it, is like that of the waters of 
Guascogne. 8 As to himself, he said that he 
was struck with its effects, from noticing the 
hurt which it did not do him, though he drank 
it several times while in a state of extreme per- 
spiration and commotion of body. He had seen 
frogs and other little beasts which were thrown 
into it, die immediately from its effects ; and he 
said that a handkerchief, if stretched over a 
glass full of the water, will forthwith turn 
yellow. People take the waters for at least a 
fortnight or three weeks. The place has very 
excellent accommodations. The water is good 
against all sorts of obstruction and gravel : yet 
neither M. de Nevers nor he got much the 
better for it. He had with him a steward of 
M. de Nevers, and they gave M. de Montaigne 
a printed paper upon the subject of the dispute 
between Messieurs de Montpensier and de 
Nevers, 9 so that he might learn the facts of the 
matter, and be able to inform such gentlemen 
as might ask him about it. 

We set out hence, Friday morning, and 
came to 

Chaalons, 10 seven leagues. We put up at 
the Crown, an excellent hostelry, where you 
are served on plate, and most of the bed and 
other furniture is of silk. The common houses 
in all this part of the country are built of chalk, 
cut into square pieces of half a foot each, or 
thereabouts ; others are built of turf, of the 
same form. Next day, after dinner, we set off, 
and went to sleep at 

Vitry le Francois, seven leagues. This is a 
small town on the river Marne, built about 
thirty-five or forty years back, in place of the 
former Vitry, which was burnt. It retains its 
original well-proportioned and agreeable form, 
and its centre consists of one of the finest squares 
in France. We here learned three memorable 
things. The first, that Madame the duchess- 
dowager de Guise de Bourbon, 11 eighty-seven 
years old, was still alive, and could still walk a 
quarter of a league. The next, that an execu- 
tion had taken place a few days before, at a 
place called Montirandet, 12 in that neighbour- 
hood, upon this occasion : — Seven or eight girls 
round Chaumont en Bassigni agreed, some years 
before, to dress themselves up as men, and so to 
continue for the rest ef their lives. One of 
these came to Vitry, under the name of Mary, 
and gained her livelihood by weaving: she 
appeared a well-behaved young man, and every 
body liked her as such. She became betrothed 



'Spa. 

e Gascony. 

« It was about some point of parliamentary precedence, 
and was ultimately determined in favour of the Duke 
de Montpensier. 

i° Chalons sur Marne. 

"Antoinette de Bourbon, widow of Claude de Lorraine, 
first Duke of Guise, who died in 1550. The Jacobin Dore 
speaks of her as a saint. 

is Montier en-Der. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



T>7u 



at Vitry to a girl who is still alive, but, in con- 
sequence of some differences that arose between 
them, the match was broken off. Afterwards 
she went to Montirandet, still gaining her live- 
lihood at the same employment, and there she 
fell in love with, and married, a woman, with 
whom she lived four or five months, and gave 
her every satisfaction, 'tis said ; but at the end 
of that time, having been recognised by a person 
from Chaumont, and the thing being brought 
under the cognizance of justice, the husband 
was condemned to be hanged ; which she said 
she would rather endure than re-assume her 
female attire and habits. And she was accord- 
ingly hanged, on the charge of having, by un- 
lawful practices and inventions, supplied the 
defects of her sex. The third anecdote is of 
a man still living, named Germain, of humble 
condition, without trade or occupation, who 
was a woman up to the age of twenty-two, and 
only noticeable as such from having more hair 
about her chin than other girls, whence she was 
called Bearded Mary. One day, making an 
unusual effort in a leap, her virile utensils came 
out, and the Cardinal de Lenoncourt, at that 
time bishop of Chalons, gave her the name of 
Germain. He is not married. He has a large 
thick beard; but we could not see him, for he 
was at some neighbouring village. They have 
still in the place a song, common in the mouths 
of the girls, in which they advise one another 
not to stretch their legs too wide, lest they 
should become men, as Mary Germain did. 
They say that Ambrose Pare has inserted this 
story in his book on surgery. It was declared 
to M. de Montaigne to be absolutely true, by 
the chief officers of the town. Thence we set 
out, Sunday morning after breakfast, and went 
without stopping to 

Bar, nine leagues, where M. de Montaigne, 
who had been there before, found nothing new 
to remark, but the lavish expenditure that a pri- 
vate priest and dean of those parts, had gone to, 
and was still continuing daily, in the construc- 
tion of public works. He is called GiUes de 
Treves; he has built the most sumptuous mar- 
ble chapel, full of pictures and decorations, that 
is to be seen in France; and has built, and just 
finished furnishing, the finest private house also 
that is to be seen in France; the completest in 
structure, the most elaborately decorated and 
enriched, and the most commodious: this he 
intends for a college. He is now gilding and 
completing it at his own expense. From Bar, 
where we dined on Monday, we went to sleep at 

Mannese, four leagues, a little village where 
M. de Montaigne was obliged to stop, on ac- 
count of his cholic, which also occasioned him 
to abandon the desire he had formed of seeing 
Toul, Metz, Nancy, Jouinville, and St. Disier, 
towns scattered along this route, in order to get 



1 Anions others, several of the lords of the family of Du 
47* 



as soon as possible to Plommieres. 1 We left 
Mannese Tuesday morning, and went to dine at 

Vaucouleur, one league ; and then went along 
the river Meuse to a village named 

Donremy, 2 on the Meuse, three leagues from 
Vaucouleur, where was bum the famous Maid 
of Orleans, whose name was Joan d'Acq, 3 or 
d'Arcis. Her descendants were ennobled by 
the royal favour; and we were shown the arms 
which the king gave them, azure, a straight 
sword with a crown and handle of gold, and 
two fleurs-de-lis at the side of the sword ; of 
which a receiver of Vaucouleur gave M. de 
Caselis a painted copy. The front of the small 
house in which she was born is covered with 
representations of her different exploits; but 
time has greatly defaced the painting. There 
is also a tree with a vine up it, which is called 
'the Maid's tree,' but there is nothing else 
remarkable about it. We proceeded in the 
evening to sleep at 

Neufchasteau, five leagues, where in the 
church of the Cordeliers, there are a great 
many tombs, four or five hundred years old, of 
the nobility of the country, 4 all of the inscrip- 
tions on which begin in this way : " Cy git tel, 
qui fut mors lors que li milliaires courroit, per 
mil deux cens, &c." We saw their library, 
in which there are a great many books, but 
none of them rare; and a well, with very large 
buckets, which are worked up and down by the 
feet treading on a plank of wood, placed on a 
pivot, with which is connected a piece of round 
wood, to which the cord of the well is attached. 
M. de Montaigne had seen some of the same 
sort elsewhere. Close to the well is a large 
stone vessel, raised above the top of the well 
about five or six feet, which the bucket mounts 
up to, and by the same machinery empties 
itself into it, thus keeping it always full. 
This vessel is of such a height that from it, by 
means of leaden pipes, the water is conveyed 
to the refectory, kitchen, and bakehouse, where 
it rises in stone receptacles in the form of 
natural fountains. 

From Neufchasteau, where we breakfasted, 
we went on to sup at 

Mirecourt, six leagues, a pretty little town, 
where M. de Montaigne heard news of M. and 
Madame de Bourbon, who are in the neigh- 
bourhood. Next morning, after breakfast, he 
went to see, at a quarter of a league thence, 
out of the road, the nuns of Poussay. This is 
one of several religious houses, which have 
been established in this district, for the educa- 
tion of girls of good family. 5 Each has one 
hundred, two hundred, three hundred crowns 
a-year, some more, some less, for her mainte- 
nance, and separate apartments. Children at 
nurse are received. They are not vowed to 
virginity, except the officials, such as the abbess. 



Chainlet. Oni' of these noble? insisted upon being interred 
standing' upright in the hollow of a pillar, saying thai " no 
churl should ever walk Ot er his belly." 
' The others were at Keirnremont, I'.pinal, and Bouxieres. 



558 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



prioress, and others. They dress as they please, 
like other young ladies, except that they all 
wear a white veil on the head ; and in church, 
during service, a large mantle, which they 
leave in their places in the choir. All the 
nuns are at liberty to receive company, without 
any restraint, whether it be persons coming to 
solicit them in marriage, or ordinary visitors. 
Those who are inmates may give away or sell 
their benefice to whomsoever they will, pro- 
vided the new comer be of the requisite con- 
dition ; and there are certain noblemen of the 
province who have it in charge, and are bound 
by oath to ascertain clearly the family of the 
girls who are presented. There is nothing to 
hinder one person from having three or four 
benefices. The inmates perform the same re- 
ligious ceremonies as in other convents; and 
the greater part of them are found to finish 
their days there, and to decline changing their 
condition. Thence we went on to sup at 

Espine, 1 five leagues. This is a pretty little 
town, on the river Moselle, into which we 
were refused admission, on account of having 
been at Neufchasteau, where the plague was 
not long since. Next morning we went on 
to dine at 

Plommieres, four leagues. From Bar-le- 
Duc the leagues resume the measure of Gas- 
cony, and become longer and longer as they 
approach Germany, until they are double and 
treble what they are here. We arrived Friday, 
16th Sept. 1580, at two o'clock in the morning. 
This place is situated on the confines of Lor- 
raine and Germany, in a valley, between a 
number of high and precipitous hills, which 
closely environ it on all sides. At the bottom 
of this valley spring- several fountains, hot and 
cold. The water of the former has neither smell 
nor taste, and is as hot as one can possibly drink 
it, so that M. de Montaigne was obliged to pour 
it backwards and forwards, from one glass to 
another. There are only two springs the water 
of which is used. That which turns to the 
west, and produces the bath called the Queen's 
Bath, leaves in the mouth a sweet flavour, like 
liquorice ; without any after-taste, except that, 
as it seemed to M. de Montaigne, if you atten- 
tively notice, it smacks somewhat of iron. The 
other, which rises from the foot of the opposite 
mountain, of which M. de Montaigne only 
drank one day, is of a roughish taste, savouring 
of alum. The custom of the place is to use the 
baths only two or three times a day. Some 
take their meals in the bath, where also they 
have themselves cupped and scarified; they 
never take the bath till they have purged 
themselves. If they drink the water, 'tis a 
glass or two, while they are in the bath. They 
were much surprised at M. de Montaigne's 
method of taking it, who, without any pre- 
vious physicking, would drink nine glasses of it, 
making about a quart, every morning at seven 



Espinal, or Epinal. 



o'clock, and dined at twelve ; and the days that 
he bathed, which was every other day, it was 
at four o'clock, remaining in the bath only 
one hour. On these days he generally went 
without supper. We saw many men there who 
had been cured of ulcers and various eruptions. 
The custom is to be there at least a month. 
The favourite season is the spring, in May. 
They seldom take the waters after August, on 
account of the coldness of the climate; but 
we still found company there, the dry, warm 
weather having lasted longer than usual. 
Among others, M. de Montaigne contracted an 
intimate friendship with the Seigneur dAn- 
delot, of Franche-Compte, whose father was 
grand equerry to the Emperor Charles V., and 
who himself had been first field-marshal in the 
army of Don John of Austria, and was made go- 
vernor of Saint Quentin, when we lost it. One 
part of his beard was white, and one of his eye- 
brows; and he told M. de Montaigne that this 
change had come upon him all in an instant, 
one day that he was sitting at home full of 
grief at the death of a brother of his, whom the 
Duke of Alva had put to death as an accom- 
plice of the Counts Eguemont and Homes ; 2 
that he had been leaning his head on his hand, 
at the place where the hair was now white, 
and that when he rose, those who were with 
him thought the changed colour was flour, 
which by some chance had fallen on those 
parts. It had remained so ever since. These 
baths were formerly frequented by the Germans 
only; but, for several years past, people from 
Franche-Compte and France have come here 
in crowds. There are several bath-rooms; 
with a principal one, a large building, con- 
structed in an oval form, after the antique. 
It is thirty-five paces long, and fifteen wide. 
The hot water rises from underneath by several 
springs, and cold water flows in from above, to 
moderate the heat, according to the wish of those 
who are taking it. The seats or boxes are 
divided off along the sides by poles, suspended 
in the manner of those by which horses are 
kept apart in our stables : the place is boarded 
over, to ward off the sun and the rain. All round 
the inside of the bath there are four degrees of 
stone steps, rising the same way as in a theatre, 
whereon the bathers can sit or lean. The 
greatest decorum is observed: the men, how- 
ever, bathe quite naked, with the exception of 
a slight pair of drawers, and the women with 
the exception of a shift. We lodged at the 
Angel, which is the best inn, inasmuch as it is 
equally near both baths. Our whole suite of 
apartments, though we had several rooms, 
cost only fifteen-pence a-day. The landlords 
at all the places supply wood into the bargain; 
but the country about is so full of it that it only 
costs the cutting. The landladies are excellent 
cooks. In the full season this lodging would 
have cost a crown a day, and cheap too: the 



Egmont and Horn. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



559 



feed of the horses is three-pence a day, and all 
other charges are equally reasonable. The 
rooms are not very handsome, but they are 
exceedingly convenient ; for, by means of a 
great number of passages, each chamber is 
independent of the others. The wine and bread 
are bad. The people here are a worthy set : 
frank, sensible, and attentive. All the laws of 
the country are religiously observed. Every 
year they renew on a tablet, before the great 
bath, in the German and French languages, 
the following rules and regulations : — 

"Claude de Rynach, Knight, Seigneur of 
St. Balesmont, Montureulz en Ferrette, Lcnda- 
court, &c, Counsellor and Chamberlain of our 
sovereign Lord, Monseigneur the Duke, and 
his Bailli for the Vosges : 

" Be it known, that for the peace and quiet of 
sundry ladies and other notable personages, 
assembling from various regions and countries 
to these baths of Plommieres, we have, pur- 
suant to the command of his Highness, insti- 
tuted and ordained, and do institute and ordain, 
as follows ; 

" Be it known that the correction of minor 
offences will remain in the hands of the Ger- 
mans, as of old ; to whom is enjoined the caus- 
ing to be observed the ceremonies, statutes, and 
rules in use for the maintenance of the said 
baths, and the punishment of the offences com- 
mitted by people of their nation, without excep- 
tion of persons, and without making use of any 
blasphemous or irreverent language against 
the Catholic Church and belief. 

" All persons, of whatever quality, condi- 
tion, district, province, or country they may be, 
are forbidden to make use of injurious language, 
tending to excite quarrelling ; or to bear arms 
at the said baths ; or to give the lie, or to have 
recourse to arms, under penalty of being se- 
verely punished, as infringers of the ducal 
guarantee, and as rebels to his Highness. 

" All prostitutes and immodest girls are for- 
bidden to enter the said baths, or to approach 
the same within five hundred paces, under 
penalty of being whipped at the four corners of 
the said baths; and of imprisonment and arbi- 
trary fine, for the persons who shall have 
received or harboured them. 

"Under the same penalty, all persons are 
forbidden to use towards the ladies and all fe- 
males generally, frequenting the said baths, 
any lascivious or immodest language ; to touch 
their persons indecorously ; or to enter or quit 
the said baths in any manner offensive to public 
propriety. 

"And because, by the virtue of the said 
baths, God and nature operate various cures 
and remedies, and that it is essential to main- 
tain purity and cleanliness, in order to prevent 
various contagions and infections that might 
there arise, it is expressly ordered that the mas- 
ter of the said baths shall take great care and 
examine all those who enter the baths night or 



day, and shall preserve modesty and silence 
there during the night, without noise, scandal, 
or derision. And if any person shall disobey 
this regulation, the master of the said baths is 
commanded to convey such person immediately 
before the magistrate, and have exemplary 
punishment inflicted upon him. 

" Finally, it is forbidden, to all persons corn- 
ing from infected places, to enter or approach 
Plommieres on pain of death ; and all mayors 
and officers are enjoined to take strict heed to 
this; and all inhabitants of the said place are 
ordered to send into us certificates stating the 
names and surnames, and ordinary residence of 
the persons whom they have received into their 
houses, under penalty of imprisonment. 

"All which ordinances above declared have 
been this day made public before the Grand 
Bath of the said Plommieres, and copies of 
them affixed in the German and French lan- 
guages, on the nearest and most conspicuous 
place to the Grand Bath, and signed by us, 
Bailly de Vosges. Given at the said Plom- 
mieres, the 4th day of May, in the year of 
Peace and our Lord, 1580. 

" Claude de Rynach." 

We stopped at this place from the 18th to 
the 27th of September. M. de Montaigne 
drank the water eleven mornings ; on eight 
of these mornings he drank nine glasses, and 
on three mornings seven glasses ; he bathed 
five times. He found the water easy enough 
to take, and always passed it before dinner. 
He found no other effect in it than in causing 
urine. His appetite was good : and his sleep, 
digestion, and whole ordinary condition, were 
in no way impaired by it. On the sixth day 
he had an unusually severe attack of cholic, 
and he had it in his right side, where he had 
never felt the pain before, except once at Arsac, 
and then very slight, without any result. This 
attack lasted four hours ; and, during its opera- 
tion, he clearly felt the straining of the stone 
through the ureters. The two first days he was 
here, he passed two little stones that were in the 
bladder, and afterwards, at intervals, gravel. 
But he left the baths in the opinion that he still 
had in the bladder the stone which occasioned 
the above-mentioned cholic, and some other little 
stones of which he had felt the descent. He 
conceived the effect of these waters, and their 
quality, as regarded himself, to be very like 
that of the high fountain at the Batli of Ba- 
nieres. As to the water here, he found it very 
mild ; indeed, children of a year or six months 
old are commonly to be seen paddling about in 
it. His perspiration was full, but gentle. He 
commanded me, at the request of the hostess, — 
it is a custom of that country, — to present her 
with a copy of his arms on wood, which a 
painter of the place executed for a crown ; and 
the hostess had it carefully fixed on the wall of 
her house, outside. September 27th, alter din- 
ner, we left Plommieres, and passed over a 



560 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



mountainous country, which resounded under 
our horses' feet as though we were riding over 
hollow ground, and made a noise like drums 
beating. We got to supper at 

Remiremont, two leagues, a pretty little 
town, where we found excellent lodging at the 
Unicorn ; indeed, all the towns of Lorraine (of 
which this is the last) have better lodging and 
accommodation in their inns than is to be found 
in France. Here is a famous convent, of the 
same description with that of Poussai. The 
nuns claim, against M. de Lorraine, the sove- 
reignty and principality of this town. Messrs. 
D'Estissac and de Montaigne proceeded to 
the convent immediately after their arrival ; 
and went over several of the private suites of 
apartments, which are very handsome and well 
furnished. Their abbess was lately dead (a lady 
of the house of D'Inteville), and they were 
about electing another, the candidate being the 
sister of the Count de Salmes. They went to 
see the Doyenne, a lady of the house of Lutre, 1 
who had done M. de Montaigne the honour of 
sending to enquire after him at Plommieres, and 
had there forwarded him a present of arti- 
chokes and partridges, and a barrel of wine. 
They learnt here that several neighbouring 
villages hold of the convent by a tenure of two 
basons of snow every Pentecost-day, or, in de- 
fault of that, of a waggon drawn by four white 
oxen : but they said that the rent of snow had 
never failed to be paid, though at the time we 
were there, the heat was as great as it is in 
Gascony in the height of summer. They 
wear a white veil on the head, with an edging 
of crape. Their robe is black (of whatever 
material and fashion they please), while they 
are in the convent; elsewhere they may wear 
colours ; for petticoats, what they please : thin 
shoes and clogs: under their veils they dress 
their hair in the usual manner. To be admitted 
nuns here, they must be noble by four descents, 
both on the father's and on the mother's side. 
M. de Montaigne took leave of the ladies in 
the evening. Next morning, at day-break, we 
set out. Just as we had mounted our horses, 
the Doyenne sent a gentleman to M. de Mon- 
taigne, requesting him to come to her, which 
he did. This detained us an hour. The object 
of the ladies was to entrust M. de Montaigne 
with the management of their affairs at Rome, a 
commission which he accepted. On leaving this 
place, we rode for some time through a beauti- 
ful and pleasant valley, along the banks of the 
Moselle, and got by dinner-time to 

Bossan, 2 four leagues, a dirty little village, 
the last place on this route, where the French 



1 Ludre. 

» Bussang, Bussan. 

»Thann. 

* Mulhaus. 

s John Casimir, son of Louis, Elector and Count Pala- 
tine, who led the German troops into France to the assist- 
ance of the Huguenots, in 1507, in the time of Charles IX. 
There must be some error in the text of this anecdote, for 



language is spoken. Here Messrs. d'Estissac 
and de Montaigne, putting on linen smock- 
frocks, which were lent them for the purpose, 
went to see the silver-mines that M. de Lorraine 
has here, two thousand paces under the earth. 
After dinner we proceeded along the mountains, 
where we were shown, among other things, 
upon inaccessible rocks, the nests where they 
take goss-hawks (which cost here only three 
nobles of the country money), and the source 
of the Moselle. We got to supper at 

Tane, 3 four leagues, the first town of Ger- 
many, subject to the emperor, and a very pretty 
place. Next morning, we proceeded along a 
wide and beautiful plain, bordered on the left 
by gentle undulations, covered with vineyards 
of the finest and most cultivated description, 
and of such extent that our Gascons said they 
never saw anything like them. The vintage 
was in full operation. We got by dinner- 
time to 

Melhouse, 4 two leagues, a pretty little Swiss 
town, canton of Basle. M. de Montaigne went 
to see the church, for they are not Catholics 
here. He found it, as well as the other churches 
throughout the country, of a handsome form. 
Indeed, nothing has been changed, with the 
exception that the images have been removed, 
and the altars changed. He had infinite 
pleasure in observing the freedom and good 
government of this nation ; and in remarking 
that his host of the Grapes, on his return 
from the town-council, held in a magnificent, 
richly gilded palace, where he had acted as 
president, waited upon his guests in person at 
dinner; there was another man, without any 
train or authority in the place, and who filled 
the guests' glasses as they needed it, who yet 
had led four companies of foot into France, 
under Casimir, 5 against the king, and had re- 
ceived a pension from the king of three hundred 
crowns a year, for more than twenty years. 

This gentleman gave M. de Montaigne, as 
he was waiting upon him at table, an account of 
his life and condition, without any setting off 
or affectation. He said, among other things, 
that his countrymen have no hesitation, not- 
withstanding their religion, in serving the king 
against the Huguenots themselves ; and this 
several others said, as we went along ; and we 
were told that at our siege of La Fere, there 
were more than fifty of the men of this town 
in the service of the Catholics. They mentioned 
that they marry indifferently women of our 
persuasion and of their own, and do not seek 
to make their Catholic wives change their 
religion. From this place, after dinner, we 



it seems that this worthy Swiss had been a pensioner of 
the King for more than twenty years ; so that it does not 
appear very probable he would have so little regarded hiB 
interests as to have led troops against his paymaster. The 
paragraph which follows, makes it pretty clear that he had 
led troops against Casimir and the Huguenots. Three 
hundred crowns a year, too, seems a large pension for such 
a person in those days ; but thus M. de Montaigne, or hi« 
secretary, tells the tale. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



561 



proceeded through a fine, open, fertile country* 
thickly studded with pretty villages and inns, 
and came to sleep at 

Basle, three leagues; a handsome town, 
about the size of Blois, divided into two parts 
by the Rein, 1 which is here crossed by a wide 
wooden bridge. The municipality did Messrs. 
d'Estissac and de Montaigne the honour of 
sending them some wine by one of their officers, 
who made them a long harangue while they 
were at table, to which M. de Montaigne re- 
plied, also at considerable length, both parties 
remaining uncovered, in presence of several 
Germans and French, who were staying in 
the inn. The host served as interpreter. The 
wines of this district are very good. A remark- 
able thing we noticed here was the house of 
a, physician, named Felix Platerus, the most 
elaborately decorated in the French fashion 
that was ever seen; it is, besides, lofty and 
large, and sumptuously fitted up. Among other 
things he has a book of simples, which he has 
nearly completed ; and whereas others merely 
paint the different herbs according to their 
colours, he has found out a way of pasting the 
plants themselves on the paper, so naturally and 
completely that the smallest leaves and fibres 
are clearly to be seen, and he fixes them so 
closely that no part of them ever escapes ; he 
showed us some simples which had been fixed 
there more than twenty years ago. We also 
saw, both at his house and in the public school, 
some entire skeletons of men, standing upright. 
There *is this peculiarity about their clock, the 
town clock, not the one in the fauxbourg, that 
it always strikes the hours an hour before the 
real time; that is to say, when it strikes ten, 
the real time is only nine; and they told us that 
the reason why they keep up this custom is, 
that once upon a time the clock's accidentally 
striking an hour wrong in this way, saved their 
town from an assault which had been planned 
against it. Basilee is so called, not from the 
Greek word, but because base signifies passage 
in German. We here saw a great many literati, 
such as Grineus, 2 and the author of the The- 
atrum? and the above named physician (Pla- 
terus), and Francis Hottoman. 4 These two last 
came to sup with Messieurs the day after their 
arrival. M. de Montaigne fancied that they 
were not very well agreed amongst themselves 
as to their religion, from the answers he re- 
ceived : some calling themselves Zuinglians, 
others Calvinists, and others Martinists; 5 and 
he was informed that many persons among 
them are still Roman Catholics at heart. The 
form of administering the sacrament is a com- 
\ nion matter of conversation; every one sets his 
hand to it that will, and the ministers do not 



venture to remove this chord of the differences 
among the religions. The church -yard is 
full of images and old tombs, quite perfect, 
on which prayers are carved for the souls of 
the dead; the organs, the bells, the crosses at 
the top of the belfries, and all the paintings 
on the windows, remain entire, as well as 
the benches and seats in the choir. They 
have placed the baptismal fonts in the place 
where the high altar used to stand, and have 
raised another altar at the head of the nave. 
The church of the Chartreux, which is a very 
handsome edifice, is carefully preserved and kept 
up. Even the ornaments and furniture remain as 
before, which the people of the new faith men- 
tion in proof of their good faith, they having 
obliged themselves thereto by the promise they 
gave when they came to an agreement. The 
bishop of the place, who is very hostile to the 
new faith, resides outside the town, within his 
diocese, where he still keeps up the old forms, 
for persons of our communion. The members 
of the ancient religion possess about 50,000 
livres a year in the town, and continue to elect 
the bishop. Several of the inhabitants com- 
plained to M. de Montaigne of the dissolute 
habits of the women, and the drunkenness of 
the men. We saw a poor man's child cut for 
umbilical hernia, and it appeared to us that he 
was very roughly treated by the surgeon. We 
visited a very fine public library they have on 
the banks of the river, charmingly situated. 
We stayed here a whole day ; and next day, 
after dinner, resumed our journey, proceeding 
along the banks of the Rhine for about two 
leagues, and then turning off to the left, 
through a rich and fertile country. They have 
an infinite abundance of fountains throughout 
the country; there is no village or cross-road 
where you do not find one, generally large and 
handsome ; and at Basle, they say, there are 
more than three hundred. They are so fond 
of balconies, even towards Lorraine, that in 
every house, where these are not already con- 
structed, they have between all the windows of 
the upper rooms, doors opening upon the street, 
so that at some future day they may make bal- 
conies for these to lead to. In all this part of 
the country, from Espinal, even the smallest 
cottages have glass windows, and the larger 
houses derive, both externally and internally, 
a great accession of ornament and agreeable- 
ness, from being amply provided with these 
glass windows, the frames of which are cu- 
riously elaborated. They have plenty of mate- 
rials, and good workmen, to enable them to do 
this; and herein they have greatly the advan- 
tage over us. Moreover, in every church, 
however small, they have a handsome clock 



i Rhine. 

- Simon Grinteus, author of an Enromion Medecina. 
printi-c! at Hash; in l.W-J; and of an edition of the Treatises 
of AphrodisaMis and Damascenus on Fevers. 

3 There are several works under this title, so that we do 
not know to whom reference is here made. 



« Francis Hotman, the celebrated Jurisconsult, whom hit 
pupils saved from t lie massacre of Saint liarlholomew, anil 
who then retired to Geneva, and afterwards to Bale, where 
he died in 151)0. He is consider. .1 (o he the author of the 
celebrated brochure naainst the house of Lorraine, entitled 
Jlu Tigre.— See the Memoirs of Reznicr de la l'lanehe. 

» That is to say, Lutherans, from Martin Luther. 



562 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



and sun-dial. They are also skilled in the 
manufacture of tiles; their houses are covered 
with these, soldered with lead, in a variety 
of forms; and their rooms are floored with 
the same material. Nothing can be more 
cleanly than their stoves, which are of earthen- 
ware. The wood which they principally use 
is deal, and their carpenters are exceeding 
good workmen. Even their casks are all 
more or less carved, and are mostly painted 
and varnished. Their common dining-rooms 
are generally large and well-furnished ; you 
often meet with five or six tables in a room, 
each provided with benches, at which all the 
inmates and guests dine together, so many at 
each table. The smallest inns have two or 
three such rooms, well fitted up, and lighted 
by windows. It would seem, however, that 
they pay more attention to their eating-rooms 
than to anything else, for the bed-chambers are 
very indifferent. There are curtains to the 
beds, and you have always three or four beds 
in a room, standing side by side ; there are no 
chimneys, and you can find no place to warm 
yourself at but the common stove: you hear 
no news of fire anywhere else ; and 'tis a great 
offence tor you to go into the kitchen. They 
are very ill-provided everywhere with what we 
consider bed-camber necessaries : he is a lucky 
man who can get hold of a white sheet; and 
what sheets there are never cover the bolster ; 
indeed, the most ordinary covering is a sort of 
thin feather-bed, and that very dirty. How- 
ever, they are very excellent cooks, especially 
in the article of fish. Their rooms have no 
defence against the damp or wind but the glass 
windows, which are quite unprovided with 
shutters : there are air-holes in every corner of 
every room ; and as to the windows, they are 
seldom closed, even at night. Their fashions 
at table are quite different from ours; they 
never mix water with their wine, wherein they 
are very much in the right; for their wines 
are so thin that our gentlemen thought them 
even weaker than those of Gascony when 
watered, and yet they have an agreeable 
flavour, The servants dine at the same table 
with the masters, or at an adjoining table, at 
the same time with them ; for one servant is 
sufficient to attend to a large table, seeing that 
every person, having his goblet or cup of silver 
placed at his right hand, the attendant has 
only to fill it as soon as it is empty, without 
moving it, the wine being kept in a pewter 
or wooden vessel, with a long beak ; and as to 
the eatables, they only serve up two or three 
dishes on a great tray. They mix several sorts 
of meats together exceedingly well, but in a 
manner very different from ours; sometimes they 
put the different dishes on the table one above 
the other, on iron stands with long legs, one 
sort of meat being put on one branch of the 
stand, and another under it. Their tables, of 
which some are round, and some square, are 
very large, so that the servant would have 



some difficulty in placing the dishes separately; 
but he can easily remove the stand at once, 
and bring another; and this is done six or 
seven times, for one course is never introduced 
till that before it is removed. As to the plates, 
before they bring in the dessert, they place in 
the middle of the room, as soon as the last dish 
is taken away, a large basket of wicker-work, 
or painted wood, into which the guests throw 
their plates, the principal person present throw- 
ing his plate first, and the others succeeding 
him in due order, for in this particular they 
are very tenacious of the observance of rank. 
This basket being removed, the servant places 
the dessert on table, all together in two dishes ; 
they introduce radishes here, as they do baked 
pears, with the meat. Among other things, 
they hold the crawfish in especial esteem, and 
always have a dish of them at table, which 
dish has a cover over it as a mark of parti- 
cular honour ; and as a further distinction, the 
guests hand it to one another, a thing that they 
hardly ever do with any other article. There 
is plenty of this fish to be had, and it is eaten 
every day, yet it is nevertheless regarded as 
a luxury. They do not give you water to 
wash your hands with, before or after meals; 
but every one, at his pleasure, makes use of a 
small washing-stand, that is always to be 
found in the corner of the room, as in our 
monasteries. Most of the utensils, whether 
for dining-room or bedchamber use, are made 
of wood, polished to the utmost degree of 
smoothness and cleanliness. Some place pew- 
ter plates upon these wooden ones, at dinner, 
till the dessert is served ; and then only the 
wooden plates are left. They keep the ceilings 
and floors of their rooms, and all their furni- 
ture in the highest order and polish. Their 
beds are so high that you generally have to 
mount up to them by steps ; and almost every 
where there are small beds, placed at the side 
of the large ones. As they are excellent work- 
men in iron, most of their spits turn upon 
springs, or by means of weights, as in clock- 
work; though some are turned by a sort of 
wooden sails, large and light, placed in the 
funnel of their chimneys, and worked by the 
draught and smoke. They roast their meat 
gently and very much, and, indeed, dry it up 
somewhat too much. These windmills, how- 
ever, are only met with in the large inns, 
where they keep up a great fire, as at Baden. 
Their motion is uniform and continuous. The 
generality of the chimneys from Lorraine, be- 
sides, are different from ours: they rise from 
the hearth, in the middle or corner of the 
kitchen, and occupy almost the entire breadth 
of the kitchen, at the bottom, where there is 
a great opening of five or six square feet wide, 
which goes narrowing itself up to the top of 
the house: this gives sufficient room for them 
to fix their large sail, which with us would 
occupy so mucli of the funnel as to block up 
the passage of the smoke. The least meals 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



occupy three or four hours ; for they eat more 
slowly, and in a more wholesome manner, than 
we do. They have an abundance of all sorts 
of provisions, and cover the tables in the most 
profuse manner; at least, we found it so. On 
Friday they do not help you to meat; and they 
say they never eat it on that day, if they can 
help it. The prices are about the same as in 
France, round Paris. The horses are supplied 
with more oats than they can eat. We went 
on to sleep at 

Homes, four leagues ; a small village in the 
duchy of Austria. Next day, being Sunday, 
we heard mass; and I remarked that the women 
keep all on the left side of the church, and 
the men on the right, without intermingling. 
They have several rows of cross-benches, one 
above another, of a proper height for sitting 
upon. The women kneel upon these, and not 
on the ground, so they look as though they 
were standing; besides these, the men have 
wooden rails to lean against, and seats like 
the women's, on which they kneel. Instead of 
joining hands in prayer to God, as we do, at 
the elevation of the Host, they stretch them out 
wide apart, and keep them thus extended while 
the priest exhibits the pax. They placed 
Messrs. d'Estissac and de Montaigne on the 
third bench among the men ; and those above 
them were afterwards occupied by men of infe- 
rior appearance, as was the case on the women's 
benches. It seemed to us that the first rows 
were not esteemed the most honourable. The 
interpreter and guide we had engaged at Basle, 
a sworn messenger of the town, came to mass 
with us, and in his way exhibited every mani- 
festation of devotion and zeal. After dinner, 
we passed the river Arat 1 at Broug, 2 a small 
town belonging to Messieurs of Berne, and 
thence went to see an abbey, that Queen 
Catherine of Hungary gave to the seigneury 
of Berne in the year 1524, and in which are 
buried Leopold, archduke of Austria, and a 
great number of gentlemen who were defeated 
with him by the Swiss in 1386. Their arms 
and names are still legible on their tombs, and 
their remains are carefully preserved. M. de 
Montaigne spoke to a gentleman of Berne who 
has the command here, and who showed us 
every thing that was to be seen. In this abbey 3 
there are loaves of bread and basins of soup 
always kept ready for any traveller who may 
apply for them, and never has any person been 
refused this aid, which is a part of the institu- 
tion of the abbey itself. Thence we went over 
in the ferry-boat, which, by moans of an iron 
pulley attached to a high cord, crosses the river 
Reix 4 (flowing from the lake of Lucerne), and 
came to 

Baden, four leagues, a small town, with a 



suburb, in the latter of which are the baths. It 
is a Catholic town, under the protection of the 
eight cantons of Switzerland. Here several 
important ro'yal congresses have taken place. 
We did not lodge in the town itself, but at the 
Bath, which is situated quite at the bottom of 
the mountain, along a river, or torrent rather, 
called Limacq, 5 which takes its course from the 
lake of Zurich. There are two or three public 
Baths, open at the top, of which only the poor 
people make use. The others, of which there 
are a great number, are enclosed in houses, 
where again they are divided off into small 
private baths, open or closed-in, let out with 
the apartments which each respectively adjoins. 
These baths are most comfortably fitted up, and 
there are separate pipes of hot water for every 
one of them. The houses are very handsome, 
and are kept up on a grand scale. In that 
where we lodged, there have been, in one day, 
three hundred mouths to provide for. There 
was still a good deal of company when we 
arrived, so much so that a hundred and seventy 
beds were required for the guests. There are 
eleven kitchens, with seventeen stoves, and in 
a house adjoining ours, they have fifty sets of 
rooms completely fitted' up, The walls of the 
houses are all covered with the arms of the 
gentlemen who at different times have lodged 
in them. The other town, on the brow of the 
hill, is a small but pretty place, as indeed most 
of the towns in these parts are. For, besides 
that they make their streets wider and more 
open than ours, their squares larger, and have 
all their windows richly glazed, they have this 
fashion, almost every where, of painting their 
houses on the outside, and covering them with 
coats-of-arms and other devices, which has a 
very pretty effect; and further, there is no 
town amongst them wherein you do not find 
several large fountains, ornamentally con- 
structed of stone or wood, and forming a pro- 
minent feature in the cross-ways. These various 
circumstances make their towns appear much 
prettier than those of France. The water of 
the baths gives out a sulphureous smell, like 
those of Aigues-caudes 6 and others. The heat 
is moderate, like those of Barbotan 7 or Aigues- 
caudes, and the baths are consequently very 
mild and agreeable. Those who have under 
their charge ladies who wish to bathe with pri- 
vacy and delicacy, will do well to bring them 
here, where every lady has a bath to herself, 
handsomely fitted up as a dressing-room, light 
and airy, with rich windows, painted wainscot- 
ing and ceiling, and polished floors, and pro- 
vided with chairs and small tables, on which 
you may read or play while in the bath. The 
bathers can lay on, or empty off, the water, 
just as they like; and there are apartments 



■> The Eteuss. 

The Limath. 

» Hot mineral watrrsonthp mountain ofOssau 

1 Hot mineral waters in Armagnae. 



564 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



adjoining each bath, with long galleries to 
walk in. The strolls along the river side are 
very pleasant. The sides of the lofty hills, 
which overlook the valley in which these baths 
stand, are, for the most part, fertile and well 
cultivated. The water for drinking is flat and 
insipid, with a sulphureous flavour, and a 
somewhat acid and sharp taste. The people of 
this part of the country principally use this 
bath, in which they have themselves so unmer- 
cifully cupped and bled that I have sometimes 
seen the two public baths almost full of blood. 
Those who drink the waters generally take one 
glass only, never more than two. People 
usually stop here five or six weeks, and there 
is company nearly all the summer. With few 
exceptions, the only persons who frequent these 
baths are Germans, who come here in great 
crowds. The baths are of very ancient use; 
they are mentioned by Tacitus. 1 M. de Mon- 
taigne made every possible endeavour to ascer- 
tain the primary source of these baths, but he 
could learn nothing about it ; it would appear, 
however, that all the springs lie very low, and 
almost on a level with the bed of the river. 
The water is not so clear as others we have 
seen elsewhere; and they make use, while 
drawing it up, of a minute net-work, to clear 
it. It does not sparkle as other sulphureous 
waters, those of Spa, for instance, according to 
the Seigneur Ma.ldonat, do, when poured into 
a glass. M. de Montaigne, the morning after 
we arrived, which was Monday, drank seven 
small glasses of this water, making, in all, 
more than a third of a pint; next morning he 
drank five large glasses, which held more than 
ten of the small, and might be about a pint. 
The same day, at nine in the morning, while the 
rest of the company were at dinner, he went 
into the bath, and perspired a good deal. He 
only remained in it half an hour ; but while 
he was there, he lay stretched at his full 
length, the water coming up to his neck; 
whereas the people of the country, who remain 
in the water sometimes nearly the whole day, 
playing or drinking, have the water only up to 
their middle. This day there left the baths a 
Swiss lord, a faithful subject of our crown, who 
had greatly entertained M. de Montaigne all 
the preceding day with conversation respecting 
the affairs of Switzerland ; and had shown him 
a letter which the ambassador of France, 2 son 
of the President du Harlay (Achilles), had 
written him from Solurre, 3 where he is at pre- 
sent, recommending him to watch carefully 
over the interests of the king during his absence, 
he having been sent for by the queen 4 to meet 
her at Lyons, and assist her in counteracting 
the designs of Spain and Savoy. The Duke 
of Savoy, 5 who had just died, had made an 



1 Hist. i. 67. "Locus amoeno salubrhtm aquarum usu 
frequens." 

a Harlai de Sanci, friend of Henry [V., at that time King 
of Navarre. 

3 Soleure. 



alliance a year or two ago with some of the 
cantons: this the king had openly resisted, 
alleging that they, having already bound them- 
selves to him, were not in a condition to enter 
into any new obligations without his concur- 
rence; which some of the cantons had been 
induced to admit, by the intervention of this 
same Swiss gentleman, and had accordingly 
declined to adopt the alliance. It is certain 
that in all these parts the people received the 
name of the king with respect and friendship, 
and they everywhere showed us all possible 
courtesy. The Spaniards are in very bad 
odour here. The train of this Swiss consisted 
of four horses. His son, who is already a 
pensionary of the king's, was mounted on one ; 
a valet on another; his daughter, a tall, fine 
girl, upon a third, with cloth housings, and a 
stirrup in the French fashion, carrying a port- 
manteau behind her, and a cap-box at the 
saddle-bow. She had no female attendant 
with her, though they were two long days' 
journey from their home, which is in a town 
of which this gentleman is governor. He 
himself was on the fourth horse. The ordi- 
nary dress of the women here appeared to me 
as neat and becoming as that of our own, 
even the head-dress, which consists of a cap 
a la cognarde, turning up behind, and in front, 
over the forehead, a slight prominence. This 
is ornamented all round with tufts of silk, or 
fur-edging; and the hair hangs down behind, 
in large plaits. If you take off their cap in 
sport, for it is not fastened any more than ours, 
they are not angry, though it shows you all 
the fronts of their heads quite bare. The 
younger girls, instead of caps, merely wear a 
band round their heads. There is no great 
distinction of dress between the different ranks. 
The mode of salutation is to kiss your hand 
to them, and offer to touch theirs; as to any 
other mode, if in passing by, you make them 
no end of bows and congees, the majority 
of them do not stir a bit, or proffer any return 
of your civility ; they have their own way, and 
it is a very ancient one. Some, indeed, incline 
the head slightly, by way of returning your 
salute, but 'tis rarely done. The women are 
generally tall and handsome, with fair com- 
plexions. They are a kind-hearted people, espe- 
cially to those who conform to their fashions. 
M. de Montaigne, in order thoroughly to un- 
derstand the diversity of manners and customs, 
allowed himself, in every place he visited, to be 
waited upon after the particular fashion of that 
place, however troublesome it might appear to 
him at the time, or however different from 
what he had been accustomed to. In Switzer- 
land, however, he suffered, he said, no incon- 
venience from this plan of his, except from the 



« The Queen-Mother, Catherine de Medicis. Thetiueen- 
Consort, Louise de Lorraine (wife of Henry HI.), who wafl 
called La Rcinr. Vir.rgc, though living at the time, took no 
part in state affairs. 

<> Emmanuei-Philibert died 30th August, 1580. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



565 



circumstance that at table they only have a 
small cloth of half a foot square for a napkin, 
which cloth the Swiss do not even unfold at 
dinner, though they serve up a great variety of 
sauces and soups. They always, however, place 
as many wooden spoons, with silver handles, 
as there are guests, and no Swiss is ever with- 
out a knife, which he uses in taking up every 
thing; and it is very seldom that they put their 
hands to their plates. The gates of almost all 
their towns bear, above the private arms of the 
town, those of the emperor and of the house of 
Austria, though, in fact, the majority of these 
towns have seceded from the archduke, in conse- 
quence of the mismanagement of that house. They 
say here that all the members of the house of 
Austria,excepting the Catholic king, are reduced 
to great poverty, especially the emperor, who 
is held in but very low esteem in Germany. 
The water that M. de Montaigne drank on 
Tuesday caused him three stools, and he had 
voided it all before mid -day. Wednesday 
morning, he took the same quantity as the day 
before. He finds that, when he perspires in the 
bath, he voids much less urine the next day, 
retaining much longer the water he has taken, 
and he experienced this also at Plommieres. 
The water that he took, the second day, was 
coloured, and greatly lessened in quantity when 
he voided it; whence he judged that it had 
turned into aliment, and he took this to be 
owing, either to the evacuation of the perspira- 
tion previously, or to his fasting; for when he 
bathed he only took one meal. This was the 
reason why he only bathed once. On Wednes- 
day, his landlord bought a very large quantity 
of fish; and when M. de Montaigne asked him 
why he did so, he replied that the great majority 
of the people at Baden ate fish on Wednesdays 
out of a religious feeling: which confirmed 
what Monsieur de Montaigne had heard before, 
that those who there hold the Catholic faith are 
made the more strict and devotional by the 
existence of the rival religion. He argued in 
this way : " that when confusion and admixture 
arise in the same towns, and are sown in one 
same system of government, this relaxes the 
affections of men, the mixture descending down 
to individuals, as is the case in Auspourg ' and 
imperial towns; but when a town has but 
one unmixed system of government (for the 
Swiss towns have each its separate laws and 
government, apart and independent, in this 
respect, one of another; their union and cohe- 
rence applying only to certain general condi- 
tions), tlie towns which form a separate state 
and civil body, each in itself; have wherewith 
to fortify and maintain themselves; they stand 
firm in themselves, and become more united 
and more firmly embodied, from the very shock 
of the neighbouring contagion." We soon be- 
came so accustomed to the heat of their stoves 
that none of us felt any inconvenience from it. 
For, indeed, after you have once swallowed a 



i Augsburg. 

49 



mouthful of the new atmosphere, which you 
are sensible of just at the moment of entering 
a room where one of the stoves stands, you 
experience nothing afterwards but a gentle and 
equable warmth. M. de Montaigne, who slept 
in a room with a stove in it, was greatly pleased 
with the effect, enjoying throughout the night 
an agreeable and temperate degree of warmth. 
At all events, you do not burn either your face 
or your boots, and you are free from the smoke 
that annoys you in France. While we in 
France put on warm furred morning-gowns, 
when we come home, the people here, on the 
contrary, take off their coats altogether, and 
always go bareheaded when in-doors, wrapping 
themselves up only when they go out. On 
Thursday M. de Montaigne drank the same 
quantity ; the water operated in both ways, 
and he voided gravel, though not in any great 
quantity. He found these waters more active 
than others he had tried, whether it was 
owing to the strength of the water itself, 
or whether his state of body was more adapted 
for it now ; however this may be, he drank 
les3 than he had done of any of the others, and 
it came from him far better digested. To-day 
he got into conversation with a minister of 
Zurich, a native of that place, who had just 
arrived ; and he found that their first reformed 
religion had been Zuinglian: from which they 
had approximated to that of Calvin, a somewhat 
milder form. When this minister was asked 
about predestination, he replied that they them- 
selves held a mean between Geneva and Au- 
gusta, 2 but that they did not embarrass their 
flocks with the dispute. In his own particular 
judgment, he rather inclined to the extreme 
doctrines of Zuinglius; of which he proceeded 
to make a high eulogium, saying he considered 
them to approach the nearest to the primitive 
Christianity. Friday, after breakfast, at seven 
o'clock in the morning, the 7th of October, we 
left Baden ; before we set off, M. de Montaigne 
took his prescribed dose of the waters, thus 
making it five times that he had used them. 
Without speaking decidedly as to their opera- 
tion, in which, however, he sees as much occa- 
sion for hope as in any others he has taken, 
both as to the external and the internal appli- 
cation, he would recommend these baths fully 
as much as any of those he has already visited. 
The place itself is agreeable, and the accom- 
modations for visitors are very excellent, each 
person being able to take the baths in the man- 
ner he likes best, and in the way best suited 
to his means, the different baths and the apart- 
ments attached to them being quite independent 
of each other, and of all dimensions, some 
small and some large; and there are separate 
galleries, baths, dressing-rooms, sitting-rooms, 
bed-chambers, and chapels, for separate parties. 
Both the house adjoining ours, which is called 
La Cour de la Yille, and our own, which is 
known as La Cour de derriire, are public 

' Augsburg (AuguBla Vindelicorum). 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



establishments belonging to the Seigneury of 
the Cantons, and are let out to lodgers. In the 
adjoining house they have some chimneys in the 
French fashion. All the principal chambers 
have stoves. The charges are somewhat arbi- 
trary ; as, indeed, is the case in most countries, 
especially our own, towards strangers. Four 
chambers, furnished with nine beds, in two of 
whicli there were stoves and a bath, cost us a 
crown a day for each of the masters ; and four 
batz a day, which is rather more than nine- 
pence, for each of the servants ; the horses cost 
six batz a day ; but besides these charges, they 
added a variety of little pilferings and trickster- 
ings, which is not usually the custom with these 
people. They have guards in all their towns, 
and even in these Baths, though merely a vil- 
lage. Every night two patrols go the rounds, 
taking notice of every house, not so much to 
guard them from external enemies as to provide 
against fire or internal commotion. When the 
clock strikes, one of these sentinels has to call 
out, at the pitch of his voice, to the other, and 
ask him what the hour is ; and the other has to 
answer, in as loud a key, what o'clock it is, 
adding " All 's well." The women here wash 
out of doors, in the street, having a small 
wood fire near them, on which they heat their 
water; they get up the linen much better 
than you have it done for you in the inns 
in France. Every servant in the inns here 
has a particular department. One very great 
misfortune is that, however you exert your- 
self, it is impossible to extract from the 
people of the country, unless you happen by 
great good chance to light upon somebody 
with a head very much better furnished than 
the ordinary run of them, any sort of informa- 
tion as to what is worth seeing in each place; 
they do not understand what you mean by the 
question. For instance, we had been here five 
days, making every possible inquiry, yet we 
did not bear a word of what we ourselves saw 
the first thing on leaving the town : a stone, of 
the height of a man, apparently the remains 
of some pillar, though without any carving or 
work about it, standing at the corner of a 
house, abutting on the high-road, on which 
was a Latin inscription, which l 1 could not 
make out beyond this, that it is a dedication to 
the emperors Nerva and Trajan. We passed 
the Rhine at the Catholic town of Keyserstoul, 
an ally of Switzerland ; and then went along 
the river side through a flat but pretty country, 
till we came to the falls, where the water dashes 
against rocks, and these they call the cataracts, 
as they do the falls of the Nile. Just below 
Schaffhouse, the stream goes over a bed of large 
rocks, which break it up; and below this, 
among these same rocks, it comes to a descent, 
of about two pikes' length down, over which 
it dashes, foaming and making an amazing 



i Montaiine himself is here speakine. The reader will 
constantly notice this confusion of persons, in the secre- 
tary's portion of the journey. 



hubbub. This stops the boats, and of course 
interrupts the navigation of the river. We 
went on, without baiting, till we got by supper 
time to 

Schaffhouse, four leagues, the capital town of 
one of those Swiss cantons which hold the reli- 
gious faith I have mentioned above, that of 
Zurich. Leaving Baden, we had left Zurich 
on the right; M. de Montaigne had intended 
visiting it, as it was only two leagues off, but 
he was informed that the plague was there. 
At Schaffhouse we saw nothing remarkable. 
They are engaged in building a citadel for it, 
which will" be a tolerably fine one. There is a 
public ground maintained, for practising cross- 
bow shooting, provided with seats, galleries, 
and rooms, with shady walks, and excellently 
fitted up in all respects ; and there is a similar 
place, for hacquebut 2 shooting. There are 
water-mills for sawing wood, of which we had 
noticed several elsewhere, and others to pound 
flax and millet. There is also here a tree, 
similar to some we had seen at Baden and 
other places; but not so large. The lowest 
branches are made use of to form the floor of a 
round gallery of twenty feet in diameter. The 
ends of these branches are then bent upwards, 
and trained as high as possible, to form the 
sides of the gallery. The branches above these 
are cut away, up to the height which they wish 
to give the gallery, about ten feet. Then they 
take the branches growing above this, and 
train them over wicker-work, to form the roof 
of the gallery, and the ends of these branches 
are turned down, to join the ascending branches, 
and thus the whole gallery is encircled with 
a verdant wall. After this, they cut off all the 
remaining branches of the tree, until just before 
they reach the top, where they leave the tuft- 
branches to luxuriate as they please. The tree 
thus arranged has a very pretty effect. At the 
bottom of the tree is constructed a fountain, 
whose waters spout up to a height level with 
the floor of the gallery. M. de Montaigne 
paid a visit to the burgomasters of the town, 
who afterwards returned him the compliment, 
by coming, attended by other public officers, to 
sup at our lodgings, and made a present of some 
wine to him and to M. d'Estissac. Several 
very ceremonious harangues passed between 
the parties. The principal burgomaster was a 
gentleman, who had been bred up as a page 
with the late M. d'Orleans, 3 but he had already 
forgotten all his French. This canton professes 
to be very faithful to us, and indeed has given 
this recent proof of it, that it refused, in our 
favour, the confederation which the late Duke 
of Savoy sought to negociate with the cantons, 
of which I made mention before. Saturday, 
8th of October, we left Schaffhouse, at eight 
o'clock in the morning, after breakfast, having 
found very good lodgings there at the Crown. 



2 Arqnebuss. 

3 Charles, elder brother of Henry II., first Duke of Angoij. 
leine, and then Duke of Orleans, died 9th September, 1545. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



567 



A literary man residing here hud that morning 
a conversation with M. de Montaigne, and 
among other things, told him that, in reality, 
the inhabitants of that town were very indif- 
ferently affected towards our court ; so that, in 
all the public deliberations which had been 
held respecting the alliance with the king, the 
majority of the people were, in every instance, 
desirous of breaking it off, but, by the influence 
of some of the richer class, the final determi- 
nation was otherwise. As we were leaving the 
town, we saw an iron machine, similar to some 
we had seen elsewhere, by which large stones 
are raised, without the intervention of physical 
labour, and placed in wagons. We proceeded 
along the Rhine, which lay on our right, till 
we came to Stain, 1 a small town in alliance 
with the Cantons, and holding the same religion 
as Schaff house. On the road we passed a great 
many stone crosses. We re-crossed the Rhine 
over another wooden bridge ; and, travelling 
along the banks of the river, which now ran on 
our left, we went through another little town, 2 
also an ally of the Catholic Cantons. The Rhine 
here spreads out to a great width, as our Ga- 
ronne does at Blaye, and then narrows again 
till you come to 

Constance, four leagues, where we arrived at 
about four o'clock. This is a town of the size 
of Chalons, belonging to the Archduke of 
Austria, and is Catholic. It having been for- 
merly, and, indeed, within the last thirty years, 
possessed by the Lutherans, who were forcibly 
dislodged from it by the emperor Charles V. ; 
the churches still give evidence of their pre- 
sence, in respect to the images. The bishop, 
who is a native of the country, and a cardinal, 
living at Rome, derives a revenue of full forty 
thousand crowns from this see. There are 
canonries, in the church of Notre Dame, which 
are wortli fifteen hundred florins a-year, and 
are held by lay gentlemen. We saw one of 
these on horseback, coming out to take the 
air, gallantly equipped in the military style. 
They say there are a great many Lu- 
therans in the town. We ascended the bell- 
tower, which is very lofty, and found there a 
man placed as sentinel, who never leaves the 
place, whatever occasion he may have, and 
indeed is a prisoner there. They are construct- 
ing, at the side of the river, a large covered 
building, fifty paces long and forty wide, or 
thereabout; here they are going to put twelve 
or fifteen large wheels, by means of which they 
will be able constantly to raise an immense 
quantity of water to a platform above, whence 
a similar machinery will again raise it to an- 
other platform still higher; and the water, thus 
raised to a height of altogether about fifty feet, 
will discharge itself into a large artificial canal, 
by which it will be carried into the town, and 
there turn several mills. The engineer who 
constructed this build inor had five thousand 



seven hundred florins paid him for his own 
share, besides being supplied with wine. At 
the bottom of the river they are sinking some 
solid works, for the purpose of breaking the 
force of the current, so that the water may in 
this sort of reservoir become quiet, and they be 
able to draw it up the more easily. They are 
also constructing some engines, by means of 
which the whole of the machinery may be 
raised or lowered, according as the river is high 
or low. The Rhine here no longer retains its 
name ; for at the head of the town it becomes 
a lake, four German leagues wide and five or 
six long. There is a fine terrace looking over 
this large piece of water, where they land the 
goods: and at fifty paces from the lake, a 
pretty house, where a sentinel is constantly 
stationed. Attached to this house is a chain, 
by means of which they close the entrance to 
what is used as the port, a part of the lake 
enclosed by a quantity of piles, within which 
the boats and vessels that come here are moored, 
and load and unload their cargoes. In the 
church of Notre Dame there is a spring 
which is carried over the Rhine in pipes into 
the fauxbourg. It was easy to perceive that 
we were leaving Switzerland, for just before 
we arrived at this town we saw several 
gentlemen's seats, on both sides of the road, 
which are very rarely to be seen in the Can- 
tons; though, as to other private houses, 
these are, both in town and country, all 
along the route we had come, without com- 
parison, finer than they are in France ; all they 
want is slates. The inns, too, are excellent, 
for we had everywhere found far better accom- 
modation, in almost every respect, than in 
France : as to those points in which, ac- 
cording to our notions, they were deficient, 
this was from no want of means on their part, 
as was quite manifest from the abundance of 
other things: you can hardly call that a poor 
country, where most of the people you meet 
with drink out of large silver cups, generally 
worked and gilt; they are deficient in these 
points, simply because 'tis not their custom to 
have them. The country is very productive, 
especially in vines. To return to Constance : 
we were very ill lodged at the Eagle: and we 
experienced in the landlord a singular instance 
of the almost barbarian license and assumption 
of the German character. The affair arose out 
of a quarrel of one of our footmen with our 
guide from Basle. The dispute was carried 
before the judges, to whom the parties thought 
proper to appeal ; and the provost of the place, 
who is an Italian, but who long since settled as 
a free burgess, and married here, in reply to M. 
de Montaigne, who asked whether his servants, 
who knew something of the matter, could be 
heard as witnesses in our favour, said they 
could, provided he previously discharged them 
from his service ; which he would do, as there 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



was nothing to prevent his taking them back 
again immediately afterwards. This struck ns as 
a remarkably subtle touch. Next day, Sunday, 
on account of this dispute, we stopped till after 
dinner, but changed our lodgings to the Pike, 
where we got on very well. The son of the 
commandant of the town, who was bred up as 
a page in the household of M. de Meru, 1 always 
attended our gentlemen at their meals and 
elsewhere ; yet he knew not one word of 
French. The dinners consist of a great 
many courses. Even after the cloth is re- 
moved, they served up, here and afterwards, 
fresh courses with the wine : first, what the 
Gascons call canaules ,• then gingerbread ; and, 
thirdly, a sponge cake, cut into slices, though 
not taken to pieces; between the slices 
there is a quantity of spices and salt, and 
the whole is covered with a crust. There are 
a great number of hospitals for lepers through- 
out the country, and you are constantly meeting 
on the road poor devils afflicted with this 
malady. The country people give their ser- 
vants for breakfast a thick flat cake, with fennel 
in it, covered with bits of bacon, minced very 
small, and heads of garlic. Amongst the Ger- 
mans, when they wish to show you respect, 
they go to your left, wherever you may be; 
they think it matter of offence to take the right 
hand, for they say that deference to a man 
requires you should give his right hand free 
access to his sword. Sunday, after dinner, we 
left Constance, and, passing the lake at a mile 
from the town, 2 came to sleep at 

Smardoff, 3 two leagues; a small Catholic 
town, where we lodged at the Coulogne, 4 the 
posting-house which the Emperor uses when 
he travels from Italy into Germany, or back. 
Here, as in several other places, they fill the 
mattrasses with the leaves of a certain tree, 5 
which answers the purpose better than straw, 
and lasts longer. This town is surrounded 
with large districts of vineyards, which produce 
excellent wines. Monday, 10th of October, we 
set off after breakfast; for M. de Montaigne 
was tempted, by the fineness of the weather, to 
change his plan of going to Ravesbourg 6 that 
day, and turned aside a day's journey to visit 
Linde. 7 M. de Montaigne himself never ate 
breakfast ; but he had brought a piece of dry 
bread, which he took on the road, moistening 
it with grapes, which he picked as he went 
along, the vintage not being over, and the 
whole country being covered with vines. 
Around Linde they, raise the vines on trellis- 
work, and thus make a number of verdant 
walks through the grounds, which have a very 
pretty effect. We passed a place named Bou- 
chorn, 8 an imperial and Catholic town, on the 



i Charles de Montmorenci, afterwards Duke of Anville 
and Admiral of France, son of the Constable Anne de 
Montmorenci. 

3 Before Morsburg. 

a Markdorf. 

• The Cologne Inn. 



banks of the lake of Constance ; whither all 
the merchandize from Oulme, 9 Nuremberg, 
and other places, is brought in waggons, and 
thence taken down the Rhine, through the 
lake. We arrived, at about three o'clock in 
the afternoon, at 

Linde, three leagues ; a small town, standing 
in the lake, at about a hundred paces from the 
shore, which hundred paces you traverse over 
a stone bridge ; there is only this entrance, all 
the rest of the town being surrounded by the 
lake. It is a full league in extent. Behind 
the lake rise the mountains of the Grisons. The 
waters of this lake, and of all the rivers here- 
about, are low in winter and high in summer ; 
the effect of the snow melting in the latter 
season. In all this part of the country, the 
women wear fur hats or caps, like our calottes: 
the outside is of a better sort of fur, generally 
that of the weazel, and such a bonnet costs only 
three testons; 10 the inside is made of lambs'- 
wool. The opening which we have in. front of 
our caps they have behind, and through it they 
pass all their hair, plaited. They usually wear 
red or white boots, which are becoming enough. 
Both religions are practised here. We went to 
see the Catholic church, which, though built in 
the year 866, is in complete preservation and 
order; and we saw also the church where 
the ministers of the other faith perform their 
service. All the imperial towns are permitted 
to exercise two religions, the Catholic and the 
Lutheran; and the inhabitants of each place 
favour the one or the other, entirely according 
to their inclinations and opinions. At Linde 
there are but two or three Catholics, as the 
priest told M. de Montaigne. The Catholic 
clergy, however, continue to receive their re- 
Venues freely, and to perform the service, as 
also do some nuns that are here. Monsieur de 
Montaigne also spoke to the minister, of whom 
he learnt no great deal, indeed little more than 
the common hatred against Zuinglius and 
Calvin. They say that there are few towns 
which have not some peculiar features in their 
belief; and, while generally under the autho- 
rity of Martin, 11 whom they recognise as their 
chief, they get up an infinity of disputes as to 
the interpretation of his writings. We lodged 
at the Crown, a very fine house. Attached to 
the ceiling there was a wooden cage, large 
enough to hold a great many birds, with a 
number of little lanes, made of wire, running 
from it the whole length of the ceiling, where 
the birds were able to exercise themselves as 
much as they liked. The only wood they use, 
either for furniture or wainscoting, is that of 
the fir, the principal tree that grows in their 
forests; but they paint and varnish this up to 



6 Those of Indian or Turkey corn. 

8 Ravenspurg. 

t Lindau. 

s Buckhorn, also called Friedrichschafen. 

a Ulm. 

io A silver coin, worth about Is. Gd. 
u Luther. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



very great perfection, and take a vast deal of 
pains to keep it clean; they have fine hair- 
brushes, with which they dust their benches 
and tables. They grow a great abundance of 
cabbage, which they cut up very small, with 
an instrument they have expressly for that 
purpose; and when it is thus cut up they put 
a quantity of it into tubs with salt, and of this 
they make a dish all the winter round. 1 Here 
M. de Montaigne tried the experiment of cover- 
ing himself in bed with a feather-bed, as is the 
custom of the country; and he liked the fashion 
very much, finding this sort of covering both 
warm and light. In his opinion, there is 
nothing to complain of here, except, perhaps, 
that a person of weakly constitution, or effemi- 
nate habits, might not fancy their beds; but, 
by bringing with them a mattrass, an article not 
known here, and a curtain, they would remove 
this objection. As to eating and drinking, 
they give you a host of things, and diversify 
their courses with all sorts of soups, meats, 
sauces, salads, and so on, very far beyond what 
we do in France. We had one soup made with 
quinces, and another with roasted apples, cut in 
slices into the soup, and cabbage-salads. They 
make also a sort of soup, sometimes with rice, 
sometimes with other things, which all the 
guests help themselves to in common (indeed, 
there is no course served for any guests in par- 
ticular;) and this especially was of such ex- 
cellent flavour in the better houses we lodged 
at, that we doubted whether the kitchens even 
of the French nobility could furnish anything 
comparable to it. And certainly there are few 
houses amongst us which have the dining-rooms 
so well fitted up. They have a great abund- 
ance of fish, which they serve up with the 
meat; they think nothing of trout, and only 
eat the liver. They have plenty of game, 
woodcocks, hares, and so on, which they dress 
in a manner very different from ours, but at 
the least quite as good. We never tasted meat 
so tender as it is generally here. They send 
up stewed prunes, and pear and apple tarts, 
with the meat; sometimes they serve up the 
meat first and the soup afterwards, and some- 
times the soup first and the meat afterwards. 
The only dessert they have is pears, apples 
(which they grow of excellent sorts), nuts, and 
cheese. Together with the meat, they place 
on the table a vessel of silver, or pewter, with 
four compartments, containing different sorts of 
pounded sweetmeats. Their bread is for the 
most part made with fennel, and they mix with 
it cummin, or some other seed of the same kind, 
to give it a sharp, hot taste. After dinner 
they place on the table glasses full of different 
sorts of drinks, so that each person may satisfy 
his thirst with the beverage he likes best. Mons. 
de Montaigne found occasion to be vexed at 
three tilings in the course of hia journey: first, 



that he had not brought with him a cook, who 
might learn their mode of dressing different 
articles, and one day at home give our friends 
proofs of their excellence in this respect ; se- 
condly, that he had not in the outset engaged 
j a German valet, or had not obtained the compa- 
nionship of some gentleman of the country (for 
to live at the mercy of a blockhead of a guide 
he found to be an amazing inconvenience); and, 
thirdly, that, before he set out on the journey, 
he had not read such books as would have 
pointed out to him what were the rare and 
noticeable features in each place he was going 
to, or that he had not brought with him a 
Munster, 2 or some other such book. It is true 
that, in his judgment upon the things he saw, 
he might have mixed up somewhat of an acri- 
monious contempt for his own country, which 
he holds in hatred and distaste for other causes; 
but, however this might be, it is certain that he 
preferred what he found in this country infi- 
nitely beyond what he had left behind him in 
France ; and he so entirely conformed himself 
to their customs and manners as to drink his 
wine without water. He never drank, how- 
ever, more than he had been used to do, nor 
was he ever invited thereto, except as a matter 
of courtesy and kindliness, and then he was 
not pressed. Things are dearer in Upper Ger- 
many than they are in France; so much so, 
that of our party each horse and man cost a 
sun-crown a-day. The landlords, in the first 
place, charged us four, five, or six batz each 
tor each of the two principal meals at the table 
d'hote ; and they make a separate charge for 
all you drink before and after these two meals, 
and for the least draught you take in the inter- 
vals, so that the Germans generally set out in 
the mornings from their inns without drinking 
any thing at all. Whatever you take after the 
two chief meals, and whatever wine you drink, 
between whiles, which among these people con- 
stitute the principal item of expense, is put down 
to the account of lunch. But, indeed, when I 
consider the liberality with which they provide 
every thing at their tubles d'hote, especially 
wine, even where it is dearest and has to be 
brought from a great distance, I can very well 
excuse the high rate of their charges. The 
hosts themselves invite the servants to drink, 
and keep their guests at table for two or three 
hours. Their wine is served up in large pitchers, 
and it is matter of offence for any one to let his 
goblet remain long empty ; nor will they allow 
any person to mix water with his wine, unless 
in particular cases, where the party desiring to 
do so is one held in very great respect. They 
have also a separate charge for the oats for the 
horses, and another for stable-expenses, which 
include hay. There is this good point about 
them, that they tell you at once what their 
charge is, neither more nor less; and you 



i This is the dish wliicli the Germans now call saur- " That is to sny, The Cosmography of Sebastian Munsttr, 
trout. surnameil the Strabo of Germany, 



570 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



get any thing by haggling with them. 
They are vain, choleric, and given to drinking ; 
but, as M. de Montaigne remarked, neither 
traitors nor thieves. We set out from this place 
after breakfast, and got, at about two in (he 
afternoon, to 

Vanguen, 1 two leagues, where we had to 
stop, in consequence of our great luggage- 
box breaking; and we were ultimately obliged 
to hire a wagon for the next day, at three 
crowns a-day, the wagoner providing four 
horses and keeping himself for that sum. 
This is a small imperial town, which has never 
received any other religion into it than the 
Catholic. Here are made those scythes which 
are so famous that they send them for sale even 
so far as Lorraine. We left this place the next 
day, Wednesday, 12th of October, in the morn- 
ing, and turned oft" short towards Trante, 2 along 
the most direct and usual road, and got by 
dinner time to 

Isne, 5 two leagues, a small imperial town, 
very pleasantly situated. M. de Montaigne, 
according to his custom, immediately went and 
found out a divine of this town, in order to pick 
up what news he could from him, and this 
gentleman dined with Messieurs. He learned 
that all the people here are Lutherans, and he 
saw the Lutheran church, which, like all those 
they have in the imperial towns, has usurped 
one of the Catholic churches. Among other 
topics which they touched upon was the sacra- 
ment, and M. de Montaigne mentioned that 
some Calvinists had told him, on his way, that 
the Lutherans mixed up with the original doc- 
trines of Martin several adventitious errors, 
such as ubiquitism ; maintaining that the body 
of Jesus Christ is everywhere, as in the Host; 
thus falling into the same difficulty with Zuin- 
glius, though in a different way: the one by 
being too sparing of the presence of the body, 
the other by being too lavish of it (for by this 
account the sacrament has no privilege over the 
body of the church, or a convocation of three 
elders; and he added that their principal ar- 
guments were, first, that the divinity, being 
inseparable from the body, and the divinity 
being everywhere, the body must consequently 
be 'everywhere also: secondly, that Jesus Christ, 
being always at the right hand of God, he is 
everywhere, inasmuch as the right hand of 
God, who is power, is everywhere. 4 The doctor 
loudly denied this imputation, and sought to 
defend himself from it as from a calumny; but 
M. de Montaigne thought that he made out 
but a poor case. He then went with M. de 
Montaigne to visit a very fine and richly deco- 
rated monastery, where they were performing 
mass; and he entered and waited during the 
service, without taking off his cap, until Mes- 
sieurs de Montaigne and d'Estissac had finished 



i Wangen. 

2 Trent. 3 Isni. 

* The reader had need be a deep theologian to understand 
this galimatias. 



their devotions. They then went down to a 
cellar under the abbey, to see a long, round 
stone, without any work about it, which seemed 
to have been part of a pillar, and on which 
in old Latin characters, was an inscription, 
purporting that the emperors Pertinax and 
Antoninus had repaired the roads and bridges 
for eleven thousand paces 5 from Campidonum, 
which was the ancient name of Kempten, 
where we were going to sleep. This stone, it 
was thought, might have been placed at this 
spot, as marking a stage of the road so mended ; 
for as to the town of Isne, they say it is not 
very ancient; but when we came to examine 
the roads towards Kempten, on all sides, 
besides that there is no bridge at all, we did 
not discover any appearance of road-making or 
mending, at all worthy of such workmen. There 
are, indeed, some excavations in the hills, but 
these present nothing remarkable. 

Kempten, three leagues; a town as big as 
Sainte-Foy, populous, well situated, and very 
pretty. We went to the Bear, an excellent 
house. They served up at table large silver 
cups, of various patterns, richly chased and 
emblazoned with the coats-of-arras of different 
gentlemen, such as you rarely meet with even 
in the best houses. They were placed on the 
table merely for ornament. Here was afforded 
an instance of what M. de Montaigne said 
elsewhere ; that what these people omit of our 
fashions and customs is owing, not to their 
poverty, but to their different notions; for 
though they have plenty of pewter dishes and 
plates, scoured in the same way as at Mon- 
taigne, they never make use of any other than 
wooden plates, prettily fashioned and highly 
polished. On all the seats in this part of the 
country they place cushions, and most of their 
wainscotted ceilings are slightly arched, which 
produces a graceful effect. As to the linen, of 
which we complained in the outset, we have 
since had no fault to find with it ; and for my 
master, 6 1 have always succeeded in procuring 
wherewith to make him curtains for his bed. 
If one napkin was not enough for him, they 
changed it as often as he wished. In this 
town there is a merchant who does a busi- 
ness of a hundred thousand florins in linen. 
M. de Montaigne, on leaving Constance, would 
have visited that canton of Switzerland, 7 which 
furnishes all Christendom with linen, had it not 
been that, to return thence to Linde, he should 
have had a four or five hours' passage over the 
lake. This town is Lutheran; yet, strangely 
enough, here, as well as at Isne, the Catholic 
church has its services solemnly performed 
in the regular form; for the morning after 
we arrived, on a Thursday, though a week- 
day, mass was performed at the abbey outside 
the town, just as it is celebrated at Notre Dame 



5 A pace, among the Romans, was a measure of five feet. 
This makes it evident that our author's secretary was 
[domestic servant, probably his valet-de-chanibre. 
' St. Gall. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



571 



at Paris, at Easter, with music and singing, 
though the monks only were present. The 
people, except in the principal towns, have not 
been permitted to change their religion, and 
they still go on Sundays "and holidays to attend 
this service. The abbey I speak of is a very 
fine one. The abbot holds it in principality, 
and derives from it an income of 50,000 florins. 
He is a member of the family of D'Estain. 1 
All the monks must be of the rank of gentle- 
men. Hildegarde, wife of Charlemagne, who 
founded the abbey in 783. is buried here, and 
deemed a saint. Her bones have been taken 
from the cell where they used to lie, and placed 
in a shrine. The same morning M. de Mon- 
taigne went to the Lutheran church, which was 
like the other churches of the Huguenot sect, 
except that at the altar, which stands at the 
head of the church, there are some wooden 
benches, with rails to lean the elbows on, 
where those who take the sacrament may kneel 
as they always do. He found here two aged 
ministers, one of whom was preaching in Ger- 
man to a smallish congregation. When he 
had finished, they sang a psalm in German, in 
a somewhat different way from that in use 
amongst us. After each verse a fine organ, 
which seemed to have been just built, played a 
response. Whenever the minister named Jesus 
Christ, both he and the congregation took off 
their caps. After this, the other minister went 
and placed himself at the altar, facing the 
people, with a book in his hand ; a young 
woman, her head uncovered and her hair loose, 
then advanced towards him, and making a 
slight courtesy, in the fashion of the country, 
stood still. In about another minute a young 
man, apparently a mechanic, with a sword at 
his side, came and placed himself by the woman. 
The minister, having whispered some words in 
their ear, commanded every person present to 
say the paternoster, and then proceeded to read 
out of a book certain rules for the guidance of 
persons marrying; finally, he caused them to 
touch each other's hand, but without kissing. 
This ceremony over, the minister left the altar, 
and M. de Montaigne went up to him, and had 
a long conversation. He took M. de Mon- 
taigne with him to his house, into his study, 
which is a handsome one, and well fitted 
up. His name, he said, was Johannes Tilia- 
nus, Augustanus. 1 M. de Montaigne asked 
him for a new confession, which the Lutherans 
have drawn up, and which all the learned men 
and princes who support that faith have signed, 
but it is not in Latin. As they were leaving 
the church, a party with violins and tabors 
came from the other side of the street, to escort 
the new-married people. To the question: — 
"Whether they permitted dancing!" the 
minister replied: "Why not?" To another 
question : " Why on the windows, and in the 
decorations of the new organ, they had painted 



representations of Jesus Christ and other scrip- 
tural subjects?" he replied: "That they did 
not prohibit images which were merely for the 
purpose of instructing men; all they forbade 
was the worshipping of them." To the rejoinder, 
" Why, then, they had removed the old images 
from the churches," he replied: "That it was 
not they who had done so; but that their 
worthy disciples, the Zuinglians, incited by the 
evil spirit, had committed this outrage, as well 
as several others; " which was the same reply 
that others of the same profession had already 
made M. de Montaigne ; and, in particular, 
the divine at Isne, who, when he was asked, 
" Whether he hated the figure and emblem of 
the cross ? " exclaimed : " How ! do you ima- 
gine me such an atheist as to hate an emblem 
so dear and glorifying to all Christian souls ? " 
adding: "that such a thing would be per- 
fectly diabolical." The same person declared 
very roundly, when at dinner, that he would 
rather hear a hundred masses, than participate 
in one of Calvin's sacraments. At this place 
we had white hares served up. The town is 
seated on the river Isler. 3 We dined there on 
the Thursday, and afterwards proceeded, through 
a hilly and sterile country, to sleep at 

Frienten, four leagues; a small village, 
which, like all the rest of this part of the 
country, belonging to the Archduke of Aus- 
tria, is Catholic. I forgot to mention, under 
the head of Linde, that at the entrance to that 
town there are considerable remains of a wall, 
which manifests an advanced antiquity, but on 
which I perceived no inscription. I understand 
that the name of the place signifies in German 
an old wall, and they tell me the name is taken 
from this wall. Friday morning, though we 
were in a very indifferent inn, we did not fail 
to find plenty of provisions. These people never 
air either their sheets when they go to bed, or 
their linen when they get up ; and they are 
vastly offended if you light a fire in their kit- 
chens for this purpose, or even make use of the 
fire already lighted ; this was one of the most 
fruitful occasions of quarrelling and disputation 
that we experienced. Here, though in the 
midst of mountains and forests, where ten thou- 
sand feet of fir do not cost fifty pence, they 
would not let us have a fire, any more than 
they would elsewhere. Friday morning we left 
this place, and took the easiest road, which lay 
on the left, instead of the mountain road which 
is on the right, and goes direct to Trante, M. de 
Montaigne having a mind to make a detour of 
a few days' journey, in order to see several fine 
German towns, which it had been his original 
intention to visit, till he changed his plan at 
Vanguen and altered his route, for which he 
was sorry now. On our way we saw another 
of those water-mills, of which we had already 
noticed several in different places, which derive 
their water from some neighbouring height, by 



» John Tilly, of Augsburg. 



572 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



means of a wooden channel or gutter, which is 
supported on high posts from the place where it 
receives the water until it reaches the mill, and 
then pours down the water on to the point 
where it is wanted, by a direct descent. We 
got to dinner at 

Friessen, one league. This is a small Catholic 
town belonging to the Bishop of Augusta. We 
found here a great number of persons, part of the 
suite of the Archduke of Austria, who himself 
was at a neighbouring castle with the Duke of 
Bavaria. We here embarked the baggage 
on the river Lech, with myself and several 
others, to convey it to Augsbourg, upon what 
they call here a float, a number of planks of 
timber joined together, which take to pieces 
when they arrive at their destination. There 
is an abbey at this place, where they showed 
Messieurs a chalice and a stole, that they pre- 
serve as reliques of a saint named Magnus, 
who they say was son of a king of Scotland, 
and a disciple of Columbanus; in favour of 
which Magnus, Pepin founded this abbey, and 
made him the first abbot of it. At the top of 
the nave there are these words inscribed, and 
below them are represented the notes of music 
to which they are to be chaunted : Comperta 
virtute beati Magni fama, Pipinus princeps 
locum quern sanctus incoluit regia largitate 
donavit. 1 Charlemagne afterwards further en- 
riched the monastery, as we are informed by 
another inscription to be seen there. After 
dinner we all went on to sleep at 

Chonguen, four leagues, a small town be- 
longing to the Duke of Bavaria, and, conse- 
quently, rigidly Catholic; for this prince, 
beyond any other in Germany, has firmly 
maintained all the places under his rule free 
from contagion. We found excellent lodging 
at the Star, and withal a fashion we had not 
seen before ; they ranged the salt-cellars on a 
square table from one corner to the opposite 
one, and the candlesticks traversed these from 
the other corners, so as to form a St. Andrew's- 
cross. They never use eggs, at least as far as 
we have seen hitherto, except boiled very hard, 
and cut into bits to enrich the salads, which are 
very excellent here, and made of the freshest 
materials. They drink their wine as soon as it 
is made. They only thresh their corn in the 
barns, as they want it, and use the large 
end of the flail. On Saturday we went on 
to dine at 

Lanspergs,* four leagues, a small town of the 
Duke of Bavaria's, seated on the river Lech, 
and in every feature, town, fauxbourg, and 
castle, well worth seeing. It was their mar- 
ket-day, and the place was crowded with 
people. In the middle of the large square there 
is a fountain, which spouts out water by a hun- 
dred jets to the height of a pike, and scatters 



1 "King Pepin, having learnt by the voice of fame the 
great virtues of the blessed Magnus, has endowed with his 
royal liberality the place which the saint inhabited." 

2 Landsberg. 

3 " A soldier should be regardless of dress and ornaments, 
and rely only on his courage and his sword." 



it about in a very elaborate way; you can turn 
the jets in what direction you please. There is 
a very fine church here. The town, the faux- 
bourg, and the castle, are all seated on the rise 
of a hill. M. de Montaigne went to pay a 
visit to a college of Jesuits, who are very com- 
fortably settled here in a new house, and are 
building a fine church. M. de Montaigne had 
as long a conversation with them as his time 
would permit. The Count of Helfestein com- 
mands at the castle. If any one even dreams 
of any other religion than the Roman, he had 
need keep it to himself. On the gate which 
divides the town from the fauxbourg there is a 
great Latin inscription, of the year 1552, which 
sets forth that " the senate and people of this 
town have built this monument in memory of 
William and Louis, brothers, Dukes of the two 
Bavarias." There are a number of other in- 
scriptions on the same place, as this : Horridum 
militem esse decet, nee auro cxlatum, sed 
animo et ferro /return; 3 and at the top: 
Cavea stultorum mundus. 4 In another place 
there are very conspicuously inscribed these 
words, extracted from some Latin historian, 
relating to the victory which the Consul Mar- 
cellus lost against a king of this nation: Caro- 
lami Boiorumque regis cum Marcello Cos. 
pugna qua eum vicit, &c. 5 There are a great 
number of Latin inscriptions over the doors of 
private houses. The people hereabout paint 
all their towns and churches very frequently, 
which gives them a constantly fresh appear- 
ance. The places where we had just been, for 
instance, had all been entirely renovated three 
or four years before, as we learnt from the 
inscriptions which they always put up to com- 
memorate each of these events. The clock of 
this town, like that of many others in this 
country, sounds all the quarters; and we were 
told that the clock at Nuremberch strikes all 
the minutes. We left this place after dinner, 
and proceeded through a long uninterrupted 
plain of pasture-land, which reminded us of the 
plain of La Bausse, to 

Augsbourg, four leagues, which is considered 
the finest town in Germany, as Strasbourg is 
deemed the strongest. The first novelty we 
observed, and which showed the cleanliness of 
the people, was the finding, on our arrival, the 
staircase of our lodging covered with linen for 
us to walk on, that we m>~ht not dirty the 
steps, which had just been *.ioroughly washed 
and scoured, as is done every Saturday. We 
have never seen any dirt or cobwebs in the 
houses we have been in. Some houses have 
curtains to draw before the windows, for those 
who like to use them. You hardly ever see 
any tables in their bed-rooms, except one which 
is attached to the foot of each bed, and, being 
on hinges, can be put up or down as you think 



4 "The world is a cage of fools." 

s " Battle of Carolam (or Carloman) and of the King of 
the Bavarians, against the Consul Marrellus, wherein the 
latter was defeated," &c. Who this Consul Marcellus mav 
have been, 1 cannot say. The last of the fasti Consularcs 
is of the year of Christ 341. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



573 



proper. The foot of the bed is raised two or 
three feet above the frame of the bed, and very 
often as high as the bolster; the wood of which 
it is made is elaborately carved, and has a good 
effect enough, but, being only deal, it does not 
come near the appearance of our walnut furni- 
ture. Here they put highly polished pewter 
plates under wooden ones, almost, it would 
seem, in sign of their contempt for the former. 
In many places they have linen curtains against 
the wall at the bed-side, in order to prevent 
people from soiling the wall by spitting on it. 
The Germans are very fond of coats-of-arms ; 
in every inn you will find hundreds that gentle- 
men who have lodged there have had painted 
on the walls; and all the windows are deco- 
rated with these emblazonments. We found a 
constant diversity in the mode of serving up 
meals ; here, crabs — amazingly large ones — are 
served up first; elsewhere they are served up 
just towards the close of dinner. In many of 
the large inns, every dish placed on the table 
has a cover to it. What makes their windows 
always look so exceedingly bright is that the 
sashes are not fixed in the way that ours are, 
but can be taken out when required, and they 
ire for ever cleaning and polishing them. M. de 
Montaigne next day, Sunday, went in the 
morning to see several churches, and in the 
Catholic places of worship, which are very 
numerous here, he found the service admirably 
performed. There are six Lutheran churches, 
with sixteen ministers; two of the six are 
churches usurped from the Catholics, the other 
four were built by the Lutherans themselves. 
He saw one this morning which looked just 
like the great hall in some college: there 
were neither images, crosses, nor organ. The 
walls were covered with passages from the 
Bible, written in German characters. There 
were two pulpits, one for the minister, where 
the sermon is preached, and below that another 
for the person who leads in singing the psalms. 
At the end of each verse the congregation 
waited until this person had given out the 
words and tune of the verse that followed, and 
then they sang altogether, without any sort of 
order or harmony, and those who chose to do 
so kept their caps on. After this a minister, 
who till then had been mingled with the crowd, 
went to the altar, where he read a number of 
prayers out of a book, at certain of which 
prayers the people rose and held up their 
hands clasped, and at the name of Jesus Christ 
made a low bow. After he had finished read- 
ing, which he did uncovered, he turned to the 
altar, on which was a napkin, an ewer, and a 
basin, with water in it. A woman, followed 
by twelve other women, then brought him a 
child, all swaddled up, except the face, which 
was uncovered. The minister then dipped all 
his fingers in the basin three times, and sprin- 
kled the water over the child's face, at the 



' The lime-tree. 

a The Fuggers, the merchant-princes, par excellence, of 



same time pronouncing certain words. This 
being done, two men approached, and each of 
them put two fingers of his right hand upon 
the child ; the minister spoke to them a few 
words, and the ceremony was completed. M. 
de Montaigne spoke to this minister as he was 
leaving the church. The ministers do not 
derive any revenue from their churches, but are 
paid by the senate. There was a far larger 
crowd in this one church than in two or three 
of the Catholic churches put together. We 
did not see one pretty woman here. Their 
dresses differ very much among themselves. Of 
the men it is difficult to distinguish who are 
nobles, inasmuch as all classes wear velvet 
caps, and all have swords at their sides. We 
were lodged at the sign of a tree called the 
Linden Tree ' in this country : our inn adjoined 
the palace of the Foulcres. 2 One of this family 
dying a few years ago, left his heirs two mil- 
lions of French crowns; and they, for the 
benefit of his soul, gave the Jesuits here, very 
much to their delight and advantage, the sum 
of thirty thousand florins, ready money. The 
palace I have mentioned is roofed with copper. 
In general, the houses are much larger, higher, 
and handsomer, than those of any town in 
France, and the streets are far wider; as to the 
extent of the town, he 3 thinks it is about the 
size of Orleans. After dinner we went to see 
the fencing, in a public room they have here 
for that purpose, where we found a great crowd 
assembled. You pay on entering, as you do 
at a play, and you have to pay besides for your 
seat when you get in. They were practising 
with the poniard, the two-handed sword, the 
quarter-staff, and the braquemart; 4 and after 
this we went to see some matches at cross-bow 
and long-bow shooting, in a public ground 
even more magnificent than that at Schaff house. 
Thence, from one of the gates of the town, 
through which we had entered, we observed 
that, under the bridge we had crossed, there 
runs a great canal of water, which, flowing' 
from some source in the country, is conveyed 
over the river by a wooden bridge, built be- 
neath the town-bridge, and is again conveyed 
over the town-fosse into the town itself, by a si- 
milar medium. This current of water then turns 
a number of wheels, which work several pumps, 
by means of which the water of a spring, 
that rises in that place, are raised, through 
leaden pipes, to the top of a tower, at least 
fifty feet high. Here the water collects in a 
large stone reservoir, whence it again descends, 
through a number of pipe3, and is distributed 
all over the town, feeding the whole of the 
fountains there. Individuals who are desirous 
of having the water laid on from this source, 
in their own houses, can have it, on paying the 
town ten florins a year, or two hundred florins at 
a single payment. It is now forty years ago that 
the town was first adorned with this admirable 



Augsburg, who lent Inrge sums of money to Charles V. 
during the religious wars, and were ennobled, 
s Montaigne. « A short, broad-bladed sword. 



574 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



work. Marriages of Catholics with Lutherans 
are quite common, the party most eager about 
the matter submitting to the forms of the other's 
faith; there are a thousand such marriages: 
our landlord was a Catholic, and his wife a 
Lutheran. They dust their glass with a hair- 
brush, fixed to the end of a stick. We were 
told that you can get very fine horses here for 
forty or fifty crowns. The authorities of the 
town did Messrs. d'Estissac and de Montaigne 
the honour of sending them as a present, when 
they were at supper, fourteen large vessels full 
of their wine, which were brought to Messieurs 
by seven sergeants, dressed in the civic uniform, 
under the direction of a superior officer, whom 
Messieurs invited to supper, as is the custom in 
these cases ; and they gave the porters a crown. 
The officer who supped with them told M. de 
Montaigne there were three of them in that 
town, whose duty it was to pay this compli- 
ment to visitors of quality, and that for this 
purpose they always took pains to ascertain 
the condition of persons who came to the place, 
in order that they might observe the particular 
ceremonies which were due in each case ; to 
some they present more wine than they do to 
others. When a duke is the visitor, one of the 
burgomasters attends in person to offer the pre- 
sent: they took us for knights and barons. 
M. de Montaigne, for some reasons of his own, 
had desired us not to say who we were, and 
not to mention the rank of Messieurs; and he 
walked all day by himself through the town; 1 
he conceived that this of itself served to make 
them be held in more honour. The compliment 
I have mentioned has been paid them by all 
the towns in Germany. When he passed 
through the church of Notre Dame, feeling 
very chilly (for the cold began to touch them 
when they left Kempten, though up to that 
time they had enjoyed the finest weather pos- 
sible), he, without thinking of it, put his hand- 
kerchief up to his mouth, conceiving that, as he 
was alone and plainly dressed, no one would 
notice him. However, when he got more inti- 
mate with some of the people, they told him that 
the authorities at the church had been rather 
scandalized at what they thought his strange 
procedure ; and, in short, he found he had been 
guilty of the impropriety he was most desirous 
of avoiding, that of making himself remarkable 
by some action opposed to the manners and 
tastes of those among whom he was staying ; 
for, as much as he can, his great anxiety is to 
conform and adapt himself to the ideas of the 
place where he happens to be; and thus he 
wore at Augusta a fur cap, when he walked 
out into the town. They say at Augusta that 
they are free, not from mice, but from the large 
rats which infest every other part of Germany ; 
and they attribute this exemption to one of their 
bishops, who lies buried here ; even the earth 
round his tomb, they say, has the power of ex- 

i This is Montaigne all over. So. too, Horace; " Qiue- 
cunque lilio est, incedo solus," &c. Sat. i. 6. 



pelling these vermin wherever it is carried, and 
they sell little bits of it, about the size of a nut, 
for this purpose. On Monday we went to see, 
in the church of Notre-Dame, the ceremony of 
the marriage of a rich young lady, belonging to 
the town, with one of the Foulcres' factors, a 
Venetian : we did not observe a single pretty 
woman in the place. The Foulcres, who are a 
large family, and all very rich, occupy the 
principal position in the town. We saw two 
of the rooms in a house of theirs; one was 
lofty, large, and paved with marble; the 
other, a low room, was richly decorated with 
medals, ancient and modern. At the end 
of this room there was a small ante-chamber. 
They were the most splendid apartments 1 ever 
witnessed. We also saw some of the German 
dances; at the close of every measure, they 
break off, and the gentlemen lead the ladies 
back to their seats, which are two rows of 
benches on each side of the room, covered with 
red cloth. Here the gentlemen leave the ladies, 
as it is not the custom for them to sit down 
together on these occasions. After a short rest, 
the gentlemen return to their partners, and kiss 
their hands ; the ladies do not kiss the hands of 
the gentlemen, but, putting their hand under 
their partner's arm-pit, touch cheeks, and then 
place their right hand upon the gentleman's 
shoulder. They dance and converse uncovered. 
The dresses were plain. We saw some more of 
the Foulcres' houses, in other parts of the town, 
most of them pleasure-houses for the summer. 
The town must be greatly indebted to these 
gentlemen for the expenses they are constantly 
incurring in embellishing the different parts of 
it. In one of these houses we saw a clock 
which is worked by water. In the same place 
were two great fish-ponds, under cover, full of 
fish. There are several small pipes, some 
straight, others bent upwards, through which 
the water descends into these fish-ponds in a 
very agreeable manner, some of the pipes dis- 
charging the water directly into the ponds; and 
the others, first throwing it up as from a foun- 
tain, to the height of about a pike. Between 
these two ponds there is a space of some ten 
paces wide, closely boarded with planks, in 
which are a number of brass jets, so small that 
you cannot readily see them. While the ladies 
are amusing themselves with looking at the 
fish, those in the secret have only to touch a 
spring, which sets these jets in operation, and 
incontinently the petticoats and legs of the 
fair spectators are invaded with a refreshing 
coolness from these tiny water-spouts. In an- 
other place, where there is a very charmingly- 
constructed fountain, while you are looking at 
it, any one that likes can play water upon you 
in a hundred places from invisible jets ; over 
the place there is this Latin sentence : Qusesisti 
nugas, nugis gaudeto repertis? There is also 
an aviary twenty paces square, and twelve or 



2 " You were in search of trifling amusements : take 
them, and make much of them." 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



575 



fifteen feet high, surrounded on all sides with 
close-knitted wire-work; inside this are ten or 
twelve low fir-trees, and a fountain: this im- 
mense cage is full of birds. We saw here some 
Polish pigeons, or, as they call them, Indian 
pigeons, a sort of bird I have seen elsewhere; 
birds of a large size, with bills like a partridge. 
We had here pointed out to us the ingenuity of 
a gardener, who, foreseeing the early arrival of 
frost, had transplanted into a small covered 
place a quantity of artichokes, cabbages, let- 
tuce, spinnage, endive, and other plants which 
he gathered, as though for immediate use ; but, 
by putting their roots into a particular sort of 
earth, bad hopes of keeping them fresh and 
good for two or three months; and, in fact, 
though there were a hundred artichokes which 
had been thus gathered for more than six weeks, 
none of them were withered. We also saw a 
leaden instrument, bent archwise, open at both 
sides, and pierced with holes; this being filled 
with water, both ends are held up, and it is 
then suddenly and dexterously turned down, so 
as for one end to go into a vessel full of water, 
while the other discharges the water outside, 
and the pipe is thus kept constantly filling as 
fast as it empties itself. 1 The arms of the Foul- 
cres, which the Emperor Charles the Fifth gave 
them when he ennobled them, are a crown 
mi-parti ; on the left, a fleur-de-lys, azure on 
a field of gold ; on the right, a fleur-de-lys, 
gold on a field azure. We went to see some 
people who were conveying two ostriches from 
Venice to the Duke of Austria; the male is of 
a darkish hue, with a red neck; the female is 
of a grey colour, and lays a great many eggs. 
They were conveying them on foot, and told 
us that the birds got much less tired than they 
did ; they said the beasts were constantly try- 
ing to get away from them, but they held them 
fast by two collars, one of which girded them 
over the reins above the thighs, and the other 
above the shoulders, encircling the whole body, 
and so, by means of these and two long leashes, 
they were able to stop or turn them as they 
wished. On the Tuesday, by the courtesy of 
the authorities of the town, we were shown a 
postern in the wall, through which, at all hours 
of the night, any person can enter, whether 
on foot or horseback, upon stating his name, 
and the person to whose house, or the inn to 
which he is bound. Two faithful men, paid by 
the town, are posted at this gate. Persons on 
horseback pay two batz for their admission 
there, and persons on foot one. The outer door, 
on the other side of the fosse, is sheathed with 
iron : at the side there is an iron handle, 
attached to a chain, which the person who 
wants to be let in pulls; this chain, after wind- 
ing about a long way, ascends to the bed-room 
of one of the porters, which is situated at a 
considerable height above the postern, and 
there rings a bell. The porter thus roused gets 



' The instru 
is tin bj phon. 



L'nili.'il to be described 



up in his shirt, and, without leaving the room, 
by means of certain machinery opens the outer 
door, though distant a good hundred paces 
from where he stands. The person thus ad- 
mitted now finds himself on a bridge of about 
forty feet long or thereabouts, covered over, 
which crosses the town fosse; along the side 
of this bridge is a sort of wooden trough 
through which passes the machinery which 
opens the outer door, and shuts it again ■ 
immediately that the person is admitted. The 
bridge being crossed, the traveller finds himself 
on a narrow open space, whence he hails the 
first porter, and tells him his name and address. 
This being done, the latter, by ringing a bell, 
gives notice to his companion, who occupies a 
large room on the lower floor; and he, by a 
spring which is fixed in the passage adjoining 
his room, opens, in the first place, a small iron 
barrier, and then, by working a great wheel, 
raises the draw-bridge ; all of which operations 
are conducted in such a manner that no one 
can perceive any of the movements: for they 
are all worked in the thickness of the walls and 
doors, and, before you have time to look round, 
that which has been opened closes with a loud 
noise. Next, the porter opens a great door of 
immense thickness, which is made of wood 
thickly plated with iron. The stranger now 
finds himself in a room, but neither here, nor 
any where else, on his progress into the town, 
does he see any one to speak to. When the 
door of this room is closed behind him, another 
similar door is opened, and he enters a second 
apartment, in which there is a light: here he 
finds a brass vessel hanging by a chain from an 
opening in the wall, and into this he puts the 
fee for his admission. This money is then pulled 
up by the porter, who, if he is not satisfied, 
leaves the stranger to kick his heels in the 
room till the morning; if, on the other hand, 
he is satisfied, he opens in the same way another 
great door, similar to the preceding, which 
instantly closes behind the person admitted, 
who then finds himself in the town. This is 
one of the most skilfully contrived things that 
can be conceived. The Queen of England 2 sent 
a special ambassador to request of the munici- 
pality of the town to explain to her the mode 
of working the machinery, but they say they 
refused to do so. Under this gate there is a 
vault, large enough to hold five hundred horse- 
men, by means of which they can receive or 
send aid in war time, without the knowledge of 
the town's-people. After this we went to see 
the church of the Holy Cross, which is a very 
fine one. They glorify themselves greatly 
here on a miracle which took place nearly a 
hundred years ago in this church : a wnmai, 
not being willing to swallow the body of Christ, 
and having taken it from her mouth and placed 
it in a little box covered with wax, afterwards 
confessed, and the whole was then found to be 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



changed into flesh. They cite a number of 
proofs of this miracle, a description of which is 
written on various parts of the church in Latin 
and German. They show under a crystal 
frame the wax, and a piece of something which 
looks red like flesh. This church is roofed with 
copper, as the Foulcres' palace is: and indeed 
it is not uncommon to see this here. The 
church of the Lutherans immediately joins this 
church; for here, as elsewhere, they have either 
taken possession of the Catholic churches, or 
built their own almost in their very cloisters. 
At the door of this church they have placed the 
image of Our Lady holding Jesus Christ in her 
arms, with other saints and children, and over 
the whole have inscribed this sentence : Sinite 
parvulos venire ad me, &C. 1 At the house 
■where we lodged there was a machine made of 
plates of iron closely fastened together, which 
descends to the bottom of a deep well, and, 
being worked by a boy at the top, turns round 
like a wheel and forces the water into a leaden 
pipe, by which it is conveyed into the kitchens 
and wherever else it is wanted. They keep a 
man in their pay, whose business it is to keep 
the walls constantly whitewashed and clean. 
They served us up pasties, large and small, in 
earthen vessels of the colour of, and in every 
respect made to resemble, pie-crust. There 
occur very few meals at which you are not 
presented with comfits and boxes of sweet- 
meats; the bread is of first-rate excellence; 
the wines are good, and, as is generally the 
case in this country, are white; they do not 
grow them near Augsbourg, but are obliged 
to fetch their supplies five or six days' journey 
off. Of every hundred florins that innkeepers 
expend in wine, sixty go to the republic as 
duty; private individuals, who expend the 
same sum in wine for their own consumption, 
pay only half this duty. They have in many 
places the custom of perfuming the apartments. 
The town some time back was entirely Zuing- 
lian, but since that the Catholics have been re- 
called and have ousted the Lutherans from almost 
all the places of authority, though the great 
majority of the town, in point of numbers, still 
remains of the latter persuasion. M. de Mon- 
taigne paid a visit to the Jesuits, and found 
them men of great learning. We breakfasted 
in their house on Wednesday morning, the 10th 
of October. M. de Montaigne much regretted, 
when he left, that, although only a day's jour- 
ney from the Danube, he had not an opportu- 
nity of seeing it, or of visiting Oulm, 2 which he 
passed by, and some baths at a half day's 
journey beyond Oulm, at a place called Sour- 
bronne. 3 This bath, which is situated in a flat 
country, is of fresh water, which is warmed for 
you, whether you drink it or bathe in it. It 
has a sharp taste, which makes it rather plea- 
sant to the palate, and it is good for maladies 



i " Suffer little children to i 
sviii. 16. 
a Ulra. 



unto me." St. Luke, 



of the head and stomach. It is a noted bath, 
and, as we were told, a place where you are as 
handsomely and comfortably lodged as at Ba- 
den : but the winter was rapidly advancing, 
and the road to the place was quite out of our 
way ; so much so, that on our return we should 
have had to come back to Augusta : and M. de 
Montaigne had a great horror of going the 
same road twice. I left a copy of the arms of 
M. de Montaigne fixed over the door of the 
room he had occupied. They were very well 
done, and cost me two crowns for the painter, 
and twenty pence for the man who made the 
frame. The town is washed by the river Lech, 
Lycus. We travelled through a pretty coun- 
try abounding in corn-fields, and got by bed- 
time to 

Brong, 4 five leagues; a large Catholic vil- 
lage, charmingly situated, in the Duchy of 
Bavaria. We left this place next morning, 
Thursday, 20th of October; and after tra- 
versing, first a wide plain of corn-fields (for 
there are no vines in this part of the country), 
and then extensive meadow-lands, spreading 
out on both sides as far as the eye could reach, 
we got by dinner-time to 

Munic, four leagues; a large town, about 
the size of Bordeaux, and capital of the duchy 
of Bavaria, where the Electors of that state 
have their principal residence, upon the banks 
of the river Yser, Ister. It has a fine castle, 
with the largest and best appointed range of 
stabling I ever saw, either in France or Italy, 
all vaulted over, and capable of accommodating 
two hundred horses. This is a town alto- 
gether Catholic, populous, well built, and car- 
rying on a good trade. After you get a day's 
journey from Augusta, you can live for four 
livres a day, horse and man, and for forty sous 
a day without a horse. Trie beds here have 
curtains, but no tester. Every thing you have 
furnished you is very comfortable. They clean 
the floors with boiled saw-dust. Throughout 
the country they gather in turnips and parsnips 
with as much care as corn; and when they 
have collected a quantity, seven or eight men 
are set to work with large knives to cut them 
into slices, and put them into vessels, where 
they are salted and preserved, as the cabbages 
are elsewhere, for winter food. They fill whole 
districts of fields with these plants, and have 
regular harvests of them. The reigning Duke 
of Bavaria married the sister of M. de Lorraine, 
and has three children by her, two boys and a 
girl. Both the brothers were now at Munich, 
and the day we were there had gone hunting 
with their suites and a large party of ladies 
and gentlemen. Friday morning, we set out, 
and passing through the duke's forests, where 
we saw an infinite number of fallow-deer con- 
gregated, in flocks, like sheep, we went on, 
without stopping, to 



Probably Heilbron. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



577 



Kinief, six leagues; a miserable little village, 
in the same duchy. The Jesuits, who have 
great influence in the government of affairs in 
this country, have been making a grand move- 
ment, which has drawn upon them the hatred 
of the people, for the purpose of forcing the 
priests to dismiss their concubines, under great 
penalties. From the degree in which the priests 
are sympathised with on this occasion, it would 
seem that formerly the practice thus invaded 
was so generally tolerated that it had come to 
be regarded as perfectly legitimate; and the 
whole community are at this moment engaged 
in getting up remonstrances to- their duke, in 
behalf of the priests. We had here the first 
eggs we have had served up to us in Germany, 
either on fast-days or feast-days, except such 
as were cut up in salads. We drank out of 
wooden goblets, ribbed like barrels, but there 
were several silver cups on the table. A lady, 
who resides in the village, sent some wine 
to Mons. de Montaigne. Early on Saturday 
morning we left this place ; and, after leaving 
on our right the river Yser, and a great lake at 
the foot of the Bavarian mountains, 1 and having 
reached by an hour's ascent the summit of a 
hill, on which stands an inscription, stating 
that a duke of Bavaria made some excavations 
on the road here a hundred years ago, we 
found ourselves, all of a sudden, in the bosom 
of the Alps, travelling along an easy and agree- 
able road, with the accompaniment of a splendid 
autumnal evening, to help us the more plea- 
santly on our journey. On descending this hill, 
or rather little mountain, we came upon a fine 
lake, a Gascon league long, and as much broad, 
surrounded by lofty and almost inaccessible 
mountains. Pursuing our route at the foot of 
some of these mountains, and coming here and 
there upon pretty little patches of meadow 
land, interspersed with houses, we got by bed- 
time to 

Mitevol;* a small village, belonging to the 
Duke of Bavaria, tolerably well situated, on 
the river Yser. We had here served up to us 
the first chesnuts we have had in Germany ; 
they were sent up quite raw. In the inn 
where we lodged they had a stove-room, which 
travellers are in the habit of using as a vapour- 
bath, at the charge of a batz and a half each. 
I 3 went there while Messieurs were at supper. 
In the room were a number of Germans, who 
were being cupped and bled. Next day, Sun- 
day morning, we continued our route through 
the mountains, and passed a gate, with a house 
over it, which forms a barrier between the 
country we had been just traversing and the 
Tyrol. We now entered the latter state, which 
belongs to the Aijchduke of Austria, and arrived 
by dinner-time at 

Sefeldene, 4 three leagues; a small village, 



• The Tegernaec. 
» Mittcwald. 

• The secretary. 

49 



with an abbey, very pleasantly situated. The 
church, which is a tolerably fine one, is famous 
for the following miracle: — In 1384, a certain 
person, whose name is inscribed somewhere on 
the outside of the building, not being content, 
on Easter Sunday, with partaking of the com- 
mon host, insisted upon having the grand host, 5 
and got it into his mouth; but instantly the 
earth opened beneath him, and swallowed him 
up ; in his descent he caught hold of the edge 
of the altar, which just gave time for the priest 
to take the host from his mouth, and the man 
then disappeared. They still show the hole, 
which is covered over with an iron grating; 
and the altar which received the impression of 
the man's fingers; and the host, which is all 
red, as though stained with blood. We here 
saw, too, a recent account, in Latin, of a Ty- 
rolean, who having, a short time back, swal- 
lowed a bit of meat which stuck in his throat, 
and stopped there for three days without 
moving up or down, invoked the assistance of 
the patron saint, and then came to pray in this 
church, where he found himself forthwith 
cured. On leaving this place we went through 
several very neat villages, on the heights; and 
then, after a descent of about half an hour, we 
came to a pretty little town, well situated, 
above which, on a precipitous and apparently 
inaccessible rock, stood a magnificent castle, 
completely commanding the road by which we 
had just come, which is cut out of the solid 
rock, and so narrow that there is scarcely 
room for an ordinary waggon to pass along it. 
Indeed, this is so generally the case amidst 
these mountains, that the waggoners here are 
accustomed to have theirwaggonsmade a foot 
narrower than they are elsewhere. We now 
descended into a valley of great extent, through 
which flows the river Inn, which runs into the 
Danube at Vienna. Its Latin name was Cenus. 
It is a five or six days' journey by water 
from Insprug c to Vienna. This valley appeared 
to M. de Montaigne to present the most agree- 
able landscape he had ever seen; sometimes 
contracting itself, the mountains on the side 
appear almost to touch each other; then again 
spreading out, now on the left of the river, 
where we were, and now on the right, it creates 
possession of fruitful soil, even on the moun- 
tain sides ; where these happen to be less pre- 
cipitous than ordinary. The landscape is 
diversified with innumerable castles, villages, 
and churches, producing an admirahle effect, 
as they present themselves one above the other, 
on the gradually rising slopes of the valley. 
The extreme back-ground on both sides consists 
of ranges of stupendous mountains, whose rocky 
peaks rise to an infinite elevation. On our side 
of the river we saw, upon a craggy eminence, 
upon a point which it was impossible any man 



* Seefcld. 

» That exhibited on the altar. The legend adda. that this 
rcprobrate or enthusiast took the desired object by force. 

• Innapruck. 

2* 



578 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



could attain, unless he were lowered to it by 
ropes from the still loftier rocks above it, a 
cross, which, we were told, the Emperor 
Maximilian, grandfather of Charles V., caused 
to be erected here, in commemoration of his 
almost miraculous escape from the perils which 
surrounded him, when, on a hunting excursion, 
he lost himself amid these mountains, and was 
discovered by his attendants close to this spot. 
The incident has been recorded on canvas, and 
the picture representing it hangs in the cross- 
bow practice gallery at Augusta. We got in 
the evening to 

Insprug, three leagues, the principal town of 
the earldom of Tyrol, JEnopontum in Latin. 
Here resides Fernand, Archduke of Austria. 
It is a very pretty and well-built town, seated 
in the very bosom of the valley, full of foun- 
tains and running streams, which is an advan- 
tage of ordinary occurrence in the towns we 
have seen in Germany and Switzerland. The 
streets are almost all in the form of terraces. We 
lodged at the Rose, an excellent house, where 
we were served in pewter plates. As to table- 
cloths in the French fashion, we had already 
found them in use for several days back. Some 
of the beds had curtains round them, which 
furnished a curious illustration of the national 
peculiarities. They were of a rich and hand- 
some material, a sort of cloth, cut into very 
elaborate point- work, and so short and narrow 
as not at all to answer the purpose to which we 
apply bed-curtains, with a little tester of about 
three fingers' width, the whole decorated with 
an infinite number of tassels. The sheets they 
gave me for M. de Montaigne were edged all 
round with rich white lace-work, four fingers 
deep. Here, as in the majority of German 
towns, there are people who patrol the streets 
throughout the night, crying each hour as it 
strikes. Wherever we have been as yet, the 
custom has been to serve up fish with the meat ; 
but, on fish-days, they do not serve up meat at 
all; at least they have not done so to us. 
Monday we left this place, and proceeding 
along the banks of the Inn, which lay on our 
left, through the same beautiful valley I before 
described, we got by dinner-time to 

Hala, 1 two leagues, which we went out of 
our way to visit. This is a small town, like 
Insprug, the size of Libourne, or thereabout, 
seated upon the river just named, which we 
here crossed over a bridge. It is here they 
obtain the salt with which all Germany is sup- 
plied. Every week they make nine hundred 
pigs of it, which fetch a crown each. These 
pigs are about the size, and are very much the 
shape of a half hogshead, the vessel in which 
they are moulded being of that form. The 
revenue accruing from this source goes to the 
Grand Duke, but the expenses are very great. 
The quantity of wood constantly required for 
the preparation of this article is far greater than 



I ever before saw collected together for any 
purpose whatever; and no wonder, for the 
cauldrons in which they boil the salt water, 
whence they extract the salt, are at least thirty 
paces in diameter, and there are a number of 
these in operation. The water itself is fetched 
from one of their mountains, two leagues off. 
There are several fine churches here, especially 
those belonging to the Jesuits, which M. de 
Montaigne went to see, as he had done those 
at Insprug. The inmates are magnificently 
lodged and provided for. After dinner we 
again went over to that side of the river, as M. 
de Montaigne wished to pay his respects to the 
Archduke of Austria, Fernand, who resides 
there in a splendid mansion. He had called at 
the palace in the morning, but was informed 
by a nobleman he spoke to, that the archduke 
was then sitting in council, and could not be 
seen. After dinner, then, we again crossed the 
river, and found the archduke in the garden ; 
at least we thought we caught a glimpse of him 
there. However this may have been, those 
who went to tell him that our gentlemen were 
there and desired to kiss his hand, brought 
back word that he begged they would excuse 
him then, but that next day he should be more 
at leisure : and that, in the mean time, if they 
had any favour to request, they might commu- 
nicate it through a Milanese count whom he 
named. This cold reception, and their not even 
permitting him to see the castle, somewhat 
offended M. de Montaigne, and he made a 
serious complaint of it, in the course of the day, 
to one of the archduke's officers, who told him 
that the archduke had said he did not want to 
see any French people, for that he looked upon 
the house of France as a bitter enemy. We 
returned to 

Insprug, two leagues. Here we saw in a 
church eighteen fine statues, in bronze, of 
princes and princesses of the house of Austria. 
We went also to a supper given by the Cardinal 
of Austria and the Marquis de Burgaut, chil- 
dren of the archduke by a mistress of his, the 
daughter of a merchant of Augsbourg, whom, 
after having these two children by her, he had 
married, in order to legitimize them. The lady 
died this year, and the court was still in mourn- 
ing for her. The supper was served up in much 
the same manner as amongst us ; the banquet- 
ing-room was hung with black, cloth, as were 
also the royal seats and the chairs of the guests. 
The cardinal, who is the eldest of the two, is, I 
believe, not yet twenty. The marquis drinks 
nothing but sugar and water, flavoured with 
cinnamon, and the cardinal takes very weak 
wine and water. The princes had no particular 
covers laid before them, but in other respects 
the arrangement of the supper was pretty nearly 
the same as at royal suppers in France. When 
they took their seats, it was at a short distance 
from the table, which was then pushed up to 
them, with the supper already laid. The car- 
dinal sat at the head, which was on your right 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



579 



as you entered the room. We were shown in 
this palace a large tennis-court and a tolerably- 
fine garden. The archduke is a great mecha- 
nist, and has a good head at invention. We 
saw in his palace ten or twelve field-pieces, 
carrying a ball of about the size of a large 
goose-egg. They are mounted on wheel-car- 
riages elaborately carved and gilt, as are the 
cannon themselves. They are only made of 
wood, but the mouth is covered with iron, and 
all the inside is lined with the same metal; the 
weight of each is what one man can just carry; 
they are not fired so often as the regularly cast 
cannon, but the discharge is almost equally 
effective. In the fields adjoining the castle we 
saw two oxen of an unusual size, of a grey 
colour, with white heads, which M. de Ferrara 
had given the archduke. The latter prince 
married one of the archduke's sisters, the Duke 
of Florence another, and the Duke of Mantua 
a third. Three other sisters remained at Hala, 
who were called the Three Queens, for the 
daughters of emperors are designated by that 
title, as others are by the title of Countess or 
Duchess, according to the estates they enjoy. 
With the title of queens enjoyed by the former, 
is connected that of the kingdoms possessed by 
the emperor. Of the three latter princesses, 
two are dead ; and the third, who still lives 
here, M. de Montaigne could not see, for she 
is shut up like a nun, and has collected a num- 
ber of Jesuits around her. It is the opinion of 
the people here that the archduke cannot leave 
his estates to his children, and that -they revert 
at his death to the empire; but they assigned 
no reason for this opinion, and it does not seem 
likely, for though his lady was not of a suitable 
rank, yet every one admits that both she and 
her children were legitimized directly that he 
had married her ; however this may be, it is 
certain that he is laying by a great deal of 
money to leave them. Tuesday morning we 
resumed our journey, and proceeded at first 
through the same plain I have noticed, but at 
about a league from the town we came to a 
hill, which we were an hour ascending by an 
easy road. On the left we saw several moun- 
tains, the sides of which, being of a gradual 
and gentle declination, were covered with vil- 
lages, churches, and cultivated fields, almost up 
to the top, and presented very agreeable and 
varied prospects. The mountains on the right 
hand are of a wilder character, and we saw 
but very few houses among them. We passed 
several streams, or rather torrents, running in 
different directions; and throughout the day's 
journey noticed, at all elevations of the moun- 
tains on our left hand, a number of towns, vil- 
lages, large inns, and, among other objects, 
two castles, and several gentlemen's seats. 
About four leagues from Insbroug, on our 
right, at the opening of a narrow road, we 
came upon a tablet of bronze, fixed to a rock, 
and richly worked, upon which was a Latin 
inscription to this purport: that the Emperor 



Charles the Fifth, returning from Spain and 
Italy, to receive the imperial crown, and 
Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 
his brother, corning from Pannonia, on his 
way to see the emperor, after eight years' 
absence, met on this spot, in the year 1530, 
and that Ferdinand ordered this memorial of 
the event to be erected. The brothers are 
represented on the bronze embracing each 
other. A little way further on, passing under 
a gateway that extends across the road, we 
read upon it some Latin verses, celebrating the 
return of the same emperor, and his stopping at 
this place, after lie had t:iken the King of 
France, and Rome. M. de Montaigne ex- 
pressed himself greatly pleased with this part 
of the road, from the infinite variety of objects 
which constantly presented themselves. The 
only inconvenience we found, an almost in- 
supportable one, was the dust, which accom- 
panied us on this mountain route in thicker 
clouds than we had ever yet experienced. We 
travelled ten hours this stage without stopping, 
for M. de Montaigne did not think there was 
anything worth making a delay for on the 
road. However, according to his custom on 
all occasions, whether he intended making a 
long or short stage of it, the horses had had 
an ample feed of oats before they started in the 
morning. He himself took nothing all the way, 
until we arrived late at night at 

Sterzinguen, seven leagues; a small and 
tolerably pretty town on the Tyrol, on the 
mountain above which, at about a quarter of a 
league off, stands a fine castle, which has been 
just erected. The bread they serve you up 
here is in the form of rolls, a number of which 
are baked together in strings, and so sent up 
to table. Throughout Germany the mustard 
is served up in a liquid state; it has the flavour 
of the French white mustard. The vinegar 
everywhere is white. They grow nearly enough 
corn in these mountains for the consumption of 
the inhabitants, but they have no vines; you 
can, however, always command very excellent 
white wine of different sorts. The roads in all 
directions are perfectly safe, being constantly 
frequented by merchants, coaches, and wagons. 
Instead of the cold we had been taught to ex- 
pect among these mountains, we found, on the 
contrary, that the weather was hot to an almost 
insupportable extent. The women here wear 
cloth caps, closely resembling our toques, and 
their hair hangs down their backs in thick 
tresses. M. de Montaigne saw a very pretty 
girl in a church here, whom lie took to be a 
student, and asked her whether she did not 
know Latin. They have curtains round the 
beds here, of thick red cloth, made in alternate 
four-feet breadths of full cloth, and net-work 
cloth. Throughout Germany, as far as we 
have seen, all the bed-rooms and sitting-rooms 
are wainscotted. The ceilings are mostly very 
low. M. de Montaigne told us next morning 
that in the night he had suffered a very severe 



580 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



attack of cholic, which lasted for two or three 
hours; and in the morning he passed a stone 
of middling size, which broke easily. It was 
of a yellow tinge outside, but whiter inside 
when broken. He had caught a cold the day 
before, and was altogether indisposed. He 
had not had a fit of the cholic before this, since 
we left Plommieres. The present attack in 
great measure removed a suspicion he had en- 
tertained that at Plommieres more gravel had 
got into the bladder than had since got out of 
it, and he had begun to fear that some portion 
of it had stopped there and fixed itself; but 
when this stone disengaged itself he felt much 
relieved, for he reasonably enough considered 
that, had there been any permanent gathering 
of gravel, this stone would have attached itself 
to the mass. On the road he had complained 
much of pains in the kidneys, and this, indeed, 
was the reason why he had made so long a 
day's journey, for he thought he should be 
more at his ease on horseback than in any other 
position. In the morning after his arrival he 
called upon the schoolmaster of the place, for 
the purpose of rubbing up his Latin; but the 
man was a fool, who could give him no sort of 
information about anything he asked him, re- 
specting the country and its principal features. 
After breakfast, Wednesday, 26th October, we 
resumed our journey through a valley about a 
quarter of a league wide, having the river 
Aisoc 1 on our right. We proceeded along this 
valley for about two leagues, and saw on the 
tops of the neighbouring mountains a number 
of cultivated and inhabited spots, some of 
them on a level, to which we were utterly 
at a loss to imagine how people could get. 
On the way we passed four or five castles. 
After a time we crossed the river over a wooden 
bridge, and proceeded along the banks on the 
other side. We found a number of men mend- 
ing and levelling the roads, which are very 
stony, like those in Perigord. By and by, 
passing through a stone gate, we ascended a 
height, at the top of which we came to a plain, 
about a league wide, and saw, on the other 
side of the river, another plain, at about the 
same elevation, but both were barren and 
rocky. The land below, between us and the 
river, consisted of very fine meadows. We 
went on, without stopping, to 

Brixe, 2 four leagues, which we reached at 
supper-time. It is a charming little town, 
watered by the river I have just mentioned, 
which is crossed here by a wooden bridge. 
The place is the see of a bishop. We saw 
two very handsome churches here. We put 
up at the Eagle, an excellent house. The 
plain in which this town is situated is not a 
large one, but the mountains which environ 
it, even on the left hand, have so gentle an 
ascent, that the people are able to cultivate 
them with the utmost ease nearly up to their 



summits. All the sides of the mountains accord- 
ingly are adorned with villages and churches 
well nigh all the way up, and nearer the town 
you see a number of gentlemen's houses, hand- 
somely built, and situated in most picturesque 
points of landscape. M. de Montaigne said: 
" He had all his life been very chary of taking 
other people's judgments as to foreign coun- 
tries : the tendency of most men being to test 
the merits of what they see, by what they have 
always been accustomed to see, in their own 
particular neighbourhood; and that he had, 
therefore, paid but very slight attention to the 
accounts he had heard of different places from 
different travellers; but, he said, when he 
came to this place, he wondered more than ever 
at the obstinate imbecility and narrow-minded- 
ness of such people; for he had always been 
told that the passes of the Alps in this part of 
the country were full of danger and difficulty, 
that the manners of the people were wild and 
uncouth, that the roads were impassable, the 
inns altogether savage places, the climate in- 
supportable; whereas, for the climate, thank 
God, he had found it exceedingly mild, in- 
clining rather to an excess of heat, than to 
that of cold. Throughout our journey, up to 
this time, we had had but three inclement days, 
and only one shower of rain, which lasted 
about half an hour. That, in all other respects, 
if he wished to take his daughter, a girl of only 
eight years old, on an excursion anywhere, he 
would quite as readily trust her upon these 
roads, as in one of the walks of his garden. As 
to the inns, he had never been in a country 
where they were handsomer, more numerous, 
and more plentifully provided with wines and 
provisions of every sort, and he had never met 
with such excellent accommodation at so cheap 
a rate." They have a mode of turning the 
spit here by a machine with several wheels, 
which work a cord round a large iron en- 
gine. The rope works itself out in about an 
hour, and then the machine is wound up again. 
They have so great an abundance of iron that, 
besides having all their windows grated with it, 
in a variety of fashions, their shutters and doors 
are covered with iron plates. We found vines 
here, which we had lost sight of just before we 
got to Augusta. In this part of the country 
most of the houses have arched roofs at every 
floor, and, where the declination is very nar- 
row, they make use of pantiles to cover it with, 
which we in France do not seem to know how 
to manage ; and they do this even on the bel- 
fries. Their tiles are smaller and hollower than 
ours, and they generally plaster them together 
at the insertions. We left Brixe on the follow- 
ing morning, and proceeded along the same 
valley, which now spread itself out somewhat. 
On both sides of the road, as we went along, 
we observed a number of handsome houses. 
Keeping the river Eysoc on our left, we 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



591 



through a little town, called Clause, 1 where 
several manufactures are carried on, and got 
by dinner-time to 

Colman, 2 three leagues, a small village, where 
the archduke has a country-seat. Here we were 
served in goblets of coloured earthenware, 
arranged on the table alternately with silver 
cups. They clean their glasses with salt. The 
first course consisted of eggs poached in butter, 
which were served up in a well-polished frying- 
pan, with a long handle. On leaving this place, 
the road narrowed again, and before we had 
got far on our way, the rocks came up so close 
as to leave the smallest possible space between 
them and the river; indeed, at several points of 
the road, it has been found necessary to block 
out the river by a thick wall, which in some 
places extends for more than a German league. 
The rocks which here abut on the road are 
exceedingly precipitous, and broken by the 
mountain torrents, which sometimes detach 
large masses from their foundation, and I 
should imagine that, in stormy weather, this 
pass must be a very dangerous one to traverse. 
The same torrents, when swollen and infuriated 
by the tempest, occasionally tear up whole 
forests of trees, and we have seen on our way 
numbers of firs which, thus up -rent, have 
fallen from the mountain -heights, bringing 
with them in their furious descent complete 
hills of earth, attached to their roots. Yet 
the country is thickly peopled ; beyond these 
mountains we saw others rising above them in 
the back ground, cultivated and inhabited ; 
and we have understood that on those distant 
heights there are broad and lovely plains, which 
furnish abundance of corn to the towns below 
them, and which are inhabited by wealthy 
farmers, who have large and handsome houses 
there. We passed the river over a wooden 
bridge, of which there are several on this road. 
Here we saw^perched on the loftiest eminence 
before us, at a height, indeed, which seemed 
inaccessible, a castle, which we were told be- 
longs to a baron of the country, who resides 
there, and possesses, at that great elevation, a 
rich and fertile demesne, with extensive hunt- 
ing-grounds. Beyond these mountains, the Alps 
rise like a border, and block up the pass in 
which we now were, so that travellers cannot 
proceed that way, but must return to the valley 
along which we had come, and continue their 
journey thence. The archduke derives from 
this earldom of the Tyrol, the whole of which 
consists of these mountains, a revenue of three 
hundred thousand florins a year ; and, indeed, he 
finds this the most profitable portion of his pos- 
sessions. We once more passed the river over 
a stone bridge, and got at an early hour to 

Bostan, 3 four leagues, a town of the size of 
Libourne, situated upon the same river. The 



town is a very disagreeable one, in comparison 
with the other German towns we have been 
through; so much so that M. de Montaigne 
exclaimed, that he saw very clearly we were 
beginning to leave Germany. The streets are 
narrower, and there is no handsome square ; 
there are fountains, however, and canals, and 
the houses are painted and have plenty of win- 
dows. They grow so much wine about here, 
that they are able to supply all Germany. 
They have the best bread in the world among 
these mountains. The church at this place is 
a very handsome one. Among other features, 
it possesses a large organ, with wooden pipes, 
which is fixed at some height up a pillar, 
near the cross, before the high altar. The 
person who plays it, sits more than twelve feet 
below it, at the foot of the pillar : and the bel- 
lows are outside the wall of the church, more 
than fifteen paces behind the organist, supply- 
ing the organ from pipes under the ground. 
The hollow in which this town stands, is scarcely 
more than sufficient to contain it, but the moun- 
tains, even those on the right, are very sloping 
as they approach the town. From this place 
M. de Montaigne wrote word to Francis Hoff- 
man, whom he had seen at Basle, "that he 
had experienced so much pleasure in his visit 
to Germany that it was with great regret he 
found himself leaving it, even though he was 
leaving it for Italy; that foreigners had cer- 
tainly reason to complain of the extortion of 
the innkeepers there, as well as elsewhere, 
but that he thought this might easily be cor- 
rected by persons who did not place themselves 
at the mercy of guides and interpreters, who 
sell them for a share in the profits, but that 
in all other respects the country was distin- 
guished for comfort and civility, for justice 
and security." We left Bostan early on Friday 
morning, and stopped to bait the horses and 
breakfast at 

Brounsol, 4 two leagues, a small village, just 
above which the river Eysock, which we had 
followed hitherto, mingles with the Adisse, 5 
which itself flows on to the Adriatic Sea, with 
a broad and tranquil current, altogether dif- 
ferent from the noisy and furious course of 
the streams we had seen in the mountains. 
Here the plain, of which I have spoken so 
frequently, and which continues to Trent, 
begins somewhat to widen, and the moun- 
tains, too, draw in their horns a little, bit 
by bit; and yet their sides are less fertile 
than those of much greater altitude, that 
we had passed. There are some marshes in 
this part of the valley, which occasionally nar- 
row up the road ; but in other respects the way 
is very easy, and almost throughout upon a 
descent. About two leagues from Brounsol we 
passed through a large town, 6 where there was 



i Klaueen 

' Kollmau. 

a Bautzen. 

49< 



« Rranzol. 
1 Adige. 

" Niouinarkt. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



a great concourse of people, in consequence of 
its being fair-day. Further on, we passed an- 
other village, tolerably built, called Solorme, 1 
where the archduke has a small castle, on the 
left, very oddly perched on the crest of a rock. 
We got by bed-time to 

Trante, 2 five leagues; a town somewhat 
larger than Aagen, 3 and by no means a plea- 
sant place. All the charm of the German 
towns has here disappeared; the streets are 
almost all narrow and crooked. About two 
leagues before we got to the town, we found 
ourselves saluted in the language of Italy. 
The people of the town itself speak half of 
them Italian, and the other half German ; one 
quarter of the town is called the German quar- 
ter, > with a German church and a German 
preacher. As to the new religion, we have 
heard nothing of it since we left Augusta. 
Trante is situated on the river Adisse. The 
town-house appears to be a very ancient struc- 
ture, and near it there is a square tower, which 
also has every indication of a remote antiquity. 
We saw the new church of Notre Dame, where 
our council was held. 4 The organ in this 
church, which was the gift of a private gentle- 
man, is of unusual beauty and excellence ; it 
stands upon a marble pedestal, enriched with a 
variety of exquisite sculptures, among which 
some singing cherubims are especially worthy 
of notice. This church was built, as the inscrip- 
tion upon it informed us, in the year 1520, by 
Cardinal Bernard Clesio, bishop of the town, 
and a native of it This was formerly a free 
town, under the charge and authority of the 
bishop, until the necessities of a war, which they 
were waging with the Venetians, compelling 
the citizens to call in the Count of Tyrol to their 
assistance, that prince, in return for his services, 
claimed a certain degree of authority and in- 
fluence over the town. The matter is still in 
dispute between the count and the bishop; but 
the bishop, Cardinal Madruccio, has possession 
of the town. M. de Montaigne remarked that 
this was the second instance he had met with 
on his journey, of citizens who had conferred 
benefits ou the place of their birth : at Augusta 
there were the Foulcres, to whom that town 
was indebted for most of the embellishments it 
had received, the streets being full of their 
palaces, and the churches full of their enrich- 
ments; and here, at Tarente, Cardinal Cle- 
sio, besides this church and several streets 
that he built or renovated at his own expense, 
raised that magnificent structure, the castle 
of the town. The edifice outside is no great 
things ; but the interior is as commodious and 
elegant as it is possible to conceive. The walls 
are all covered with rich paintings and decora- 
tions; the raised work throughout is elabo- 
rately carved and gilt; the floors are of a 



i Salurn. 
3 Trent, 
a Agen. 



particular sort of earth, made perfectly hard 
and compact, and painted to resemble marble, 
partly arranged in our fashion, partly in the 
German way; and there are stoves in all the 
rooms which require them. One of these, made 
of earth, of the colour of burnished brass, is 
composed of a group of figures, nearly the size 
of life, which, being hollow, receivethe heat, 
while one or two of them, next the wall, serve 
as receptacles for the. water which rises from a 
fountain in the court, some way below, to 
moderate the warmth ; the design is very good, 
and well executed. Among other painted 
ceilings, we saw one representing the celebra- 
tion of some triumph by night, which M. de 
Montaigne greatly admired. There are two 
or three circular chambers; in one of these 
you read an inscription, running: "In the 
year 1530, on the occasion of the coronation 
of the Emperor Charles V., which was per- 
formed by Pope Clement VII. on St. Matthew's 
day, the said Clesius being sent as ambassador 
there from Ferdinand, King of Hungary and 
Bohemia, and Count of Tyrol, brother of the 
said Emperor, and being then Bishop of Tarente, 
was made a cardinal;" and all round the 
chamber he has hung the arms and names of 
the gentlemen who accompanied him on this 
journey, to the number of about fifty, all of 
them vassals of the diocese, and all of them 
counts or barons. In one of the apartments 
there is a trap-door leading to a passage, by 
which you can descend into the town, without 
passing through the gates of the castle. There 
are exceedingly rich chimney-pieces in two of 
the rooms. This cardinal was a thoroughly 
good man. The Foulcres, indeed, raised splendid 
buildings as well as he, but these were for the 
use of their children and descendants ; the pre- 
late built for the public. He left this castle, 
furnished with more than a hundred thousand 
crowns' worth of property of every description, 
for the benefit of his successors in the see ; and 
besides this, he left a hundred and fifty thousand 
thalers, 5 ready money, in the bishop's chest, 
which his successors have enjoyed the free use 
of, without paying one farthing interest; yet 
they buried him in a miserably poor way, and 
have allowed his church of Notre Dame to 
remain unfinished. Among other noticeable 
things, there are several portraits in oil, and a 
great number of cartoons. There are two sets 
of furniture throughout the castle, one set for 
the winter months, and the other for the sum- 
mer; and the entire of this property is in- 
alienably vested in the see, so that each bishop 
for the time being is thus amply provided with 
everything he can possibly want of this descrip- 
tion. We are now travelling by the Italian mile, 
five of which make a German mile. The day here 
is reckoned by counting the twenty-four hours 



i That is to say, the last (Ecumenical Council, which 
closed its proceedings in 15G3, after a duration of nearly 
eighteen years. 

6 A German coin, worth about 3s. KM. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



583 



throughout, without dividing them into twelve 
hours for night and twelve for day. 1 We lodged 
at the Rose, a very good inn. We left Trante, 
Saturday, after dinner, and took our route along 
the same valley through which we had been so 
long travelling, but which was now consider- 
ably extended on either side, and flanked with 
lofty mountains, thickly studded with villages. 
The river Adisse lay on our right. We passed 
a castle belonging to the archduke, which com- 
mands the road, as is the case with a number 
of other similar fortresses we have seen on our 
way, and which are so situated as to be able 
effectually to command and indeed bar the pas- 
sage of the roads on which they stand. It was 
very late, indeed the night damps were falling, 
which had not before happened to us, so well 
had we regulated our days' journeys, when we 
arrived at 

Rovere, 2 fifteen miles, a town belonging 
to the archduke. At the inn here, we again 
found ourselves back among the fashions and 
manners of our own country, and greatly 
missed, not only the German cleanliness in the 
rooms and furniture, and their agreeable win- 
dows, but also their stoves, which M. de 
Montaigne had found far more pleasant than 
our fire-places and chimneys. In the article 
of provisions, the crabs here took leave of us, 
which M. de Montaigne remarked the more 
particularly from the circumstance that, ever 
6ince he left Plommieres, he had had this fish 
served up at table at every meal he had taken, 
on a journey of nearly two hundred leagues. 
They eat at this place, and throughout these 
mountains, a snail they find in great abundance, 
larger and fatter than those in France, but not 
of so good a flavour. They also eat truffles, 
which they peel and slice up small into vinegar 
and oil, which makes a tolerable dish. At 
Trante they gave us some truffles which had 
been kept in this way for a year. Here again, 
very much to M. de Montaigne's satisfaction, 
we found plenty of oranges, lemons, and olives. 
The beds have curtains of cloth or serge, made 
in the form of very wide and deep festoons. 
M. de Montaigne here found occasion also to 
regret the loss of the feather beds, which he 
had invariably been supplied with as a cover- 
ing throughout Germany. The beds here are 
not like ours, but are composed, in the better 
sort of houses, of very fine down, in white 
fustian cases. The under- bedding, even in 
Germany, is not like this, nor will it serve the 
purpose of a coverlid, with any sort of comfort. 
I believe, in truth, that had M. de Montaigne 
been here alone with his own people, he would 
rather have gone to Cracow or towards Greece 
overland, than have taken the direct route for 
Italy ; but the pleasure he himself felt in wan- 



' This arrangement is thus explained by M. de la Landc, 

the celebrated aslrun r, in the preface I" his Vo\ja<<c 

</',/» FVojifoi* en Italia, dans les annee. I?tif>w 17W>:— "Les 
Italiens cumpteni vingt-quatre heures de suite ; depute un 
Bnir jusriu'i'i I'antre. I.a vinut-qiintrieiiie henre soune line 
deitiiheure apres le couclier du soleil, e'est a diro, a la nuit 



dering over countries that were new to him, a 
pleasure which made him forget his age and his 
maladies, he could not infuse into any others of 
the party, who were all anxious to go straight 
on, so that they might the sooner return home. 
The journey was to him a source of entire 
delight. When, after having passed a restless 
night, he in the morning called to mind that 
he was going to visit a town or a place he had 
never yet seen, he would leap out of bed as gay 
as a lark, and as light, and meet his friends in the 
highest spirits. I never saw him less fatigued, 
and never heard him complain less of pain. In- 
doors and out of doors, his mind was ever on the 
alert, and he was so eager in finding out every 
possible occasion of conversing with strangers 
that I have no doubt his malady was relieved by 
this exercise. When the other gentlemen com- 
plained of his leading them dances here and 
there, to out-of-the-way places, often returning 
to very near the spot whence he set out (which 
he always did when he heard of any thing at 
no great distance worth seeing, or otherwise 
thought it desirable to change his plan), he 
would reply: that, for his part, the particular 
place where he happened to be, was the place 
where he had intended to come ; that he could 
not possibly diverge from his route, seeing that 
the only route he had laid down, was to go 
about seeing new places; and so that he did 
not travel twice by the same road, or go twice 
to the same place, they could not say his plan 
had failed. That as to Rome, about which all 
the rest were so eager, he was in the less hurry 
to see that than other places, because well nigh 
every body had seen it ; and as to Florence and 
Ferrara, there was hardly a footman to be found, 
who could not give an account of these places. 
He added, that he seemed to himself like a per- 
son who is hearing a pleasant story, or reading 
a fine book, and begins to be afraid that he is 
getting towards the end of it ; so he took such 
delight in travelling, that he hated the very ap- 
proach to the place where he designed to stay, 
and he formed several plans for travelling by 
himself, at his own ease and discretion. Sun- 
day morning, having a wish to see the Lago di 
Garda, an object of much note in this part of 
the country, he hired three horses for himself 
and the Seigneurs de Caselis and de Matte- 
coulon, at twenty batz each ; and M. d'Estissac 
hired two others for himself and the Sieur du 
Hautoy; and these gentlemen, leaving their 
attendants and travelling horses behind them at 
their inn at Rovere, for that day, rode over to 
dinner at 

Torbole, 3 eight miles, a small village within 
the jurisdiction of the Tyrol. It is seated in one 
corner of the head of this great lake, the other 
corner being occupied by a small town with a 



tomhante, et lors qu'on commence a ne pnuvnir lire qn'avec 

Seine. Si la nuit dare dii beures et le jour quatorze, on 
it que le soleil se leve ;i dix hcures, et qu'il est llli.li ii dix- 

sepl heures." 

a Rnveredo. 

s Terbola, at the northern extremity of the Lago di Garda. 



584 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



castle, called La Riva, to which, after dinner, 
our gentlemen proceeded over the lake in a boat 
with five rowers ; the excursion occupied about 
three hours. The distance is ten miles, there 
and back. They saw nothing- at Riva but a 
tower, which seemed very ancient, and the 
seigneur of the place, Signor Hortimato Ma- 
druccio, brother of the cardinal-bishop of Ta- 
rente, whom they met as they were walking 
round the town. The view down the lake is 
boundless, for it is thirty-five miles long. The 
width, as far down as they could see, did not 
exceed the five miles which they had traversed. 
The head of the lake is in the county of Tyrol, 
but the other portion, on both sides, belongs to 
the seignory of Venice, and this abounds in a 
variety of fine churches, and infinite plantations 
of olives, oranges, and other fruits. The lake is 
subject to extreme and furious agitation, when 
the weather is stormy. The mountains which 
belt in the lake are the most rugged that our 
gentlemen had yet seen. Messieurs, on leaving 
Rovere, had crossed the river Adisse, and, leav- 
ing on the left the road to Verona, had entered 
a valley, where they passed a small town and a 
village ; and found the road here the roughest 
they had as yet traversed, and the scenery 
was wild and forbidding in the highest degree, 
both of which circumstances were owing to 
these same mountains, which here abut on the 
road. Leaving Torbole, they returned to sup 
at Rovere, eight miles. Here they put their 
baggage on a raft, the owner of which under- 
took to convey it to Verona for a florin, and I 
was the next day charged with the care of it 
thither. For supper they gave us poached eggs 
for the first course, and a large pike, with a 
number of dishes of meat of different sorts, for 
the second. Next day, Monday, they set out 
very early in the morning, and continuing their 
course along the same valley, still very populous, 
but not quite so fertile, as it was higher up, 
and flanked on both sides with precipitous and 
barren mountains, they got by dinner-time to 

Bourguet, fifteen miles, which is still in the 
county of Tyrol. In reference to this county, 
M. de Montaigne, in answer to a question he 
put, whether it consisted of any thing but the 
valley through which we had passed, and the 
mountains that flanked it, was told, that among 
those mountains there were several other passes, 
as extensive and fertile as that we had seen, 
studded with some fine towns; that, in fact, 
the Tyrol resembles a gown that we only see 
plaited up, but that, if it were spread out, it 
would form a very large country. After dinner 
they pursued their journey, keeping the river 
still on their right, through the same class of 
country, till they came to Chiusa, a small fort, 
which the Venetians have got possession of, 
seated in the hollow of a rock overlooking the 
river, down which Messieurs descended, by 
narrow pass, cut out of the solid rock, where 
the horses had much difficulty to keep their 
footing. In this fort, the state of Venice, whose 



jurisdiction they had entered a mile or two after 
they left Bourguet, keep twenty -five soldiers. 
The party arrived by bed -time at 

Volarne, twelve miles, a small village, where 
they got into a wretched inn, as indeed all on 
this road are till you get to Verona. There is 
a castle here, the seigneur of which was absent, 
but his daughter sent M. de Montaigne some 
wine. Next morning, they entirely lost the 
mountains on their right, and those on their left, 
which were now at a considerable distance, 
became little more than low hills. They went 
on for some time through a sterile flat, but, as 
they got nearer the river, the land became more 
fertile, and they found an abundance of vines 
trained upon trees, as is the fashion in this part 
of the country. They arrived on All Saints' 
Day, before mass, at 

Verona, twelve miles, a town of the size of 
Poitiers, and having, like that town, a very 
large quay along the river, which runs right 
through the town, and is traversed by three 
bridges. I also got here safely with the bag- 
gage, at about the same time. If we had 
not been provided with certificates of health, 
which we procured at Trante, and had con- 
firmed at Rovere, they would not have let us 
enter the town, and yet there was not the 
slightest rumour of the plague; but it is the 
custom here, which is probably kept up for the 
purpose of cheating travellers out of the fees 
which they exact for the health -certificates. 
We went to see the cathedral, where M. de 
Montaigne was extremely surprised at the 
manner in which, upon such a day, and at high 
mass, the persons present conducted themselves; 
they were standing about in groups, even in 
the choir, talking to one another in no very 
under tones, with their caps on, and their backs 
turned to the altar, and, indeed, appearing to 
take no heed of the service, except just at the 
elevation. There was an organ and some vio- 
lins, which accompanied the service of the 
mass. We saw several other churches, but 
remarked nothing particular in any of them ; 
the women were very plain, and indifferently 
dressed. One of the churches we went into 
was that of St. George, where the Germans 
have left several memorials of their having been 
here, and amongst others a number of their 
armorial bearings, which are attached to the 
walls. One of the inscriptions they put up, 
is to the effect, that certain German gentle- 
men, who accompanied the Emperor Maximi- 
lian on his expedition to take Verona from the 
Venetians, added some work or other to one of 
the altars. M. de Montaigne remarked that 
the seigneury would appear to be somewhat 
magnanimous in thus preserving in their town 
the evidences of the defeat they had sustained; 
as likewise in maintaining entire the magnifi- 
cent tombs of the poor seigneurs della Scala. 1 



i The former lords of Verona, from whom the Scaliger 
family is assumed to be descended. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



585 



It must be admitted, however, that our host of 
the Nag, which, by the way, is a very excel- 
lent house, where we were entertained in 
superfluous abundance, for which we had to 
pay three times the cost of tavern -living in 
France, has been permitted to take possession 
of one of these tombs, as a vault for himself and 
his family. We went over the castle, the com- 
mandant's lieutenant acting as our guide. The 
seigneury keep up a garrison of sixty soldiers 
here, more, as M. de Montaigne was told, to 
overawe the town, than to defend it from exter- 
nal enemies. We saw a convent of monks here, 
who call themselves Jesuits of St. Jerome. They 
are not priests, nor do they perform mass or 
preach, and the 'great majority of them are 
mere ignoramuses; they make the most of their 
money by their excellence in distilling lemon- 
flower-water, and similar preparations. Both 
here and elsewhere, these monks wear a white 
under -dress, wi£h a robe of dark brown over 
it, and small white skull-caps; there are 
some very fine young men among them. Their 
church is handsomely fitted up, as is their 
refectory, which was laid out for supper when 
we went in. We saw here the remains of some 
structure, as old as the time of the Romans, 
which the monks told us was an amphitheatre, 
and other remains of the same edifice are to be 
seen under ground. On our return to the inn, 
we -found that the people there had perfumed 
our beds, and we ourselves were asked into 
an apartment where were rows of vials and 
earthen vessels, containing different sorts of 
distilled waters, with which they perfumed us. 
The finest thing we saw in this place, and, in- 
deed, that M. de Montaigne said he had ever 
seen in his life, was a place they call the 
Arena. This is an amphitheatre of an oval 
form, which the eye embraces entire at one 
view, with the exception of the extreme end ; 
and the remains are sufficient to give a vivid 
idea of the whole of the original edifice, and 
of the purposes to which it was applied. The 
seigneury employ a few convicts in doing 
odds and ends of clearings and repairs, but 
the restorations thus carried on are far from 
adequate; and, indeed, M. de Montaigne 
doubted whether the whole town together could 
effect the great work. 1 The form is oval; 
there are forty -three rows of seats, rising 
one above another, and each about a foot high, 
or somewhat more; the diameter at the top 
is about six hundred paces. The gentlemen of 
the neighbourhood still make use of the arena 
for jousts and other public entertainments. We 
also went among the Jews, and M. de Mon- 
taigne visited their synagogue, and had a long 
conversation with some of the leading men, 
respecting their religious ceremonies. There 
are some fine squares in the town, and a spa- 



• The great work, however, lias been effected, and the 
theatre now displayed in almost all its original extent and 
magnificence, forming the greatest ornament of Verona. 



cious and well-arranged market-place. From 
the castle, which stands high, we discerned 
Mantua, which lays in the plain beyond, about 
twenty miles off, on the right of the road we 
were going. There is no lack of inscriptions 
here, for not a gutter is mended but they stick 
up a memorial of the event, setting forth the 
why and the when, and the name of the mayor 
for the time being, and of the person who did 
the work. They have this in common with 
the Germans, that every body has a coat-of- 
arms, men in business, as well as gentlemen ; 
I in Germany, indeed, not only the towns, bul 
many of the wards of towns, have special 
armorial bearings. As we were leaving Ve- 
rona, we saw the church of Our Lady of 
Miracles, celebrated for a number of strange 
things that have taken place in it, in conse- 
quence of which the town entirely rebuilt 
the edifice, of a well -planned circular form. 
Many of the steeples here are roofed with 
bricks, laid cross-wise. We proceeded through 
an extensive plain of various character, some- 
times fertile, sometimes the reverse, the moun- 
tains lying a long way off on our left, with 
a few on the right, and went on without 
stopping to 

Vincenza, thirty miles, which we reached at 
supper-time. This is a good-sized town, some- 
what smaller than Verona, full of noblemen's 
palaces. The morning after our arrival we 
went to see several churches, and to look at 
the fair which was being held there; in one of 
the large squares, workmen were busily erect- 
ing a number of temporary wooden shops for the 
display of goods. We paid a visit to the Jesuits, 
who have a fine monastery here; and were 
shown the shop at which they keep up a public 
sale of the various waters they distil. We 
bought two bottles of perfume for a crown. 
They also prepare medicinal waters, adapted for 
every malady. The founder was father Urb. 
S. Jn. Colombini, who instituted the order in 
the year 1367. Cardinal de Pelneo is their pre- 
sent protector. They possess no monasteries 
except in Italy, where they have thirty; the one 
here is a very handsome edifice. They flagel- 
late themselves, they told us, every day, kneel- 
ing in their respective places in the oratory, 
where they meet at certain hours, and perform 
their devotions ; they do not chaunt any part of 
their service. The old wine here began to fail 
us, which greatly vexed and alarmed me for his 
cholic, which was likely to grow worse from 
drinking new wine, however good its quality; 
and we therefore greatly missed those of Ger- 
many, notwithstanding that they are mostly 
spiced and scented ; one sort is even spiced 
with sage, yet the taste is not disagreeable 
when you get used to it, for it is of a rich and 
generous tone. We left this place on Thursday 
after dinner, and travelling along a straight 
road, somewhat raised above the level of the 
country through which it passed, with a fosse- 
way on each side, and overlooking a very fer- 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



V 



tile plain, the mountains being, as before, a 
long way off. We got in the evening to 

Padua, eighteen miles. The inns here are 
in no respect comparable with those of Ger- 
many as to accommodation, but then the 
charges are one-third less, running much the 
same as in France. Padua is a considerable 
town, quite as large, I should say, as Bordeaux, 
if not larger. The streets are narrow and 
ugly, and you see very few people about. There 
are hardly any houses worth looking at, but 
the place is prettily situated in a plain, over 
which it commands an extensive prospect. We 
stopped here all next day, and went to see the 
fencing, dancing, and riding-schools, in which 
latter we found more than a hundred French 
gentlemen assembled, and M. de Montaigne 
observed that he thought it a very great dis- 
advantage to our young countrymen, when on 
their travels, to associate in this way, almost 
entirely with one another, inasmuch as they 
thus never disengage themselves from their own 
manners and language, and so deprive them- 
selves of opportunities of extending their know- 
ledge, by the observation of foreign manners 
and languages. The church of St. Anthony 
struck him as a fine one ; the roof is not in 
one piece, but has a multiplicity of ribs and 
pannelling. Throughout the edifice are a num- 
ber of fine works in marble and bronze. Among 
these, M. de Montaigne paused to contemplate, 
with a kindly eye, the bust of Cardinal Bembo, 
a face full of amiability and intellect. The great 
hall in this town, in which the courts of law 
hold their sittings, is the largest, unsupported 
by pillars, that I ever saw. At the upper end 
of it stands an antique bust of Livy, a thin, 
wan, studious, melancholy face, but so admira- 
bly sculptured that it seems to want nothing 
but the voice to make it living. Beneath the 
bust is the inscription which the contemporaries 
of the historian placed over him, and which his 
townsmen, at a more recent period, having dis- 
covered, placed here, as much to their own 
glory as to his. The bust of Paul, the juris- 
consult, 1 stands at the door, but M. de Mon- 
taigne was of opinion that this is quite a 
modern production. The house which occupies 
the site of the ancient Arena, and the garden 
attached to it, are well worth seeing. The 
students of the university here live at a very 
cheap rate, paying, in the best boarding-houses, 
only seven crowns a month the master, and 
six the servant. We left this place very early 
on Saturday morning, and proceeded along an 
excellent causeway, on the banks of the river. 
The country through which we passed is ex- 
ceedingly fertile, and shaded by quantities of 
fine trees; both corn and the vine are exten- 



i Julio Paulo, born at Padua, an eminent lawyer, who 
wrote five books of the Digest. The Code is full of his de- 
cisions. 

2 Henry III. of France. 

3 Fusino. 

« "Ce viellard," remarks Montaigne in a side-note, "qui 



sively cultivated here, and every now and then 
we came upon a handsome country-seat, and 
among others had one pointed out to us 
which belongs to the Contarini family, over the 
gate of which is an inscription setting forth 
that the king 2 made a stay here, on his return 
from Poland. After an agreeable ride, we 
reached 

Chaffousine, 3 twenty miles, where we dined. 
This is merely an inn, whence people embark 
for Venice. Here all the boats, coming down 
the river, are landed by means of a machine 
worked by two horses, in much the same way 
as they turn oil-mills; and the boats are then 
carried on wheels to a place where they are 
launched on the canal which runs to the sea, 
near the point where Venice stands. After 
dinner we hired a gondola, and proceeded to 

Venice, five miles. Next day, Sunday morn- 
ing, M. de Montaigne went to call on M. de 
Ferrier, 4 an ambassador, who received him with 
open arms, accompanied him to mass, and kept 
him to dinner. On Monday M. de Montaigne 
again dined with him, in company with M. d'Es- 
tissac. Among other things the ambassador told 
him, he was particularly struck with this, that 
the ambassador held no sort of correspondence 
with any man in the town; for the autho- 
rities here are so suspicious that if one of 
their people were to speak but twice to him, he 
would be immediately regarded with distrust. 
M. de Ferrier said that the seigneury derive 
a revenue of fifteen hundred thousand crowns 
from the town. The curiosities of this place 
are so well known that I need say nothing 
about them. He 5 said he found it different 
from what he had imagined it to be, and was 
indeed somewhat disappointed, after he had 
visited the various parts of it, which he did 
with great attention. The system of govern- 
ment, the situation of the place, the arsenal, 
the square of St. Mark, and the concourse of 
foreigners, seemed to him the most remark- 
able features. Monday, 6th November, while 
he was at supper, he received from Signora 
Veronica Franca, a Venetian lady, a small 
volume of letters she had written. He gave 
the messenger two crowns. Tuesday, after 
dinner, he had a fit of the cholic, which lasted 
two or three hours, though it was not appa- 
rently a very severe attack in itself, and before 
supper he passed two great stones, one after the 
other. He did not think the Venetian women 
so handsome by any means as he had heard 
they were, and yet he saw several of the most 
celebrated of those ladies who make a, traffic of 
their beauty. He was exceedingly struck, in- 
deed, as much so as with any thing else, with 
the style in which some hundred and fifty or 



a passe cinqunnte-sept ans, a ce qu'il dit, jouit d'une age 
sain etenjoue; ses farnns et sis disrours ont je ne scais 
quoi de scholastique, peu de vivacite et do pnuinte; ses 
opinions panclient fort evidainnient. en matiere de noa 
affaires, vers les innovations Calvinieimes," 
» Montaigne. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



587 



so of the principal courtesans live; their houses 
are kept up, and themselves maintained and 
dressed, quite as magnificently as though they 
were all princesses, and yet they have nothing 
to live upon but what they make by their pro- 
fession. Some of them arc kept by Venetian 
noblemen in the most open and public manner, 
ihere being no sort of attempt made to conceal 
the connexion. M. de Montaigne hired for 
himself a gondola, which he was entitled to 
the use of night and day, for two livres a 
day, about seventeen sous, including the boat- 
man. Provisions are as dear as at Paris ; but 
then, in other respects, it is the cheapest place 
in the world to live at, for the train of attend- 
ants, which you require elsewhere, are here 
altogether useless, every body going about by 
himself, and this again makes a great saving in 
clothes; besides which, you have no occasion 
for horses. Saturday, 12th November, we left 
Venice early in the morning, and returned to 

ChafFousine, five miles, where we embarked, 
men and baggage, in a boat which we hired for 
two crowns. He (Montaigne) has always been 
afraid of the water, and had a notion that the 
motion alone, of all others, upset his stomach; 
he took a fancy here to try whether the motion 
of this river, which is very equal and uniform, 
the boat being drawn by horses, would annoy 
him, and he found that it did not at all affect 
him. After passing through two or three locks, 
which open and close for the transit of each 
boat, we got by bed-time to 

Padua, twenty miles. Here M. de Caselis 
quitted our party, having arranged to stop 
in this place, where he settled in a boarding- 
house, at seven crowns a month, for which he 
would be well lodged and boarded. He might 
have kept a lacquey for five crowns a month 
more ; and yet this was one of the first houses 
of the sort in the town, where there was always 
excellent company. to be found. For instance, at 
the time M. de Caselis joined them, he found 
there the Sieur de Millan, son of M. de Salignac. 
It is very unusual for the gentlemen in these 
houses to keep servants of their own ; there is 
merely a footman belonging to the house, and 
sometimes only women, who wait upon the 
guests ; each gentleman has a comfortable room 
to himself; fire and candle they provide them- 
selves with. The living is exceedingly good, 
as wc ourselves saw ; and every thing is so 
cheap that a great many persons, who are no 
longer students, come hither to reside. It is 
not the custom here to ride on horseback in 
the town, or have servants following you. In 
Germany I had observed that every body, even 
workmen, wear swords; in the territories sub- 
ject to the seigneury, on the other hand, no 
body wears one. Sunday, 13th of November, 
after dinner, we left this place for the purpose 
of visiting some baths that lie on the right, 
at Abano, whither M. de Montaigne proceeded 
at once. This is a small village, near the foot 
of the mountains, just beyond which, at three 



or four hundred paces' distance, there is a gentle 
rocky ascent, on the top of which, where there 
is a tolerably wide space, yon find several 
springs of boiling-hot water, spouting from the 
rock. The water just at this source is too hot 
to bathe in, and of course much too hot to 
drink. The channels, which it forms on its 
descent to the ground, look quite grey, like 
ashes, and it deposits a quantity of sediment 
which takes the form of hard sponge; the taste 
of the water is salt and rather sulphury. The 
whole of the neighbouring country is affected 
by it, for the streams which it forms, and which 
run on all sides into the plain, carry the heat 
and the smell a long way round. There are 
Jtwo or three houses at this place, very indiffer- 
ently adapted for invalids, where they have 
baths supplied from these springs. The water 
sends forth a complete cloud of smoke as it 
issues from the rock; and the rock itself smokes 
and gives out such a heat at the different in- 
terstices that, in a hole which has been exca- 
vated, large enough for a man to lie down in, 
you may take a regular vapour bath, and a 
very effective one, for you are in a thorough 
perspiration in a very few moments. He tasted 
the water, after it had been drawn long enough 
to lose its excessive heat, and it seemed to him 
to savour more of salt than of any thing else. 
Further on to the right we could see the Abbey 
of Praie, so famous for its beauty, its riches, 
and its courtesy and liberality towards stran- 
gers, but he would not go there, having it fully 
in his intention to revisit all this part of the 
country, especially Venice, more at his leisure. 
He thought nothing of his present visit, and 
the only reason why he undertook it at all, 
at this period, was the hunger and thirst" he 
had felt to see Venice; indeed, he frequently 
remarked, that he could not have been easy at 
Rome, or any other place in Italy, unless he 
had first seen Venice ; and that had he gone on 
without visiting it, he should certainly have 
turned back. In the idea of returning hither, 
he left at Padua, with M. Francois Bourges, 
a Frenchman, the works of Cardinal Cusan, 1 
which he had bought at Venice. From Abano, 
we proceeded to a place called San Pietro, 
which lies very low, though the mountains 
were still very close to us on the right. The 
country around is all p:i*turc-land, where, every 
here and there, springs up one of these warm 
springs, some quite hot, some tepid, some 
nearly cold ; the taste is insipid, in comparison 
with that at Abano, with a less smell of sul- 
phur, and almost an entire absence of saline 
qualities. We saw some remains here of ancient 
buildings. There arc a few miserable little 
houses scattered about for the accommodation 
of invalids; hut the whole appearance of the 
place is savage and unpromising in the highest 



i Nicholas do Cusa. His complete works Oil Theology 
and Mallu'inalirs wi re purili.-liml at llalu. in l.~>l>5, in 3 vola. 
folio. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



degree, and I should by no means advise any 
friend of mine to go there. 'Tis said the seig- 
tieury are not very desirous of improving the 
place, for that they have an objection to any 
foreign gentlemen taking up their abode there. 
These last baths, he 1 said, reminded him of 
those at Preissac, near Ax. 2 The channel in 
which the water runs has a reddish tinge. 
The water has no taste; he thought it was 
chalybeate. We passed a very fine house, be- 
longing to a gentleman of Padua, where M. the 
Cardinal d'Este, who was ill of the gout, had 
been staying for more than two months, partly 
to be near the baths, and still more to be near 
the ladies of Venice. Close to this is 

Bataille, 3 eight miles, where we got by sup- 
per-time. This is a small village on the Del 
Fraichino Canal, which, though not more than 
two or three feet deep in some places, carries 
boats of considerable size. We were here served 
in earthen dishes and wooden plates, for want 
of pewter, but things were tolerably well in 
other respects. Monday morning I 4 proceeded 
on with the mule, and the gentlemen went to 
see the baths, which are situated five hundred 
paces from the village, on the causeway along 
the canal. There is, as he 5 tells me, one house 
at these baths, with about ten or twelve rooms 
in it. In April and May, they say, there is a 
tolerable number of visitors, but the greater 
part of these lodge in the village, or in the 
chateau belonging to Signor Pic, in which M. 
the Cardinal d'Este was living at this period. 
The water of these baths comes from the edge 
of a neighbouring hill, whence it flows to the 
above-mentioned house, by several small canals, 
and the water when it arrives is more or less 
warm, according as the length of these canals 
is greater or less. People do not drink these 
waters, but, when they want to drink any me- 
dicinal waters at all, send for those of Saint 
Pierre. M. de Montaigne went up to the top 
of the hill to see the source of this water, but 
he could not find it, and the people there told 
him the reason was because it sprang from 
under the ground. The taste of the water, like 
that at St. Pierre, is insipid, with very little 
flavour either of salt or sulphur; and he ima- 
gined that the effects of it must be pretty nearly 
the same as from those of St. Pierre. The 
water in its course leaves a reddish tinge be- 
hind it. In the bath-house here, there are 
several rooms in which you take shower-baths, 
so managed that the water is entirely directed 
against that part of the person which is indis- 
posed ; if you are sick with a head-ache, the 
water is played against the forehead, and so on. 
At different points, along these bath-canals, 
they have constructed little stone cells, just 
large enough to hold one person, in which the 
patient shuts himself, and then, certain vent- 



' Montaigne. 

2 Dax, or rather d'Acqs, in Gascony. 

s Sattaglia. 



holes connected with the steam being opened, 
the smoke and heat immediately throw him 
into a profuse perspiration ; 'tis a sort of 
vapour-bath, of which there are several kinds 
here. What is principally in use here, how- 
ever, is the mud-bath, the materials for which 
are found in ample quantities in a large 
pond near the house, whence the mud is 
taken in a particular sort of vessel, into the 
house. Here the bathers are provided with 
different sorts of wooden instruments, adapted 
for the various parts of the person which may 
require bathing, the instrument being first filled 
with the mud, and the arm, leg, or other mem- 
ber being then inserted amid the mud; the 
instrument is emptied and filled again as often 
as is required. The mud is of a black colour, 
like that at Barbotan, but not so sandy, and of 
a richer substance ; the heat is temperate, and 
there is hardly any smell in it. The only con- 
venience about these baths is, that they are so 
near Venice; the place itself is very dirty and 
disagreeable. Our gentlemen left Bataille after 
breakfast, and followed the banks of the canal, 
which is called the Canal of the Two Roads, 
from the causeways that are on each bank. We 
saw here a very curious construction ; at a par- 
ticular point of the road, a stream which de- 
scends from the mountains, has to traverse the 
canal in its course; in order to make way for it, 
without interfering with the canal, the latter is 
carried over it by a viaduct, and again over the 
viaduct a bridge, so high as to admit of vessels 
passing under it on the canal, traverses the canal 
for the use of travellers on land. The stream 
beneath is at this place contracted in its course 
by artificial banks, and is thus made deep 
enough to float boats, so that at one and the 
same time there may be one boat sailing along 
the stream, another above it on the canal, and 
above both there may be coaches rolling along 
the road. Here are three high -ways, one 
above another. Proceeding on, keeping the 
canal always on our right, we passed a small 
town called Montselisse, 6 which itself lies low, 
though the walls extend up to the top of the 
adjoining mountain, enclosing an old castle, 
which formerly belonged to the seigneurs of 
the town, but is now in ruins. Leaving the 
mountains to the right, we turned towards the 
left, along a handsome, level, raised road, 
which in summer time must be very agreeably 
shaded by the trees on each side; on either 
hand fertile valleys, where, as is the fashion 
here, amidst the corn fields are numbers of 
trees, ranged in long lines, for the purpose 
of serving as supporters for the vines. Im- 
mense oxen, of a dun colour, are so common 
here that, had I seen them before, I should have 
felt no particular admiration of those I saw 
belonging to the Archduke Fernand. By and by, 



< The Secretary, 
s Montaigne. 
4 Mont-celese. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



they reached some higher ground, where they 
found themselves surrounded by marshes more 
than fifteen miles in breadth, and extending fur- 
ther than the eye could reach. These formerly 
were enormous ponds, but the seigneury made 
great exertions to have them drained, in order 
to apply the land to the purposes of labour, 
wherever it was possible ; and they have suc- 
ceeded in some few places ; but, for the most 
part, all they have realized is, a vast extent of 
marshes, which produce nothing but reeds. 
They have lost more than they have gained, by 
changing the form of the ground. We passed 
the river Adisse, which lay on our right, upon 
a floating-bridge, consisting of two boats, large 
enough to hold some fifteen or twenty horses, 
which is worked to and fro by a long rope fixed 
to long poles on each side of the river, and sus- 
tained in the middle of the stream by another 
pole, fixed in a stationary boat. We got by 
bed-time to 

Rovigo, twenty- five miles, a small town 
belonging to the seigneury of Venice. We 
lodged at an inn outside the town. Here they 
began to serve us up the salt in lumps, which 
the people make use of in bits, as they do 
lump-sugar. There is quite as much provision 
to be got here as in France, notwithstanding 
all we had been told to the contrary ; and their 
way of not basting their roast meat we found 
did not at all injure the flavour. Their rooms, 
from want of glass and proper windows, are not 
so neat and comfortable as those in France, but 
the beds are better made, more compact, and 
with plenty of mattresses; their curtains, how- 
ever, are miserable affairs, lamentably bare, 
and made of wretched materials; and they are 
exceedingly chary of clean linen. A person 
travelling by himself, and without attendants, 
would get none at all. The charges are much 
the same as in France, perhaps somewhat 
higher. This is the birth-place of that worthy 
fellow Celius, 1 who hence took the surname of 
Rodoginus. The town is a very pretty one, 
with an exceedingly handsome square; the 
river Adisse runs right through it. We left 
this place, Tuesday morning, 15th November, 
and proceeded for some time along the cause- 
way, which resembles that at Blois. We then 
crossed the river Adisse, on our right, and, 
soon after, the Po, which lay on our left. On 
both bridges there were toll-gates, where you 
pay for your passage, and they have contrivances 
whereby they can stop the boats underneath, 
until they have paid what is due. The differ- 
ent tolls payable are painted on a board fixed 
to the bridge. We then descended into a very 
flat part of the country, where, as it seemed to 
us, in rainy weather, the roads must needs be 



i Ludovirus Celius, surnamed Rodoeinus, a learned pro- 
fessor of Padua, and master of Julius Cu'sar Soalicer; 
principally known by his Lticliottes Jintiqum ; he died 1525. 

» Alphonso d'Estc, serond of Hie name, duke of Ferrara, 
Modena, and Reggio. Died 27th Oct. 1597. 

5< 



altogether impassable; and, making no stop- 
page in our way, we got in the evening to 

Ferrara, twenty miles. Here they kept us 
waiting a long time at the gates, till they got 
us passports and certificates of health, and the 
same was the case with several other people 
who came up. The town is about the size of 
Tours, and stands in a very flat country ; there 
are a great number of palaces ; the streets are 
wide and straight, and full of people. Wed- 
nesday morning, Messieurs d'Estissac and de 
Montaigne went to pay their respects to the 
duke. 2 On his being informed of their arrival 
at the palace, he sent a gentleman of his court 
to receive them and conduct them to his own 
apartment, where he was with two or three 
other personages. They passed through several 
private rooms, where they saw a number of 
handsomely dressed gentlemen. On entering 
the duke's room, they found him standing at a 
table, awaiting their arrival. He raised his cap 
as they entered, and remained uncovered all the 
while M. de Montaigne conversed with him,, 
which was for a considerable time. He first 
asked M. de Montaigne whether he understood 
their language, and on his replying in the affirm- 
ative, he told them, in very elegant Italian, 
that he was always delighted to receive gentle- 
men belonging to their nation, having the 
greatest respect for his most Christian Majesty. 
After conversing upon different topics, Messieurs 
retired. The duke never once put on his cap 
while they were in the room. In one of the 
churches 3 we saw a bust of Ariosto, 4 somewhat 
fuller in the face than it is represented in his 
works; 5 he died 6th June, 1533, aged 59. 
They serve up fruit here on plates. The streets 
are all paved with brick. The colonnades, 
which run along each side of every street in 
Padua, and are extremely convenient, enabling 
you to walk about in all weathers, free from 
dirt, are not to be found in Ferrara. At Venice 
the streets are paved with the same mate- 
rial, and the pavement sloping, there is never 
any mud to annoy you. Talking of Venice, 
I forgot to mention that the day we left it, we 
met on our way several large boats laden with 
fresh water; a boat-load of this fetches a crown 
at Venice, and it is used both for drinking and 
in dying cloth. When we were at Chaffbusine, 
we saw them loading the boats with this water, 
the product of a neighbouring spring, whence, 
by means of two horses turning a wheel, it is 
raised into a wooden pipe, or trough, that 
discharges it into the boats on the canal, which 
come up by turns to receive their cargo. We 
stayed all day at Ferrara, and went to see 
several fine churches, gardens, and private 
houses. In the garden of the Jesuits, the most 



'That oftherienedictins. 

* Ilia bust in white marble, which stands on his tomb. 
« That is to say, in his portrait, 09 prefixed to the large 
Italian editions of his works. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



remarkable thing is a rose tree that produces 
flowers every month in the year. At the time 
we were there, there was a rose in bloom, 
which was given to M. de Montaigne. We 
also saw the state barge, which the duke, in 
emulation of the Venetian Bucentaur, has had 
built for his new wife, — who is a pretty woman, 
much too young for him, — to take excursions 
in upon the river Po. We also visited the 
duke's arsenal, where we saw a culverin, 
twenty-six feet long, and one foot in diameter. 
The new wine we drank, and the water we got 
here, brought from the river, alarmed him 1 for 
his cholic. Over all the doors in the inn is 
written: Ricordati delta bolleta? As soon as 
you have arrived at the town, you must send 
word to the principal mngistrate what is your 
name, and the number of your attendants, and 
the magistrate returns permission for the land- 
lord of the inn where you have put up, to en- 
tertain you; otherwise he will not allow you 
to remain in his bouse. Thursday morning, we 
left this place, and proceeded through a level 
and fertile country. The roads here must be 
very troublesome to pedestrians in wet weather, 
when the rich soil of Lombardy becomes a 
thick mass of mud, whence you have no means 
of escaping, the highways being closed in on 
either side by ditches; so to remedy this incon- 
venience, the people of the country make use of 
small stilts, about half a foot high. We went 
on without stopping to 

Boulougne, 3 thirty miles, which we reached 
in the evening. This is a large and handsome 
town, much bigger and more populous than 
Ferrara. At the inn where we put up we 
found the Seigneur de Montluc, who had 
arrived an hour before us, having come direct 
from France for the purpose of staying at this 
place some time, to perfect himself in fencing 
and riding. On Friday we went to see the 
Venetian fencer, who boasts that he has invented 
a system of sword-play which will supersede 
every other system : and certainly his method 
very much differs from the ordinary practice. 
The best pupil he has is a young gentleman 
of Bordeaux, named Binet. We saw here an 
ancient tower of a square form ; so constructed 
that it leans all on one side, and appears every 
instant to be about to fall. 4 We went also to 
see the school of sciences, 5 which is the finest 
edifice I ever saw dedicated to this purpose. 
Saturday, after dinner, we went to the play, 
with which he was greatly amused ; but he 
got a head-ache there, a malady he had 
not experienced for several years previously; 
and yet at the same time he felt freer from his 
pains than he had been for a long time back, 
and was as well in the stomach as he was on 



i Montaigne. 

2 Do not lose sight of your health-certificate. 

3 Bologna. 

4 There are two of these leaning lowers standing in the 
middle of the citv, and inclining in different directions; 
that of Asinelli, 320 feet high, inclines ahout 3J- feel; that 



his return from Bannieres. The head-ache left 
him in the course of the night. The town is 
full of broad and handsome colonnades, and 
you everywhere come upon splendid palaces. 
You live much the same as at Padua, and at a 
very cheap rate; but the town is not so tran- 
quil, in consequence of the longstanding feuds 
which exist between the different old families 
in the place, some of these being partisans 
of the French, while others favour the 
Spaniards, a great number of whom reside 
here. In the middle of the grand square there 
is a very magnificent fountain. 6 On Sunday, 
he was about to resume his journey to Rome 
by the left road, which goes through Imola, 
the Marches of Ancona and Loretto; but, being 
informed by a German that he had recently 
been robbed by banditti on this route, in the 
duchy of Spoleto, he determined to take the 
road for Florence, and we accordingly started 
in that direction, and, travelling along a very 
rough and mountainous country, got by bed- 
time to 

Loyan, 7 sixteen miles, a small and disagree- 
able village. There are only two inns here, 
and these are noted throughout Italy for the 
deception which they practise upon travellers, 
in feeding them with fine promises of every 
possible accommodation before you dismount, 
and laughing at you when they have once got 
you into their houses ; the thing is so notorious 
that it has passed into a proverb. We left this 
place early next morning, and travelled all day 
along a road far more rugged and disagreeable 
than any we had hitherto experienced; in 
some parts, among the mountains, it was almost 
impracticable. We got by bed-time to 

Scarperia, twenty-four miles, a small town 
of Tuscany, where there is a considerable trade 
in penknives, scissors, and similar articles. He 
was exceedingly amused here at the rivalry 
among the landlords. It is their practice to 
send people in search of travellers seven or 
eight leagues on the road, and to solicit them to 
put up at their inns. You will frequently meet 
the landlord himself on horseback; and every 
here and there well-dressed people, who watch 
you about, and keep teazing you in favour of 
their employers. All along the road, he amused 
himself immensely by hearing what every one 
of these fellows had to say, and the promises 
which they respectively lavished; there was 
nothing which they were not ready to provide 
you. 8 One man offered to make him a present 
of a hare, if he would but so much as come and 
look at his house. Their disputes and rivalry, 
however, terminate at the gates of the town, 
upon reaching which they do not venture to 
say a word more on the subject. They all 



of Garisenda, to which Montaigne refers, is 145 feet 1 
and inclines 8 feet. 

& The Scuola built by Vignole. 

"That of the Giant. 

» " Anche ragazze e ragazzi." 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



591 



offer to furnish you with a guide on horseback, 
at their own expense, and for him to carry 
part of your baggage to the inn where you are 
going: this is an invariable practice among all 
of them, and they pay the guide as a matter of 
course. I did not understand whether they 
were; obliged to do this by the government, in 
consequence of the insecurity of the roads. We 
had made a bargain as to what we had to pay, 
and what we were to have for it at Loian, 
before we left Boulougne. When we got 
there, however, though sadly pressed by the 
people of the house where we stopped, and 
others, to alight, ho sent some of us round to the 
different inns to see the apartments, the provi- 
sions, the wines, and to have the prices named, 
and he did not dismount till he found out 
which was the best. It is impossible, however, 
to make your bargain so as to escape being 
cheated by them in some way or other; for if 
you keep them to their agreement in one thing, 
they rob you in another ; if you enforce the 
wine, provisions, and so on, that you have bar- 
gained for, they cheat you in wood, candles, 
linen, or some other article which you have 
omitted to specify. This route is very much 
frequented, tbr it is the high road to Rome. I 
was here informed of a piece of stupidity I had 
been guilty of, in having- omitted, when on my 
way from Loian, to visit the top of a mountain, 
about two miles out of the road, whence, in 
stormy and wet weather, you can in the night- 
times see flames issue, which rise to a great 
height; and I was told that when the eruption 
is particularly strong, there are pieces of money 
sometimes thrown up, with a figure on them. 1 
We ought to have gone and seen this. We 
left Scaperia next morning, our landlord acting 
as guide, and proceeded along a fine road, 
between bills, which seemed well cultivated 
and thickly inhabited. We turned out of our 
way two miles on the right, to see a palace 
that the Duke of Florence built here twelve 
years ago, and has ever since been exercising 
his seven senses in embellishing. He would 
seem to have expressly selected an incon- 
venient site, sterile and rugged, and utterly 
without water, merely that he might have the 
pleasure of bringing the water from five miles 
off, and his other materials of every description 
from another five miles off, in an opposite direc- 
tion. There is no unity of design about the 
place. The view from it consists merely of hills, 
which is the general feature of the country. 
The place is called Pratellino, 8 and has a most 
despicable appearance from the distance; but 
when viewed nearer it looks handsome enough, 
though not nearly so well as the better sort of 
palaces among us in France. The furniture is 
pretty enough, but does not at all partake of 
the magnificent. There is, however, a grotto, 
consisting of several cells, which is the finest 



we ever saw. It is formed, and all crusted 
over, with a certain material, which they told 
us was brought from some particular mountain; 
the wood-work is all ingeniously fastened "to- 
gether with invisible nails. Here you see 
various musical instruments, which perforin a 
variety of pieces, by the agency of the water ; 
which also, by a hidden machinery, gives mo- 
tion to several statues, single and in groups, 
opens doors, and gives apparent animation to 
the figures of various animals, that seem to 
jump into the water, to drink, to swim about, 
and so on. On touching a spring, the whole 
grotto becomes full of water, and all the seats 
spout minute streams against you; and when, 
flying from the grotto, you seek a refuge on the 
stairs that lead to the castle, the motion of 
another hidden spring gives play to a thousand 
jets of water, that inundate you with their show- 
ers, till you reach the top. The beauty and rich- 
ness of this place cannot be conveyed by any 
description, however detailed. The approach to 
the castle is through a walk fifty feet wide, and 
about 500 paces long, which has been constructed 
at a very heavy expense. On each side of 
this walk there are, at every five and ten paces 
alternately, handsome fountains, standing upon 
elaborately sculptured stone pedestals, so that 
as you look down the walk, you see ranges of 
fountains spouting forth water to a great height 
on both sides. At the bottom there is a very 
large fountain, which discharges its waters 
into an immense bason, by the medium of a 
marble statue, representing a woman washing. 
She is wringing a table-cloth, also of white 
marble, the droppings from which keep the 
bason full; near this is another vessel, where 
the water seems boiling, to make ley with. 
In the dining-room of the castle there is a 
marble table, with places for six guests; in 
each of these places, upon raising a small 
lid, formed in the marble, you find a ring con- 
nected with a vessel under the table. From 
each of these six vessels, on pulling up this 
ring, there rises a fountain of fresh water, in 
which you may either cool or cleanse your 
glass, and in the centre is a similar fountain, or 
rather well, for the bottle. We also saw some 
deep pits in the ground, where they preserve a 
quantity of snow throughout the year, the 
snow being placed on layers of broom, and the 
heap, which is made in a pyramidical form, being 
finally covered over with thatch, like a barn. 
There are a great many of these snow -pits. 
They are now erecting the statue of an enor- 
mous giant, with one eye, which alone is three 
cubits wide, the rest of the body being in propor- 
tion ; this they intend for an immense fountain. 
There are a thousand reservoirs and ponds, 
supplied from the two principal fountains, by 
infinite earthen pipes. \\ e saw a very large 
and handsome aviary, in which we noticed 



i Montai»ne probably refers i<> the volcano of Piclra 
Mala, eight leagues from Uologna. 



i Pratolino, two miles from Florence, built, aci 

M. I.nlamle. in 1573, by the Grand Duke I'r is, sen of 

Cosmo the First. 



592 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



some little birds, like goldfinches somewhat, 
only they had two long feathers at the tail, 
resembling those of a cock. We had a very 
singular sort of stove shown us. We stopped 
here two or three hours, and then resumed our 
journey, along several high hills to 

Florence, seventeen miles, a place smaller 
than Ferrara, situated in a valley, surrounded 
by richly cultivated hills. The river Arno 
passes through the town, and is crossed by 
several bridges. We saw no fosse round the 
/ walls. To-day he (Montaigne) passed two 
^" stones, and a quantity of gravel, without having 
had any other notice of it than a slight pain 
in the lower part of his stomach. The same 
day we went to see the Grand Duke's stables, 
which are very large, with arched roofs; there 
are very few horses of any value here; at least, 
there were not, when we went over them. We 
were shown a sheep of a very strange form ; 
together with a camel, several lions and bears, 
and an animal as big as a large mastiff, but of 
the form of a cat, all striped black and white, 
which they called a tiger. We looked over 
the church of St. Lawrence, where the flags 
are still hanging, which we lost under Marshal 
Strozzi, in Tuscany. 1 In this church, there are 
several excellent pictures, and some statues by 
Michael Angelo. We went to see the cathe- 
dral, a magnificent structure, the steeple of 
which is faced with black and white marble ; it 
is one of the finest and most sumptuous churches 
in the world. M. de Montaigne said he had 
never been in a country where there were 
so few pretty women as in Italy. The inns 
are far less convenient than those in France 
and Germany; the provisions are not half so 
plentiful as in Germany, and not near so well 
dressed. They do not lard the meat in either 
country; but then in Germany it is far better 
seasoned, and there is an infinite variety of 
soups and sauces, which is not the case here. 
The houses, too, in Italy are very inferior; 
there are no good rooms; and the large win- 
dows have no glass or other protection against 
the weather, but an unwieldy shutter, which 
excludes the light, at the same time that 
you use it to keep off the wind or rain; 
an inconvenience which we found still more 
intolerable than the want of bed-curtains in 
Germany. The bed-rooms are mere cabins, 
and the beds wretched pallets, running on 
castors, with a miserable canopy over them; 
and heaven help him who cannot lie hard! 
There is a great deficiency of linen, too. The 
wines, generally speaking, are far inferior to 
those of Germany; and at this time of the 
year, in particular, lamentably insipid and 



i In the battle of Marriano, in which Pietro Strozzi was 
defeated hy the Marquis de Mari?nan, Aug. 2, 1.534. Strozzi 
was not a marshal of Fiance at the period of the battle; 
but he was created one hy Henry II. the same year. 

" A Spanish coin, worth at the present time about 2£d. 

3 Cosmo II. 

* This place was defended by Rlaise de Montluc, and did 
not surrender (in 1554) till after a siege often months. 

' In the same year. 



mawkish. The charges, it is true, are some- 
what less. Florence, for instance, is considered 
the dearest city in Italy, and the bargain I 
made here, before my master arrived at the inn, 
the Angel, was for seven reals 2 a day, man and 
horse, and four reals a day for a man without 
a horse. The same day we went to see the 
duke's palace. This prince spends a good deal 
of his time in making imitations of oriental 
precious stones and chrystal: he has a great 
taste for alchemy and the mechanical arts, 
especially architecture, of which he has a more 
than ordinary knowledge. Next day, M. de 
Montaigne ascended, the first of us, to the lop 
of the cathedral, where there is a ball of gilt 
brass, which, from below, seems about the size 
of your head, though when you get up to it 
you find it capable of holding forty persons. 
He here observed that the marble with which 
this church is covered, even the black compart- 
ments, for it is alternate black and white, is 
already beginning, in many places, to give 
way, and to open in large crevices, under the 
influence of the frost and the sun ; which in- 
duced him to doubt very much the genuine- 
ness of the marble. He went also to see the 
palaces of the Strozzi and the Gondi, where 
some of each family still remain, and paid 
another visit to the duke's palace. In one of 
the apartments Cosmo, 3 his father, has had 
painted the taking of Sienna, 4 and the battle 
we lost; 5 yet in many parts of the town, and 
on the old walls of the palace itself, the fleurs- 
de-lys occupy the most honourable position. 9 
Messrs. d'Estissac and Montaigne went to dine 
with the grand duke, for such is his title here. 
His wife 7 occupied the post of honour; the 
duke sat on her right, next to him sat the 
duchess's sister-in-law, and next to her her 
husband, the duchess's brother. The duchess 
is a handsome woman, according to the Italian 
notion of beauty, with a countenance at once 
agreeable and dignified, and a bosom of the most 
ample proportions. M. de Montaigne had not 
been with her long, before he thoroughly un- 
derstood how she had managed to wheedle the 
duke into entire subjection to her will, and he 
had no doubt she would be able to retain him 
at her feet for a long time to come. The duke 
is a dark, stout man, about my height, with 
large limbs, and a countenance full of kind- 
liness: he always takes his cap off when he 
meets any one, which, to my mind, is a very 
agreeable feature in his character. He looks 
like a healthy man of forty. On the other 
side of the table were the cardinal, 8 and a young 
man of about eighteen, 9 the duke's two brothers. 
When the duke or his wife want to drink, they 



« On account of the alliance between Francis I. and tbe 
house of Medicis. 

7 The celebrated Bianca Capello. 

8 The Cardinal de Medicis, afterwards Grand Duke, under 
the title of Ferdinand I. 

Probably one of the two sons that Cosmo, the Grand 
Duke's father, had by Camilla Marelli, whom Pope Pius V. 
obliged him to marry. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



have presented to them a glass of wine and a 
decanter of water, in a sort of bason; they take 
the wine, and pour as much of it as they do not 
want into the bason, filling the glass up with 
water; and when they have drunk it, they 
replace the glass in the bason, which a page 
holds for them. The duke took a good deal of 
water ; the duchess hardly any. The fault of 
the Germans is to make use of glasses out of 
all proportion too large ; here they are in the 
extreme the other way, for the glasses are 
absurdly small. I do not understand why this 
city should be called, par excellence, the Beau- 
tiful : it is handsome, no doubt, but not more 
so than Bologna, and very little more so than 
Ferrara; while Venice is, beyond all compa- 
rison, superior to it, in this respect. No doubt 
the view of the city and its suburbs, from the 
top of the cathedral, has an imposing effect, 
owing to the immense space which the suburbs 
occupy, covering, as they do, the sides and 
summit of all the neighbouring hills for 
two or three leagues round ; and the houses 
being so close to each other that they look 
almost like streets. The city is paved with 
flat stones, but in no sort of method or order. 
After dinner, the four gentlemen hired a 
guide and post-horses to go to a country place 
of the duke's called Castello. The house 
itself is not worth looking at; but there are 
several gardens admirably laid out, all of them 
on the slope of a hill, so that all the straight 
walks are upon a descent, but a very gentle 
and easy one; the cross walks are level and 
terraced. In every direction, you see a variety 
of arbours, thickly formed of every description 
of odoriferous trees, cedars, cypresses, orange 
trees, lemon trees, and olive trees, the branches 
of which are so closely interwoven that the sun, 
at its meridian height, cannot penetrate them. 
These arbours will only hold three or four 
people. In the centre of one of the pieces 
of water, there is an artificial rock, which 
looks all frozen over, an effect produced by 
means of the same material with which the 
duke has covered his grottoes at Pratellino; 
and at the top of this rock there is a statue in 
brass, representing a very old, grey-haired man, 
seated in a melancholy attitude, with folded 
arms, from whose beard, forehead, and face, 
the water is incessantly running, drop by drop, 
so as to represent tears and perspiration ; and 
these are the only outlets by which the fountain 
discharges its contents. In another place, 
they had an amusing experience of the trick 
I have mentioned before; for as they were 
walking about the garden, looking at the 
various objects of interest, the gardener, who 
had just before left them for the purpose, while 
they were standing to admire some marble 
statues they came to, discharged upon -them, 
from under their feet and legs, an infinity of 
springs of water, so small that, till you looked 



1 The Ilerrvlcs and Jlntaus. 

60* 



closely, they were invisible, and which had 
just the appearance of small rain, and they got 
regularly wet through, in the lower part of 
their persons. The springs which the gardener 
worked were more than two hundred paces 
from the spot; but they were so ingeniously 
planned, and so well made, that with the least 
motion he set them in operation, or stopped 
them, just as he pleased, and in a moment. 
They have this sort of trick in a good many 
places in this part of the country. We went 
to look at the principal fountain, which dis- 
charges its contents through two large figures 
in bronze, the lower of which has taken the 
other in his arms, and is squeezing him with 
all his might; 1 the latter, almost senseless, has 
his head thrown back, and discharges the water 
from his mouth; and the machinery is so 
powerful that the fountain rises to a height of 
two hundred and twenty-two feet above the 
figures, which themselves are twenty feet high. 
In another part of the gardens there is a small 
room, constructed among the branches of an 
evergreen tree, of a foliage much fuller than 
any they had ever seen before, so full that you 
cannot see out of the room through its thick 
green walls, except by pushing the smallest 
of the branches aside. In the centre of this, 
by some means which you are not made 
acquainted with, there rises a small foun- 
tain of water, through a marble bason, into 
which it falls. They have some machinery 
here for water-music; but they had not time 
to go and see it, for it was getting late, and we 
had to ride back to the city. They saw the 
duke's coat-of-arms here, over the gate, formed 
of the branches of trees, which are so trained 
by exquisite art as to compose the different 
parts. The time of year was that most un- 
favourable to gardens, which made them wonder 
all the more at the condition in which they 
found this. There is also a very handsome 
grotto, in which are to be seen all sorts of 
animals, sculptured the size of life, which are 
spouting out water, some by the beak, others 
by the mouth, or the nails, or the nostrils. 
I forgot to mention, that in one of the rooms of 
the palace there is to be seen, placed upon a 
pillar, the body of an animal of a very strange 
form; the breast is all covered with scale.-. 
and all up the back-bone there grows a sort 
of excrescence, like a horn. They told us it 
was found in a cavern, among the mountains, 
some years ago, and brought here alive. It is 
now bronzed over. We went to see the palace 2 
where the Queen Mother" was born. In order 
to ascertain all the particulars respecting the 
mode and expense of living in this place, he 
went to look at several apartments that were 
to be let, and at several boarding-houses, but 
he did not see anything at all desirable. The 
only rooms that are to be let here, he was told, 
were at the inns, and all those he saw were 



* The palace fitti. 



594 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



exceedingly dirty and inconvenient, and far 
dearer than at Paris, or even at Venice; and 
the style of living at the boarding-houses is 
miserable, though they charge for gentlemen 
more than twelve crowns a month. There is 
nothing to amuse you here, or to exercise either 
body or mind ; there is neither fencing, nor 
riding, nor literature. Pewter is very scarce 
all about here ; you are seldom served in any 
thing but coloured earthenware, and that gene- 
rally dirty. Thursday morning, 24th Novem- 
ber, we left this place, and proceeded through 
a country which did not appear to us very fer- 
tile, though it was cultivated on all sides, and 
thickly inhabited. The road was rough and 
stony, and, though we went on without stop- 
ping, it was not till very late that we got to 

Sienna,, thirty-two miles, four posts; for the 
posts here are eight miles, which is longer 
than ours are. Friday morning he went over 
the town very minutely, being more especially 
desirous of seeing every part of it, from its con- 
nexion with our wars. It is a very irregular 
town, built upon the ridge of a hill, along 
which the best streets lay; the other streets 
run down the two sides, in different directions, 
some of them turning back, and coming half 
way up again. It is reckoned among the 
handsome towns of Italy, but not in the first 
class: it is not so large as Florence; it has 
every appearance of being a very ancient place. 
There are a vast number of fountains, from 
which most of the inhabitants have water laid 
on in their own houses. They have plenty of 
excellent cool cellars. The cathedral church, 
which is very little inferior to that of Florence, 
is coated inside and out with'the same marble 
of which I spoke before ; with which, cut into 
square pieces, some a foot thick, others less, 
they face, as with a veneer, buildings con- 
structed with brick, which is the ordinary 
material used in this country. The hand- 
somest part of the town is the circus, three of 
whose sides bend towards the palace, which 
forms the fourth side, and which itself is slightly 
semicircular in its form, though less so than 
the other sides of the circus. Opposite the 
palace, at the upper end of the circus, there is 
a magnificent fountain, which, through a num- 
ber of spouts, fills a large vessel, whence all 
who choose may draw very admirable water. 
Several streets terminate in this circus, to which 
you ascend by steps. There is an immense 
number of streets, many of them extremely 
ancient. The principal street is called the 
Piccolomini; the next the Tolomei; the next 
the Colombini; the next the Cerritani; 1 and so 
on. We saw clear evidences, in several places, 
of an antiquity of three or four hundred years. 
The standard of the town, which you see in a 
variety of places, is the wolf of Rome, the 
foster-mother of Romulus and Remus. The 
Duke of Florence treats the noblemen here, who 



sided with us, with much courtesy, and he has 
placed near his person Silvio Piccolomini, one 
of the most accomplished men of the age, and 
eminently skilled in the science of arms; a useful 
precaution, perhaps, in a prince who has to guard 
himself chiefly against his own subjects. He 
leaves to the towns the care of fortifying them- 
selves, and pays his whole attention to the cita- 
dels, which are kept constantly provisioned and 
garrisoned in the completest manner possible, 
and with such jealous watchfulness that hardly 
any person but the garrison is permitted to 
approach them. This article of expenditure 
amounts to a great deal every year. The women 
mostly wear a sort of hat u we observed that 
some of them took off these hats at the eleva- 
tion of the host, in the same way that the men 
did. We lodged at the Crown, a tolerable inn, 
except that here, too, we were unprovided with 
windows, or even window-frames. When M. 
de Montaigne was at Pratellino, after he had ex- 
pressed to the housekeeper his admiration of the 
beauty of the place, he animadverted upon the 
defects of the doors and windows; great planks 
of deal, without form or covering, and great 
uncouth locks, no better than our village barn- 
doors; and he objected further to the hollow 
tiles, saying, that if they could not get slate, 
or lead, or copper, they ought, at all events, to 
have adopted some architectural modification, 
which would have concealed the tiles from 
the eye of the spectator, which points the 
housekeeper said he would mention to his 
master. The duke has not removed any of the 
ancient mottoes and emblems which, through- 
out the town, enjoin the love of liberty; yet 
the tombs and epitaphs of the French who 
died there, have all been carried off and hid in 
some place in the town, under pretext that the 
church where they were was going to be altered 
and repaired. Saturday, 26th, after dinner, 
we set off, and, passing through the same sort 
of country as before, got by supper-time to 

Buonconvent, twelve miles, a cnstello of 
Tuscany, for so they call such fortified places 
as are too small to merit the appellation of 

j towns. Monday morning, very early, we left 
this place, and, as M. de Montaigne wished to 

j see Montalcin, 2 from its connexion with French 
history, he turned out of the road on the right, 
and, with Messrs. d'Estissac, de Mattecoulon, 
and du Hautoi, went to this place, which they 
described as an ill-built town, about the size of 
St. Emilion, standing on one of the highest 
mountains in that part of the country, yet not 
very difficult of access. When they got there, 
they found that mass was celebrating, so they 
attended it. At the end of the town there is a 
castle, in which the duke keeps up a garrison; 
but, in his 3 opinion, the castle would be of 
small service, the place being completely com- 
manded by another mountain, not more than 
a hundred paces from the duke's territories. 



These are a]] names of illustrious Siennese families. 



Montaigne's. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



595 



They retain so affectionate a memory of the ] 
French here, that you can hardly mention the j 
name of our countrymen to them, without 
bringing tears into their eyes, war itself wear- 
ing a more genial aspect to them, when accom- 
panied with some approach to liberty, than all 
the blessings of peace, when enjoyed under the 
government of a despot. M. de Montaigne 
enquired whether any French had been buried 
here, and was told that there had been several | 
of their tombs in the church of St. Augustin, : 
but that these had all been dug into the ground 
by order of the duke. The road we now passed | 
along was steep and stony, and it was not till 
the evening that we reached 

La Paille, 1 twenty-three miles, a small vil- 
lage, consisting of some five or six miserable I 
houses, seated at the foot of a barren mountain. 
We resumed our journey next morning early, J 
along a deep, narrow road, where we passed , 
and repassed, fully a hundred times, a moun- j 
tain torrent which accompanies the road, now 
on one side, and now on the other. By and by, 
we came to a large village, built by the present j 
Pope Gregory, 2 which marks the boundary of j 
the territories of the Duke of Florence, and we j 
now entered the states of the Church. Passing 
through Aquapendente, a small town, so named, j 
I believe, from a torrent, which here precipi- 
tates itself over the rocks into the plain be- j 
neath, we went on to St. Laurenzo, a castelln, j 
and through Bolseno, another castello, and 
then, following the lake, which is called the | 
Lake of Bolseno, and is thirty miles long and | 
ten broad, and in the middle of which rise two 
rocks like islands, where they told us there j 
are two monasteries, we went on, without \ 
stopping, through the same steep and miserable 
road, to 

Montefiascon, twenty-six miles, a small town 
perched on the pinnacle of one of the highest 
mountains in this part of the country. The 
town has every appearance of great antiquity. 
We left it next morning, and went through a 
level and fertile country to Viterbo, which stands ! 
partly on the side of a mountain. This is a j 
pretty town, about the size of Sanlis. We saw 
here a great number of handsome houses, plenty , 
of work going on, and very agreeable streets: 
there were three fine fountains in different parts 
of the town. He would have stopped in this | 
place, on account of its beauty, but his bag- j 
gage-mule, which was on in front, had passed | 
through the town before he had made up his J 
mind. We here began the ascent of a high 
mountain, at the foot of which, on this side, is ' 
a small lake called Vico. Thence, through a ] 
pleasant valley, flanked on one side by hills 
covered with wood, an article of very rare 
occurrence about here, and on the other side by 
the_lake, we got early in the evening to 

nineteen miles, a small town 



La Pa e lia. 
'Gregory XIII. 



with a castle belonging to the Duke of Parrna ; 
there are several other small towns and estates, 
belonging to the Farnese family, in this neigh- 
bourhood. The inns all along tin's route are of 
the best description, owing to its being the high 
post-road. They charge you five Julios a horse, 
each post of two miles, and you can hire one 
at the same rate for two or three posts, or for 
several days, without putting you to any trou- 
ble about the care of the horse at the end of 
the journey, for the landlords here all take 
charge of one another's horses; and if the 
one you have hired fails you before it has 
reached its destination, you are entitled, by the 
terms of the agreement in all these cases, to re- 
place it by another, at any of the inns on your 
route. We ourselves saw a case, at Sienna, of 
a Fleming, who joined our company, and who, 
though alone and a stranger, altogether un- 
known to every person there, was trusted 
with a horse which he hired to carry him to 
Rome, the only thing he was required to do 
before he started, being to pay the amount of its 
hire; as to the rest, the horse is wholly at 
your mercy, and it entirely depends upon your 
sense of honesty to leave him at the place where 
you have undertaken to deposit him. M. de 
Montaigne congratulated himself upon the cus- 
tom here of dining and supping late, which is 
quite to his taste ; in good families they do not 
dine till two o'clock in the afternoon, nor sup 
till nine ; so that, where there are actors, they 
do not commence the performances till six in 
the evening, by torchlight; the play lasts for 
two or three hours, and then you go home to 
supper. He remarked that it was a capital 
country for idle people, for they rise very late. 
We started next morning, three hours before 
day, so anxious was he to get once on the pave- 
ment of Rome; but he found the morning 
dewy, very nearly as bad for his stomach as 
that of the evening, and he was exceedingly 
indisposed with it till the sun came out, though 
the night was a very mild one. When we got 
within fifteen miles of Rome, we caught a 
glimpse of the Eternal City, but presently lost 
sight of it again for a long time. There are 
several villages and inns on the way. We 
passed over some bits of road, raised, and paved 
with large stones, smacking very much of the 
ancients; and, nearer the city, we saw some 
buildings manifestly of great age, and some 
stones which successive Popes had caused to 
he erected in honour of various events of the 
old time. Most of the ruins are of brick, such 
as the Termes of Dioclesian, a brick small and 
simple like ours, and not large and thick, like 
those which we find in the classic ruins in 
France and elsewhere. Rome did not seem to 
us to make much of an appearance as we 
approached it from this road. Far away on 
the left, lay the Apennines; the aspect or the 



1 Ronciglione. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



fore-ground was exceedingly unpleasant to the 
eye; hilly, with every here and there deep 
marshes, altogether unfit for military operations 
or marches ; the country all around us, for ten 
miles in every direction, was open, barren, and 
altogether destitute of trees, and almost equally 
so of houses. After travelling for some distance 
through this sort of country, we arrived at 
about twelve o'clock, on the 30th of November, 
St. Andrew's -day, at the Porto del Popolo 
and 

Rome, thirty miles, where we had, as else- 
where, some difficulty in procuring admittance, 
on account of the plague which they said was 
raging at Genoa. However, we got in at last, 
and went to the Bear, where we staid that day 
and the next, but on the 2nd of December 
hired apartments at the house of a Spaniard, 
opposite the church of Santa Lucia della Tinta. 
We were here provided with three handsome 
bed-rooms, a dining-room, closet, stable, and 
kitchen, for twenty crowns a month, for which 
sum the landlord agreed to include a cook, and 
fire for the kitchen. The apartments at Rome 
are generally furnished somewhat better than 
those at Paris, the people here having great 
quantities of gilt leather, with which the higher 
class of rooms are lined. For the same price 
we gave for these lodgings, we might have 
had some at the Golden Vase, close by, hung 
with cloth of gold and silk, quite like a royal 
palace ; but, besides that the rooms here were 
less independent of one another than those 
we took, M. de Montaigne was of opinion that 
all this magnificence was not only quite super- 
fluous, but that we should find it very trouble- 
some with reference to taking care of the furni- 
ture, for there was not a bed in the place which 
was not of the estimated value of four or five 
hundred crowns. At our lodgings we bargained 
for a supply of linen, much the same as in 
France, a necessary precaution in a place where 
they are somewhat chary of this article. M. 
de Montaigne was annoyed at finding so many 
Frenchmen here; he hardly met a person in 
the street who did not salute him in his own 
language. He was very much struck with 
the sight of so crowded a court, so peopled 
with prelates and churchmen; it appeared to 
him that there were more rich men and more 
rich equipages here, by far, than in any other 
court he had ever been at. He said that the 
appearance of the streets, especially from the 
number of people thronging them, reminded 
him more of Paris than any town he had 
ever seen. The modern city lies along the 
river Tiber, on both sides. The hilly quar- 
ter, where the ancient town stood, and to 
which he daily made visits, is cut up with the 
gardens of the cardinals, and the grounds at- 
tached to various churches and private houses. 
He judged, from manifest appearances, and 
from the height of the ruins, that the form of 
these hills, and their slopes, had altogether 
changed from what it was in the old time, 



and he felt certain that in several places, the 
modern Romans walked on the tops of the 
houses of their ancestors. It is easy to calcu- 
late, from the Arch of Severus, that we are 
now-a-days more than two pikes' length above 
the ancient roofs; and, in point of fact, almost 
every where you see beneath your feet the tops 
of ancient walls which the rain and the coaches 
have laid bare. He had an argument with 
some people who said there was as much free- 
dom at Rome as at Venice; in contradiction of 
this opinion, he pointed out that, in the former, 
private houses were so insecure that whoever 
came there, with a larger sum than ordinary, 
was immediately counselled to deposit his 
money with some banker in the place, as the 
only means of securing his house from being 
entered, and his strong box broken open, which 
has happened in a great many cases ; item, that 
in Rome it is not at all safe to be in the streets 
at night; item, that on the first of this very 
montl) of December, the general of the Corde- 
liers had been suddenly deprived of his place, 
and put in prison, for having, in a sermon 
delivered before the Pope and the Cardinals, 
accused the prelates of the church of idleness 
and luxuriousness, without particularizing any 
individual person or instance, but merely mak- 
ing use of the most ordinary common -places 
upon this topic, in a somewhat angry tone of 
voice ; item, that his * coffers had been opened 
at the gate of the city by the custom-house 
officers, and every article in them, down to the 
minutest trifle, rummaged and tumbled over; 
whereas, in many of the other Italian towns, 
the officers wait quietly while you yourself 
show them what you have ; that, besides this, 
they had taken away all the books they found 
there, 2 for the purpose of examining them; 
which they were so long about that a man, 
whose business called him elsewhere, might 
very well give them up as lost ; and that, more- 
over, the regulations were so extraordinary 
that our prayer-book, because it was printed 
at Paris, and not at Rome, was looked upon 
with a very suspicious eye; as were several 
books written by German divines against the 
heretics, for this excellent reason, that, in 
order to combat errors, these divines had of 
necessity mentioned what the errors were. In 
this respect, he congratulated himself exceed- 
ingly that, though he had had no idea of 
what sort of search he was to undergo, and 
though he had passed through Germany, 
where his curiosity might very naturally have 
induced him to pick up one or two of the 
prohibited books, yet it so happened that he 
had not one of them with him. However, as 
to this, he was told by several gentlemen of 
the place that, even had this been the case,, 
all he would have been subjected to in conse- 
quence, would have been the loss of the prohi- 

1 Montaigne's. 

3 Among others there was the Essays, the two first books 
of which had just been published at Bordeaux. 



■J 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



597 



bited books. Twelve or fifteen days after our 
arrival, he was taken ill, and, alarmed by an 
unusual defluxion of the reins, which threatened 
him with an ulcer, he was induced, at the soli- 
citation of the French physician of the Cardinal 
du Rambouillet, aided by the dexterous ma- 
nagement of his apothecary, to swallow several 
large pills of cassia, which he put into his 
mouth on the end of a wet knife, and got down 
very easily. He had two or three stools in 
consequence. Next day, he took of Venetian 
turpentine, which they say comes from the 
Tyrol mountains, two large pills done up in a 
wafer, which he put into his mouth in a silver 
spoon, with some drops of syrup; but he did 
not observe any effects from this dose, except 
that it gave his water the scent of violets. 
After this, he took at three times, though not 
one after another, a sort of drink which looked 
and tasted just like almonds, 1 and his physician 
told them that these were the only ingredients; 
but he could not help thinking there was some 
quatre-semances'froides 2 in it. There was no- 
thing out of the way or inconvenient about this 
recipe, except the time of taking it, which was 
early in the morning, three hours before break- 
fast. He did not derive any sensible benefit 
from this posset, for the indisposition did not 
leave him ; and on the 23d December he had 
a very severe attack of cholic, which made 
him go to bed at mid-day, where he remained 
till the evening, and then he discharged a quan- 
tity of gravel, and after that a large stone, hard, 
long, and solid, which had been five or six hours 
passing. All this time, however, ever since he 
had taken the baths, his stomach had been in 
good order, so that he was not afraid of matters 
going worse with him in other respects. He 
frequently avoided taking his meals, omitting 
sometimes supper, sometimes dinner. On 
Christmas-day, we went to hear mass per- 
formed by the pope at St. Peter's, where he got 
a place, whence he could see all the ceremonies 
at his ease. There are several special forms ob- 
served on these occasions ; first, the gospel and 
the epistle are said in Latin, and then in Greek, 
as is also done on Easter Sunday and St. 
Peter's Day. The pope then administered the 
' sacrament to a number of persons, associating 
with him in chis service the Cardinals Farnese, 
Medici, Caraffii, and Gonzaga. They use a 
certain instrument for this purpose, from which 
they drink from the chalice, in order to provide 
against poison. Monsieur de Montaigne was 
somewhat surprised to remark that, at this and 
other masses which he attended, the pope, the 
cardinals, and other prelates were seated during 
nearly the whole mass, with their caps on, talk- 
ing and chatting together. These ceremonies 
appeared to him altogether to partake more of 
magnificence than of devotion. He did not 
observe any particular beauty in the women, at 



all justifying that pre-eminence which common 
fame has assigned to the ladies of this city 
above those of all the rest of the world ; and, 
after all, as at Paris, the greatest beauty here 
is to be found among those women who put 
it up for sale. On the 29th December, M. 
d'Abein, our ambassador at Rome at this time, 
a gentleman well read, and an old and intimate 
friend of M. de Montaigne, came and proposed 
to him to go and kiss the pope's feet; and 
accordingly M. d'Estissac and he got into the 
ambassador's carriage, who took them to the 
palace, and, having first obtained an audience 
of the pope, sent for them almost immediately 
by the chamberlain. They found the pope and 
the ambassador alone together, as is the eti- 
quette in these cases; his holiness has a small 
hand-bell near him, which he rings when he 
wants any one to come. The ambassador was 
seated on his left, uncovered ; the pope himself 
never takes off his cap to any body, nor does 
any ambassador, from whomsoever, ever think 
of putting on his hat in the pope's presence. 
M. d'Estissac entered the presence-chamber 
first, after him M. de Montaigne, then M. 
de Mattecoulon, and lastly M. du Hautoi. 
After advancing a step or two in the chamber, 
the pope being seated in one of the corners, 
those who have been admitted place one knee 
on the ground, and wait in this position until the 
pope has given them his benediction, which he 
does forthwith; then they rise and advance to 
about the centre of the room. Most persons do 
not advance straight towards him at once, across 
the room, but first sideways along the wall a little 
way, and then advance; however, when they 
are in the centre of the room, they a^ain kneel 
on one knee, and receive a second benediction. 
This done, they rise, and advance towards him 
to the edge of a rich velvet carpet, on which he 
is seated, and which extends some seven or 
eight feet before him. Upon this carpet, they 
again kneel, this time upon both knees. Here 
the ambassador, who had presented our gentle- 
men, knelt on one knee, and turned back the 
pope's robe from the right foot, on which was 
a red slipper with a white cross upon it. Those 
who have been introduced advance on their 
knees until they reach his holiness's foot, and 
then bend down to kiss it. M. de Montaigne 
said that he slightly raised his foot. Each 
gentleman, after he had kissed the foot, with- 
drew on one side, still on his knees, to make 
room for his successor : when they had all gone 
through this ceremony, the ambassador covered 
the pope's foot, and, again seating himself, re- 
commended Messieurs d'Estissac and de Mon- 
taine to his holiness's protection, in suitable 
terms. The pope then, in the most courteous 
tones, exhorted M. d'Estissac to pursue his 
studies and to keep in the paths of virtue ; and 
M. de Montaigne to persevere in the devotion 



5 The composition thus entitled consisted of the seeds 
of cucumber, melon, gourd, and pumpion, 



598 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



he had ever manifested in the cause of the 
church and the service of his most Christian 
Majesty ; assuring them both that he should be 
ever ready to promote their interests, whenever 
an opportunity presented itself; the usual phrase 
among the Italians, when tbey wish to appear 
civil. The gentlemen made no reply, as is the 
custom; but having, still on their knees, re- 
ceived another benediction, which is an intima- 
tion for them to withdraw, retired in the same 
way they had advanced. The manner of with- 
drawing is quite a matter of individual taste 
and discretion ; however, the most usual mode 
is to walk backwards, or at any rate sideways, 
so as to keep your face towards the pope. 
When you reach the centre of the room, you 
again kneel on one knee and receive another 
benedicite, and on reaching the door, you again 
kneel for a final blessing. The pope speaks 
Italian, but it is an Italian that reminds 
you, in every sentence, of his Bolognese origin, 
a place where they have the worst jargon in 
Italy; and besides this, he has an impediment 
in his speech. As for the rest, he was a very 
fine old man, of the middle height, holding 
himself very upright, with a majestic counte- 
nance, and a long white beard. He was at 
this time more than eighty years old, but look- 
ing as healthy and vigorous as a man need 
wish to be at that age, without gout, or 
stone, or indigestion, or any bodily infirmity 
whatever. He is of a gentle disposition, trou- 
bling himself very little about politics, but a 
great deal about building, in which particular 
he will leave, at Rome and elsewhere, memorials 
greatly redounding to his honour. He is chari- 
table even to an excess. 1 Among other proofs 
of this, there is no girl of the lower orders who 
is going to be married whom he will not assist 
with money to furnish with, if her circumstances 
require it ; and his liberality in this respect is so 
much a matter of course, that girls reckon it as 
ready money. Besides this, he has built col- 
leges for the Greeks, the English, the Scotch, 
the French, the Germans, and the Poles, each 
of which he has endowed with upwards of ten 
thousand crowns a-year in perpetuity, besides 
the enormous expense he was at in building 
them. His object, in founding these, was to 
recal to the bosom of the church the children of 
those nations who, corrupted by evil opinions, 
have wandered from the true faith; and here 
these children are lodged, fed, clothed, edu- 
cated, and provided with every thing they 
need, without having to advance one farthing 
of their own, from first to last. The tiresome 
charge of public business he transfers to other 
people, having a great indisposition to give 
himself any trouble. He is, however, always 
ready to accord his ministers and others an au- 
dience ; his answers are short and resolved, and 



> He is said to have expended in charity fully two mil- 
lions of crowns a-year. 



him before he entered holy orders. 



they do but lose time, who seek by new argu- 
ment to make him revise his decision. To what 
he deems just, he adheres firmly ; and even for 
the sake of his son, 2 though he loves him 
vehemently, he would not step aside one foot 
from the strict rule of right. He advances his 
relations [but never to the detriment of the 
rights and interests of the church, which he 
preserves inviolable. He exhibits the most 
magnificent, taste and spirit in the erection of 
public buildings, and in the improvement, and 
in many cases renovation, of the streets 8 ] ; and 
though his life and conduct have exhibited no 
very extraordinary features one way or the 
other, yet, on the whole, their general tendency 
has been towards virtue. On the last day of 
December, they two 4 dined with M. the Car- 
dinal de Sens, 6 who observes the Roman usages 
more than we have noticed any other French- 
man here to do. The blessing and the grace, 
which are both very long, are said by two 
chaplains, who make responses to one another, 
in the same way as in the church service. 
During dinner, they read a comment, in Italian, 
upou the gospel for the day. They washed 
their hands and face here both before and after 
dinner. Each guest has a napkin placed before 
him to dry himself with; and before those to 
whom they are desirous of showing special 
honour, who are seated either at the side of, or 
immediately opposite the host, they place large 
square silver salt-cellar stands, in the same 
way as in France before the higher nobility. 
Upon this they place a napkin folded in four, 
upon which are laid your bread, knife, fork, 
and spoon. Upon these again is laid another 
napkin, which you take and make use of, leav- 
ing the other napkin where it is ; for after you 
are seated, the attendants place, by the side of the 
silver salver, a silver or earthenware plate, out 
of which you eat. Whatever is served up, the 
carver distributes on plates to those who are 
seated at the head of the table, no one else 
there touching the dishes; the dish which is 
placed immediately before the master of the 
house is generally reserved for himself. The 
way in which they gave M. de Montaigne his 
wine was this, and the same etiquette is ob- 
served at our ambassador's house — they brought 
him a silver salver, on which was a wine glass 
with wine in it, and a small bottle, about the 
size of an ink bottle, full of water. He took 
the glass in his right hand, and the bottle in his 
left, and having poured as much water into his 
wine as he thought proper, replaced the bottle 
on the salver. While he was drinking, the at- 
tendant held the salver under his chin, and then 
received the glass also on the salver. This 
ceremony, however, is only observed towards 
one or two of the guests, those seated close to 
the master of the house. After grace was said, 



3 The words within brackets were added by Montaigne 
himself in the margin of the manuscript. 

4 Messieurs d'Estissac and de Montaigne. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



the guests rose immediately, and the chairs 
were arranged along one side of the apartment, 
where the cardinal seated himself, and invited 
the company to follow his example. Shortly 
afterwards, two men, well dressed in canonicals, 
with something or other in their hands, I could 
not make out what, entered the room, and, 
advancing to the cardinal, knelt on one knee, 
and gave him notice that some particular ser- 
vice was performing in one of the churches. 
He did not say anything to them, but merely 
raised his cap slightly, as they rose and with- 
drew. By and by, his eminence took Mes- 
sieurs with him in his coach to the Hall of the 
Consistory, where the cardinals were assembled 
to go together to- vespers. The Pope soon 
after arrived in his robes, to accompany them. 
The cardinals did not kneel when he gave them 
his benediction, but received it with a very low 
inclination of the head. 

On the 3rd of January, 15S1, the Pope 
passed in procession before our house. Before 
him rode about two hundred persons, belonging 
to the court, churchmen and laymen. At his 
side rode the Cardinal de Medici, with whom 
he was going to dine, and who was conversing 
with him ; his eminence was uncovered. The 
Pope, who was dressed in his usual costume of 
red cap, white robes, and red velvet hood, was 
mounted on a white palfrey, the harness of 
which was red velvet, with gold fringe and 
gold lace-work. He gets on his horse without 
assistance, though he is in his eighty-first year. 
Every fifteen yards or so, he stops and gives his 
benediction to the assembled people. After 
him, came three cardinals, and then about a 
hundred men-at-arms, lance on thigh, and 
armed at all points, except the head. There 
was another palfrey, of the same colour and 
with the same harness as that he rode, follow- 
ing him, together with a mule, a handsome 
white charger, a litter, and two grooms, who 
carried portmanteaus at their saddle-bow. The 
same day M. de Montaigne took some more 
turpentine, without any other reason for it 
than that he had a cold, and soon afterwards 
he passed a good deal of gravel. 

On the 11th of January, in the morning, as 
M. de Montaigne was leaving his house on 
horseback to go to the banker's, there came by 
the officers of justice who were taking to the 
place of execution Catena, a famous robber and 
captain of banditti, who had kept all Italy in 
terror, and of whom they relate some frightful 
murders, especially of two capucins, whom, 
under the promise of sparing their lives, he 
induced to deny God, and whom he then mur- 
dered, without any provocation either of gain 
or revenge. He waited to see the spectacle. 
Besides the forms observed in France on these 
occasions, they carry before the criminal a tall 
crucifix, covered with black cloth; and on 
both sides of him walk a number of men with 
linen robes and masks, who, he was told, were 
Roman gentlemen, who have formed themselves 



into a society for the purpose of accompanying 
criminals to the place of execution and return- 
ing with their bodies. Two of these, or two 
monks, he could ifot tell which, were in the 
cart with the criminal, preaching and praying, 
one of them keeping constantly before his face, 
and causing him every minute to kiss, a picture 
representing our Saviour; this is done that the 
spectators may not see his face. When they got 
to the gallows, which is formed of a cross-beam 
resting on two supporters, they kept this picture 
i close before his face, till he was thrown oft" He 
I made a common-place death of it, neither moving 
nor speaking; he was a dark man, about 30 
years old. After he was strangled, they cut his 
j body into four quarters, for they simply inflict 
death upon criminals, reserving any punish- 
ment beyond that for the dead bodies, and M. 
de Montaigne remarked here, what he had said 
elsewhere, 1 that punishments so inflicted have a 
vast effect upon the populace; for the specta- 
tors here, who had not evinced the slightest 
I commiseration while the living man was being 
[strangled, burst out into piteous cries and 
j groans at every blow that was given, when 
they were cutting up his dead body. As soon 
as the execution was over, several Jesuits, or 
whatever they were, mounted upon tressels at 
different points, and began exhorting the people 
to take warning by the example they had just 
witnessed. We remarked in Italy, and espe- 
cially at Rome, that there were hardly any 
bells for the service of the church ; there are 
fewer of these at Rome, than in the most insig- 
nificant town in France ; neither are there any 
images in the churches, except some that have 
just been erected. Many of the older churches 
have none at all. 

On the 14th of January, he took another dose 
of turpentine, without producing any apparent 
effect. On the same day, I witnessed the exe- 
cution of two brothers, servants of the gover- 
nor's secretary, who had killed their master a 
few days before, within the very palace of Seig- 
neur Jacomo de Buoncompagno, the Pope's son. 
I They first tore their flesh with red-hot pincers, 
j and then cut off their right hands, in front of 
I the palace; and after they had cut oft* their 
hands, they killed a couple of capons, which 
' they ripped open, and applied to the criminals' 
I bleeding stumps. They were then taken to the 
' scaffold, where they were first knocked down 
with a heavy club-stick, and then had their 
j throats cut; a mode of punishment, I was told, 
sometimes practised at Rome, though I was also 
informed that it was a mode of punishment 
adapted to the particular offence, the men 
having assassinated their master in the same 
manner. 

As to the size of Rome, M. de Montaigne 
said that "the space encircled by the walls, 
two-thirds of which are unoccupied, compre- 



600 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



hending both ancient and modern Rome, might 
about equal the extent of Paris, including all 
the fauxbourgs from one end to the other ; but 
if you estimate the size by the number and 
crowding of houses, he thinks that Rome is not 
a third the size of Paris; though in the number 
and grandeur of public buildings, and in the 
beauty of the streets and houses, Rome is far 
superior." 

He found the winter nearly as cold as that 
of Gascony. There were some severe frosts 
about Christmas-day, and some almost insup- 
portably cold winds. Yet, at the same time, 
there are frequent storms of thunder, lightning, 
and hail. The palaces have a great number of 
suites of apartments, one after another; you 
have to go through three or four rooms, before 
you arrive at the principal apartments. In some 
houses, where M. de Montaigne was invited to 
state dinners, the side-boards are not in the 
dining-rooms, but in an ante-room, and they 
fetch your wine thence as you want it; it 
is in this room that the services of plate are 
displayed. 

Thursday, 26th of January, we went to see 
Mount Janiculum, on the other side of the 
Tiber, and closely examined the various objects 
of curiosity there. Among other things, he saw 
a large bit of old wall, which had come to light 
two days before. From this elevation you can 
contemplate, at one view, the whole extent of 
Rome, which you cannot do near so well from 
any other point. On leaving this place, he 
went to the Vatican, to see the statues which 
stand in niches in the Belvidere, and the fine 
gallery of paintings that the Pope is collect- 
ing from all parts of Italy, and which is nearly 
finished. Somewhere or other in this excursion, 
he lost his puree and its contents; and he ima- 
gined that in giving alms, which he had done 
two or three times, and the weather being wet 
and disagreeable, in his hurry to replace his 
purse it had slipped down his breeches, instead 
of going into his pocket. Every day, he amused 
himself with going about and studying every 
part of Rome in detail. When he first arrived, 
he had hired a Frenchman for a guide, but this 
fellow having taken himself off one day in 
consequence of some pique, M. de Montaigne 
determined to do without any guide at all, 
beyond some maps and books that he bought, 
and used to read over-night, putting the infor- 
mation he had thus acquired into practical use 
the next day; and in this way he soon made 
himself so thoroughly a master of the matter, 
that he could have guided his guide. 

He observed: "that there is nothing to 
be seen of ancient Rome but the sky under 
which it had risen and stood, and the outline 
of its form ; that the knowledge he had of it 
was altogether abstract and contemplative, no 
image of it remaining to satisfy the senses; 
that those who said that the ruins of Rome at 
least remained, said more than they were war- 
ranted in saying ; for the ruins of so stupendous 



and awful a fabric would enforce more honour 
and reverence for its memory ; nothing, he said, 
remained of Rome but its sepulchre. The world, 
in hatred of its long domination, had first de- 
stroyed and broken in pieces the various parts 
of this wondrous body ; and then, finding that, 
even though prostrate and dead, its disfigured 
remains still filled them with fear and hate, they 
buried the ruins itself; that the few indications 
of vvhat it had been, which still tottered above 
its grave, fortune had permitted to remain there, 
as some evidence of the infinite greatness which 
so many ages, so many intestine and parricidal 
blows, and the never-ending conspiracy of the 
world against it, had not been able entirely to 
extinguish; but that, in all probability, even 
the disfigured members that did remain, were 
the least worthy of all those that had existed, 
the malignant fury of the enemies of that im- 
mortal glory having impelled them to destroy, 
in the first instance, that which was finest and 
most worthy of preservation in the imperial 
city ; that the buildings in this bastard Rome, 
which the moderns were raising upon, or ap- 
pending to, the glorious structures of the antique 
world, though they sufficed enough to excite 
the admiration of the present age, yet seemed 
to him to bear a close resemblance to those 
nests, which the rooks and the swallows con- 
struct upon the roofs and walls of the churches 
in France, which the Huguenots have demo- 
lished. Nay, when he considered the space 
which this tomb occupies, he feared that the 
real extent, even of that, was not known ; he 
doubted whether the greater portion of the 
grave itself had not been buried ; it appeared 
to him that the enormous pile which, years 
ago, was formed merely of such miserable dig- 
gings-up, as bits of tiles and broken pots, a 
pile which had attained the height and size of 
many natural mountains 1 (for he considered it 
to be as high as the' hill of Gurson, 2 and twice 
as large), was an express ordinance of fate, to 
let the world thoroughly understand, by this 
strange and amazing proof of grandeur, how 
surpassing was the glory and pre-eminence of 
the city against which they had conspired. He 
said he could not at all comprehend, when he 
saw the limited space of some of these seven 
hills, especially the most famous, such as the 
Capitoline and the Palatine, how they could 
have held so great a number of buildings as 
have been ascribed to them. Merely looking 
at the remains of the Temple of Peace, the site 
of the Forum Romanum, the ruins of which 
look like a mighty mountain, just fallen asun- 
der, lie could hardly understand how two such 
edifices could stand even on the whole space of 
the Capitoline-hill, yet, besides these, there were 
on the hill twenty-five or thirty temples, be- 
sides a number of private houses. But, in 
truth, many of the conjectures which one has 
formed from pictures of the ancient city, are 



' The Monte Tcstacco. 



'■ In Perigord. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



601 



not at all borne out, when you get there, for 
even the site has undergone infinite changes; 
6ome of the valleys are filled up, even the 
deepest of them, such, for instance, as the 
Velabrum, which, on account of its lying so 
low, was selected as the main sewer of the city, 
and formed a water-course, even this has now 
become as high as the other natural moun- 
tains which surround it, and this has solely 
been done by the gradual agglomeration of 
the ruins of old Rome; so, the Monte Savello 
is nothing but the heaped -up ruins of part 
of the theatre of Marcellus. He fully believed 
that an ancient Roman, could one be brought 
back, would not be able to recognize the place. 
It has more than once happened that, after 
digging a long way down, the workmen have 
come to the top of some high column, which 
still remained standing on its base far beneath. 
The modern architects never think of looking 
for any other foundation for their houses than 
the tops of old buildings, the roofs of which 
ordinarily form the floors of modern cellars, 
deeming it in no way necessary to make any 
examination as to the foundation of the old 
edifice itself, or the stability of its walls; they 
securely base their own structure upon the 
ruined tops of the structure below, just as 
chance has happened to dispose them during 
the lapse of ages, and here they raise their 
modern palaces, as firm and safe as though the 
foundations were solid rocks. There are many 
whole streets, that stand above the old ones, 
full thirty feet." 

On the 28th of January, he had an attack of 
the cholic, which, however, did not prevent 
him from pursuing his usual avocations, and in 
the afternoon he passed a tolerably large stone, 
with several smaller ones. On the 30th, he 
went to see the most ancient religious ceremony 
in existence, the circumcision of the Jews; a 
ceremony which he regarded with great inte- 
rest and attention, and which he was provided 
with a convenient place to witness. He had 
previously attended their synagogue one Satur- 
day morning, and seen them at prayers, their 
practice in which, resembling that of the Cal- 
vinist church, is to sing, at the pitch of their 
voice, various passages from the Bible, in the 
Hebrew tongue. They observe the cadences, 
but there is sad discord, owing to the confusion 
of so many voices of every age ; for the children, 
even the youngest amongst them, take part in 
the concert, and moreover, the great majority 
of the congregation have but a very indifferent 
knowledge of Hebrew. They pay no more 
attention to their service than we do to ours, 
talking among themselves of quite different 
matters, and exhibiting but very slight reve- 
rence for their mysteries. They wash their 
hands on coming in, but never take off their 
caps while at their devotions, for that they con- 
sider would be a crying sin. They bow the 
head, however, and kneel at particular parts of 
their service. Upon their shoulders, or on tho 
51 



head, they wear a sort of linen shawl, with 
long fringe; — but it would take up too much 
time to give an account of all he remarked. 
After dinner, the principal divines among them 
take it by turns to read comments, in the 
Italian language, upon the passages in the 
Bible set apart for that particular day. After 
he has finished, some other rabbi present 
selects one of the party, and sometimes two 
or three, one after another, to argue with 
the reader upon the various opinions he has 
expressed. The person who read the lesson, 
when we were^there, seemed to M. de Mon- 
taigne to display very considerable eloquence 
and power of mind, in the arguments he put 
forward. As to the operation of circumcising, 
it is performed in the child's house, in the most 
convenient and lightest room they have. In 
the house where he went to see this ceremony, 
as there was no room in it well adapted for the 
purpose, the operation was performed in the 
passage. There is a godfather and a god- 
mother, as among us, and the godfather names 
the child. Circumcision takes place on the 
eighth day after the birth. The godfather sits 
down on a table, and puts a pillow on his 
knees; the godmother brings him the child, 
and then leaves the room. The child is swad- 
dled in the same way that ours are ; the god- 
father takes off the wrappers, and meanwhile 
the person who is to perform the operation, and 
all the other persons present begin to sing, 
and continue to sing all the time the operation 
lasts, which is about a quarter of an hour. 
The officiating person need not be a rabbi, and 
the office is one greatly sought after, it being 
considered great good luck to be often called 
upon to perform it; so much so that it is a 
frequent practice to purchase the invitation to 
officiate, by offering to bestow a dress, or 
some other present, on the child. They believe 
that he who has circumcised a certain number, 
1 did not hear how many, when he is dead, 
has this privilege, that his mouth is never 
eaten by worms. Upon the table, where the 
godfather is seated, are displayed the various 
instruments made use of on the occasion; 
and, besides these, a man standing by the 
table has a vial of wine, and a glass. On 
the ground there is a chafing-dish, at which 
the operator, before he commences proceedings, 
warms his hands. The child being by this 
time stripped, the godfather places him firmly 
on his knee, with his head towards himself. 
The officiating friend then completes the opera- 
tion, which appears to require some dexterity, 
and to be rather a painful one; but they never 
find it to be ;it all dangerous, and the wound 
heals in four or five days. The child makes an 
outcry, but hardly more than our own children 
do, when they are baptized. There is one part 
of the operation very curious ; as soon as the 
gland is laid open, they present the officiator 
with wine, which having taken a small portion 
of, he sucks the bleeding gland, and spits out 



602 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY! 



the blood ; this he repeats three times. They 
then give him, on a bit of paper, a red pow- 
der, which they call dragon's-blood, with 
which he covers the wound, and then envelopes 
the part operated upon in strips of linen, cut in 
a particular fashion for the purpose. After 
this, they give him a glass of wine, over which 
he pronounces some prayer, which is supposed 
to confer a blessing on the wine. Then, having 
first sipped the wine, he dips his finger in it 
three successive times, and each time moistens 
the child's mouth with it; the glass is then 
taken to the mother and her female friends, 
who are assembled in another part of the house, 
and they drink the remainder of the wine. 
Then some one takes a silver instrument, as 
round as a ball, with a long handle ; and this 
instrument, which is full of little holes, like our 
vinaigrettes, is put first to the nose of the ofH- 
ciator, then to the child, and then to the god- 
father, the notion being that the odour it exhales 
has a power to fortify and raise the mind for 
devotion. The blood which has adhered to the 
officiator's mouth is not cleansed away till after 
the ceremonies are completed. 

On the 8th, and on the 12th, he 1 had a slight 
attack of cholic, and passed several stones, 
without much pain. 

The carnival at Rome this year was, by the 
Pope's permission, more unrestricted than has 
been known for several years past, but it did 
not appear to us any great things. Along 
the Corso, which is one of the largest streets 
here, and which takes its name from the cir- 
cumstance, they have races, sometimes between 
four or five children, sometimes between Jews, 
sometimes between old men stripped naked, 
who run the whole length of the street. The 
only amusing thing is to see them run past the 
place where you are. They have races also 
with horses, which are ridden by little boys, 
who urge them on with incessant whipping: 
and there are ass-races, and exhibitions of buf- 
faloes, which, are driven along at full speed by 
men on horseback, armed with long goads. 
There is a prize assigned for each race, which 
they call elpalo ,■ it consists generally of a piece 
of velvet or cloth. In one part of the street, 
where there is more room for the ladies to look 
on, the gentlemen run at the quintain, mounted 
upon splendid horses, in the management of 
which they exhibit much grace; for there is 
nothing in which the nobility here more excel 
than in equestrian exercises. The scaffolding 
which M. de Montaigne had set up for himself 
and his friends cost them three crowns; but 
then it was situated in one of the best parts of 
the street. On this occasion, you have an ex- 
cellent opportunity for seeing the pretty women 
of Rome at your leisure; for in Italy they 
wear no masks, as they do in Prance, but show 
the whole face. As to any rare or perfect 
beauty, he observed, you do not find it here 



any more than among us; and, indeed, except 
in three or four instances, he had seen nothing 
remarkable in this way; but the general run 
of women here are agreeable-looking, and you 
do not see so many ugly faces as in France. 
The head, and the figure below the girdle, are 
far more becomingly arranged than among us; 
but their custom of having the waist exceedingly 
loose gives them all the appearance of being 
with child : the expression of the countenance 
among them, for the most part, is softer and 
gentler, yet at the same time more majestic, 
than is the case with the ordinary run of 
Frenchwomen. As to their dress, there is no 
comparison between them and our women: 
every article of it is resplendent with pearls 
and precious stones. Wherever they show 
themselves in public, whether taking the air, 
or at festivals, or at the theatre, they keep 
apart from the men ; but in their dances they 
mingle unrestrictedly. The men are very 
plainly dressed on all occasions, in black and 
Florence serge ; they are somewhat darker 
complexioned than we. The nobles among 
them, dukes, marquisses, counts, seldom make 
use of their titles, which I was rather sur- 
prised at, seeing that ordinarily there was 
little else by which to distinguish them, for 
they are somewhat mean -looking. They are 
very kind and courteous, despite what is said of 
them by some of our countrymen, who call all 
men rude and ungracious who do not choose to 
put up with their impertinence. We do. all 
we can to get ourselves into ill odour in Italy; 
but they have still so much of their old respect 
and affection for France, as makes them welcome 
and treat kindly all those of our countrymen 
who choose to behave with ordinary decency. 

On Shrove Tuesday he (Montaigne) went to 
an entertainment given by the governor, where 
the preparations were on a very grand scale. 
Amongst the rest, he particularly admired an 
arena of an oval form, richly fitted up for tilt- 
ing : the sports here took place in the evening, 
before supper. Another thing he was especially 
struck with was the manner in which they 
covered the floor, in less than half an hour, 
with an infinite variety of devices, of a red 
colour. The floor had previously been covered 
with a thin white plaister; upon this they laid 
pieces of parchment, or leather, in which various 
devices were cut out; and then, passing a 
brush with red paint over this open work, the 
devices became instantly transferred to the 
white floor; and this was done so rapidly that 
in two hours' time the whole nave of a church 
could be thus painted. At supper, the ladies 
were waited upon by their cavaliers, who stand 
behind their chairs, ready to hand them wine, 
or whatever else they require. There were a 
great number of roasted fowls served up, with 
all their feathers on, as when alive; capons 
cooked entire, in glass cases; a vast quantity 
of hares and rabbits, with some live kids stuck 
up to the necks in paste. He noticed that the 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



603 



table-linen was admirably folded. The ladies' 
table, when dinner was over, was taken away 
in pieces, and underneath it appeared another, 
ready laid and covered with sweetmeats and 
confections. There were two parties of gentle- 
men running at the quintain. They have 
plenty of horses here, and much finer ones 
than ours. 

[The Secretary's labours, it will be seen, 
terminated here. The rest of the work was 
written by Montaigne's own hand.] 

Having sent home the person who has 
hitherto undertaken this fine piece of work, 
and seeing that he has got so far with it, I 
must needs continue it myself; though I by no 
means relish the trouble. 

On the 16th of February, as I was returning 
from a walk, I saw in a small chapel a priest in 
his robes, busied in curing a demoniac; the 
patient seemed a man overwhelmed, and, as it 
were, half dead with melancholy. They were 
holding him on his knees before the altar, with 
some cloth or other round his neck, by which 
he was secured. The priest first read out of his 
breviary a vast number of prayers and exor- 
cisms, commanding the devil to quit that 
afflicted body. Then speaking to the patient, 
addressing first himself, and then the devil 
which possessed him, he repeated his commands 
to the devil to withdraw, and attacked the poor 
patient with his fists, and spat on his face, by 
way of assailing the demon. The demoniac every 
now and then returned some unmeaning answer 
to the priest's questions ; replying, sometimes 
for himself, to explain what were the symptoms 
of his malady ; and sometimes for the devil, to 
express how the said devil feared God, and how 
he dreaded the exorcisms which were being 
denounced against him. After this had gone 
on for some time, the priest, as a last effort, 
went to the altar, and taking the pix, which 
held the Corpus Domini, in his left hand, and a 
lighted taper in the other, which he held down 
bo that it might burn away, he said several 
prayers, and at the end of them pronounced 
a fierce anathema against the devil, with as 
loud and authoritative a voice as he could 
assume. When the first taper was burnt clown 
nearly to his fingers, he took a second, and after- 
wards a tiiird. Then he replaced the pix, and 
came back to the patient, whom, after addressing 
a few words to him simply as a man, he caused 
to be untied, and directed his friends to take 
him home. He told us that this was a devil of 
the worst sort, a terribly obstinate devil, whom 
it would be a very difficult thing to dislodge. 
He then gave ten or a dozen gentlemen, who 
were present, an account of several cases that 
had been entrusted to him ; he mentioned, in 
particular, that the day before, hi; had freed a 
woman from a very big devil, that had been 
long molesting her, and who, as he was quit- 
ting her, discharged through her mouth a quan- 
tity of nails and pins, and a lock of his hair. 



He added, that the woman's friends had come 
to tell him that she was not quite recovered yet, 
kit that he had explained that this was only 
because a smaller and less malicious demon had 
taken possession of her that morning ; but that 
this sort of devil, for he knew all the different 
sorts, and the particular distinctions between 
them, was very easy to dislodge. However, 
I saw no more of his conjurations. The man I 
spoke of did nothing but grind his teeth and 
make faces when they presented the Corpus 
Domini to him ; every now and then he mut- 
tered si fata volenti for he was a notary, and 
knew a little Latin. 

On the 1st of March, I went to St. Sixtus's. 
The priest, who was performing mass, stood 
behind the great altar, with his face towards 
the people : there was no one behind him. 
The Pope came here the same day; it was only 
a few days before that he had removed the 
nuns, who previously lived there, and had fit- 
ted up their part of the building as a hospital 
for the poor people, who till then were begging 
about the city, and a very comfortable place 
he provided for them. The cardinals had each 
contributed twenty crowns towards the ex- 
penses, and other private persons had made 
handsome donations for the same purpose. The 
Pope himself endowed the hospital with five 
hundred crowns a month. There are at Rome 
a number of private establishments which exhi- 
bit the utmost piety and charity. I should say, 
that the great body of the people here are less 
religious than in the large towns in France, but 
as for the forms of religion, they are no where 
moie numerous, or better kept up. I am writ- 
ing this in full liberty of conscience, and I will 
give two examples of what I have just said. A 
certain friend of mine was in bed with a wench, 
and exercising her in her profession, when the 
bell rang to Ave Maria ; whereupon the girl 
leaped up from the bed, and threw herself on 
her knees to say the prescribed prayer. On 
another occasion, the same gentleman was with 
a girl, when all at once the mama (for most of 
these girls live with some old woman, whom 
they call mother or aunt) came thundering at 
the door, and, on being admitted, rushed up to 
j the girl in a perfect fury, and tore from her 
neck a ribbon from which hung a small Ma- 
donna, which she feared might be contaminated 
by the impurity of the wearer; and the girl 
herself manifested extreme contrition at having 
forgotten to take it from her neck, as it was her 
custom to do upon these occasions. 

The ambassador from the Muscovite came 
also to this church to-day, dressed in a scarlet 
mantle, and a cassock of cloth of gold, with a 
hat like a night-cap, also of cloth of gold, 
edged with fur, and beneath this another cap of 
cloth of silver. This is the .second ambassador 
from Muscovy to the Pope. The first was in 
the time of Paul III. The general notion was 



" If the fates will have it so.' 



604 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



that his business with the Pope was to get him 
to interpose in the war which the King of Po- 
land was waging with his master, the ambas- 
sador alleging that Muscovy had to sustain the 
first shock from the Turk, and that if the Pole 
succeeded in weakening him, he should be 
unable to encounter any other enemy, which 
would be opening a wide window for the Turk 
to get through to attack Christendom ; and the 
ambassador, as a further inducement, offered 
to make some compromise or other as to the ex- 
isting differences between the Church of Rome 
and the Greek Church. He had apartments 
assigned him in the governor's house, the same 
as those the ambassador in Paul the Third's 
time had, and was entertained at the Pope's 
expense. He had stickled a long time at kiss- 
ing the Pope's feet, insisting that he would 
only kiss his right hand ; arid he would not give 
way, till it was shown him that the emperor 
himself was liable to this ceremony, for the 
example of kings was not sufficient for him. 
He knew no other language than his own, and 
had come unprovided with an interpreter. He 
had only three or four men in his train, who 
said they had passed through Poland in dis- 
guise, threatened every hour with great dan- 
gers. His nation is so ignorant of the affairs 
of this part of the world, that he brought with 
him to Venice letters from his master, addressed 
to the chief governor of the seigneury of Venice. 
When he was asked what this inscription meant, 
he told them that the people of his country 
thought that Venice was a place under the 
dominion of the Pope, and that he placed 
governors over it, as over Bologna and other 
cities. God knows how the magnificos re- 
lished this specimen of ignorance ! He brought 
presents, both to them and to the Pope, of 
sables and black fox -skins, a fur still more 
rich and rare than the other. 

On the 6th March, I went to see the library 
of the Vatican, which occupies five or six rooms, 
going one out of another. There are a great 
number of books fastened to desks ; and others 
in coffers, which were all opened for me; there 
are also a quantity of manuscripts, among which 
I especially noticed a Seneca, and the Opuscula 
of Plutarch. The other remarkable features 
were a statue of the good Aristides, with a fine 
bold head, thick beard, high forehead, and a 
countenance full of gentleness and true ma- 
jesty : his name is inscribed on the pedestal of 
the statue, which is a work of great antiquity; 
a Chinese book, in rude characters, written 
upon some peculiar material, softer and finer 
than our paper; and, as the leaves are too thin 
to bear the ink on both sides, only one side is 
used ; the leaves are all rolled up. They say 
that this paper is the bark of some tree. I also 



saw here a bit of the ancient papyrus, on which 
were written some unknown characters. This 
j also is the bark of a tree. I was shown, too, 
j the breviary of St. Gregory, in manuscript: it 
bears no date but they maintain (hat it has 
| descended from him to the present Pope, from 
I hand to hand, in regular succession. 1 It is a 
I missal, much the same as ours; arid was 
brought to the last Council of Trent, as an 
authority for regulating our religious ceremo- 
nies. I saw also a book*by St. Thomas Aquinas, 
in which the author has made several correc- 
tions with his own hand ; he seems to have been 
a very bad scribe, making use of a small and 
illegible character, even worse than my own. 
Item, a Bible printed on parchment, one of 
those that Plantein not long since printed, in 
four languages, 2 and which King Philip sent 
to the present Pope, as is stated in an inscrip- 
tion on the binding, hem, the original of the 
book that the King of England 3 wrote against 
Luther, and which he sent, about fifty years 
ago, 4 to Pope Leo X., subscribed with his own 
hand, with this fine Latin distich, also in his 
own hand-writing. 

Anglorum Eex Henricus, Leo decime, mittit 
Hoc opus, et fidei testem < 



l Doe? Montaigne refer to St. Gregory, surnamed the 
Great, or to Gregory II., who is also revered as a saint ? 

"-The Polyglot hiMe. the edition called Philip Il.'a, 
printed hv Christopher Plantein, at Antwerpt, in 15GB, in 
B vols, foiio. 



I read the prefaces, the one to the pope, the 
other to the reader; the royal author claims 
that the defects of his work may be excused, 
by reason of his other occupations, and his own 
want of capacity; the book is written in good 
scholastic Latin. I had no difficulty in getting 
access to the library ; indeed, any body can go 
there and make what extracts he pleases; I 
was shown over the whole place by a gentle- 
man, who invited me to come again as often as 
I thought fit. Our ambassador, who left Rome 
about this time, had complained to me that he 
had not been able to visit the library, without 
previously making court to the Cardinal Char- 
let, the librarian, which he did not choose to 
do; so that he had thus been prevented from 
looking at the manuscript Seneca, which he 
had a great desire to see ; and 'twas only 
fortune that led me to make the attempt, which 
otherwise his representation had almost made 
me give up the idea of, in despair. All things 
are thus easy to certain turns of mind, and 
impracticable to others. Opportunity and im- 
portunity have their privileges, and frequently 
bestow upon individuals what they refuse to 
kings. Curiosity sometimes stands in its own 
way, as well as grandeur and power. I saw 
here, too, a manuscript Virgil, written in a very 
large hand, and in those long thin characters 
which we see in the inscriptions of the time 
of the emperors ; for instance, those of the 
period of Constantine, which have begun to 



3 Henry VIIT. 

4 Pope Leo X. died 1521. 

" The learned will discover a false quantity in these lines, 
but crowned heads are not bound to attend to sucb trifles. 
Perhaps, for decime should be read maxime. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



605 



lose the square proportions of the antique Latin 
writings in the Gothic form. This Virgil con- 
firmed the opinion I have always held, that 
the first verses' they print in the ^Eneid are 
supposititious; this copy has not got them. 
There is also a copy of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles in Greek, written in beautiful gold letters, 
as fresh and bright as though it were a work of 
yesterday. The letter is considerably raised, 
lying so solid upon the paper that, if you pass 
your hand over it, you can feel the relief! I 
believe we have lost the use of this sort of 
writing. 

On the 13th of March, an old patriarch of 
Antioch, an Arabian, thoroughly versed in five 
or six of the Eastern languages, but utterly- 
unacquainted with Greek and most of the other 
European tongues, with whom I had become 
very intimate, gave me a mixture for my stone, 
with written directions how to use it. He put 
it into a little earthen pot, where he told me it 
would keep ten or twenty years; and he said 
he had such confidence in its virtue, that he had 
little doubt it would effect a thorough cure in a 
very short time. Lest I should lose these direc- 
tions, I will put them down here: take of the 
drug, a piece of about the size of two peas, and 
dissolve it in warm water; this will make a 
sufficient quantity for five doses, which you 
are to drink every other night, on going to 
bed; you must make but a very light supper 
on these occasions. 

Dining one day at Rome with our ambassa- 
dor, in company with Muret and other learned 
men, I turned the conversation upon the French 
translation of Plutarch; 2 and arguing with 
those who thought less of it than I did, I 
maintained that, at least, where the translator 
has missed the real meaning of Plutarch, he 
has substituted one that looks very much like 
a real meaning, and is in close congrnity with 
what has gone before and what comes after. 
In order to show me that, even in this respect, 
I assigned the translator more than his due, 
they quoted two passages ; the one, the detec- 
tion of" which they attributed to the critical eye 
of the son of M. Mangot, an advocate of Paris, 
who had just left Rome, occurs in the Life of 
Solon, about the middle, where he says that 
Solon "se vantoit qu'il avoit affanchi l'At- 
tique, et avoit oste les bornes qui faisoient 
les separations des heritages." Now here he 
is quite mistaken ; for the Greek term signifies 
certain marks that were placed upon lands that 
were mortgaged or chargeable with a quit-rent, 
in order that persons about to purchase them 



i The four which commence thua: 
Hie ego qui quondam f'ragili mudulatus avena, &c. 

s By Jaquca Amyot. The first edition was published at 
Paris, by Vascoaan, 1567-1574, 13 vols. 8vo. 

a A town of Poictou, near which the Huguenot army, 
Commanded by the Admiral de Uoliguy, was defeated by 
the army of Charles IX., 3d Oct., 1509. 

» That of Lepanto, gained over the Turks, anno 1571. 
The picture mentioned by Montaigne it is said, does not 

51* 



might be aware of the circumstance. What 
the translator has substituted as to limits, is 
not at all reconcileaMe with the true meaning, 
for it would tend to make it appear that tlte 
lands were not free, but common. Stephen's 
Latin version comes much nearer the mark. 
The second passage occurs at the end of the 
treatise on the Nurture of Children ; " D'ob- 
server," says the translator, "ces regies, cela 
se peut plus tost souhaiter que conseiller." 
Now the Greek text, these gentlemen told me, 
has it: "Is more to be desired than hoped for." 
The meaning which the translator has sub- 
stituted for this clear and obvious sentence, is 
strangely incorrect and feeble; and, taking for 
granted that their version of the Greek text 
was the right one, I readily conceded that their 
objection was good. 

The churches in Rome are not so handsome 
as those in the other better sort of towns in 
Italy ; and, in general, it may be said that the 
churches, both in Italy and Germany, are in- 
ferior to those of France. At St. Peter's, at 
the entrance of the new church, you see a 
number of flags hanging over your head, oil 
either side, as trophies: an inscription states 
that these banners were taken by the king 
from the Huguenojs; but it does not specify 
where or when. Close to the Gregorian chapel, 
where there are a vast number of pictures 
fixed against the wall, there is a miserable, ill- 
painted representation of the battle of Moncon- 
tour. 3 In the room facing the chapel of St. 
Sixtus, fixed against, or painted on, the wall, 
are a number of other pictures, representing 
events with which the Holy See has from 
time to time been closely connected, — such, 
amongst others, as the naval battle fought by 
John of Austria. 4 There is also a picture of 
the pope, 6 treading under his feet the head of 
the emperor, 6 who came to solicit his pardon, 
and to kiss his holiness's feet; but it does not 
give the words which history reports to have 
been used on the occasion. 7 There are two 
pictures of the death of the Admiral de Chatil- 
lon, very well and correctly painted. 

On the 15th of March, M. de Montluc came 
to me at day-break, to fulfil the plan we had 
formed the day before, of going to see Ostia. 
We passed the Tiber by the bridge Nos-Sig- 
nora, and quitted Rome through the Porta 
del Porto, anciently called Portvensis. Thence 
we rode, for about eight miles, through a tract 
of hilly and indifferently fertile country ; and 
then, coming once more to the Tiber, we 
descended into an extensive plain of pasture- 



now exist, but there is one on the subject, painted by 
Georgio Vasari, in the Great Hall of the Vatican. 

6 Alexander III. 

• Frederic Barbarossa, who came to Venice in the year 
1177, to receive absolution from the Pope. 

' These words were : Super aspidem et busihseum amku- 
/oris, et concutcabis Iconcm et draconem. Psal. BO, v. 13 
The picture is no longer at St. Peter's, but the subject is 
painted in the Hall of the Vatican. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



land, at whose extremity once stood a large 
town, some fine ruins of which are still to be 
seen, bordering on the lake of Trajan, an arm 
of the Tuscan Sea, which vessels formerly as- 
cended; but the sea bestows but a very poor 
supply of water upon it now, and still less to 
another lake a little beyond it, called the Arch 
of Claudius. We might have dined here with 
the Cardinal of Perugia, who was stopping at 
the place; and, indeed, nothing can be more 
courteous and hospitable than the reception 
which these dignitaries and their household give 
you. His eminence sent me word by one of 
my people, who happened to meet one of his 
officers, that he had a just right to complain 
of me, for not calling upon him; my servant 
himself was taken to the cardinal's buttery, 
and presented with wine and other things ; yet 
the cardinal had no sort of acquaintance with 
me, and only exercised herein the ordinary 
hospitality observed towards all strangers of 
the better class; but I was desirous of getting 
on, lest we should not have time to complete 
our excursion that day, for we had gone some- 
what out of our way to visit these ruins. After 
a short ride, we entered the Sacred Isle, which 
is about a Gascon league in extent, and con- 
sists of pasture land. Here are a number of 
marble columns, and other remains of an an- 
cient town of Trajan, which once occupied the 
site of Porto: something or other is dug up 
every day by the pope's direction, and sent to 
Rome. When we got to the other side of this 
tract, we found that we had the Tiber to cross ; 
and as we had no means of doing so with our 
horses, we were on the point of retracing our 
steps, when, by good luck, who should arrive 
on the opposite shore but the Sieurs du Bellay, 
the Baron de Chassai, M. de Marivau, and 
others. Upon seeing them, I crossed the river, 
and made an exchange with them of our horses 
for theirs; so that they returned to Rome with 
ou£ equipage, and we proceeded on to Ostia, 
whence they came, with theirs. 

Ostia, fifteen miles from Rome, is situated 
on what was formerly the shore of the Tiber ; 
for the river has somewhat altered its course 
since the town was built, and is still constantly 
quitting its ancient banks. We made a hasty 
breakfast at a small tavern here. Further on, 
we observed La Rocca, a small and tolerably 
strong fortress, where, however, no garrison is 
kept up. The popes, especially the present, 
have built on this coast large towers, at dis- 
tances of about a mile from one another, to 
prevent the descents which the Turks have 
been in the frequent habit of making, particu- 
larly during the vintage, on which occasions 
they have often carried off considerable plunder, 
and numbers of prisoners. These towers, by 
means of cannon-shots, communicate the alarm 
from one to the other with such rapidity, that 
notice of any apprehended danger is almost 
immediately carried to Rome. Round Ostia, 
are the salt marshes, which supply all the States 



of the Church with this article. The road from 
Ostia to Rome, Via Ostiensis, is crowded with 
evidences of its former magnificence and beauty; 
fine causeways, the ruins of a stupendous 
aqueduct, extending the whole way; at every 
quarter of a mile the remains of extensive pri- 
vate edifices, and more than two-thirds of the 
road still paved by those large square slabs, 
with which the Romans used to pave all their 
highways. The whole appearance of this route 
fully justifies the opinion, that formerly, the 
entire distance from Rome to Ostia exhibited 
two lines of fine houses and other structures. 
Among other ruins, we saw, about half-way, 
on our left, the splendid tomb of a Roman 
preetor, the inscription on which still remains 
entire. In Rome, you lose many of these in- 
scriptions, and all that remains of a large por- 
tion of the city is massive walls; it was their 
method to make immense thick brick walls, 
which they faced with marble, or some other 
white stone, or hard cement; and where this 
outer crust has fallen off, or been destroyed, 
as is the case in most instances, by the lapse 
of ages, the inscriptions which were upon them 
have of course disappeared also, and we have 
thus been deprived of the source of a vast ex- 
tent of information, upon an infinite variety of 
matters. These inscriptions only remain in cases 
where the structures they illustrate, were built 
of some massive and solid substance. The dif- 
ferent entrances to Rome are almost all naked 
and uncultivated, owing to the want of proper 
ground, or, more probably, as I take it, to the 
circumstance that the city contains a very small 
proportion of men who live by the labour of 
their hands. As I was coming here, I passed on 
the road a number of countrymen, making their 
way from the Grisons and Savoy, to obtain 
some employ in the vineyards and gardens about 
Rome, and they told ine that this was their 
mode of obtaining their livelihood. The city is 
nothing but court and nobility; everybody in 
it participates in the universal tone of ecclesias- 
tical idleness. There is no trading street to be 
seen, except, perhaps, a small one or two in the 
suburbs: there is nothing but palaces and palace- 
grounds. They have no Rue de la Harpe or 
Rue St. Denis here; I was reminded of nothing 
at Paris but the Rue de Seine, or the Quai des 
Augustins. There is hardly any difference dis- 
cernible between a holiday and a work-day; 
all the week through there is something or 
other going on, in the way of festival or show, 
and as great a crowd of spectators on one day 
as on another: the whole population seems 
made up of prelates, nobles, and ladies riding 
about in carriages, and forming processions, 
and of idle sight-seers looking at them. We 
got back by bed-time to 

Rome, 15 miles. On the 16th March, I took 
it into my head to try one of the Roman vapour- 
baths, and went to that of St. Mark, which is 
considered the best: I was treated with tolera- 
ble respect and attention, though I went there 



J 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



607 



unattended. There is no objection to your 
taking a female friend with you into your bath- 
room ; the lady being-, like yourself, waited 
upon by male attendants. At this place I had 
mentioned to me the material for making the 
depilatory generally used here: it consists 
simply of two parts hot lime and one part 
arsenic, which being applied to the hair you 
desire to remove, accomplishes the object in 
less than a quarter of an hour. On the 17th, I 
had a fit of the cliolic, which lasted for five or 
six hours, but in a tolerably mild form; and 
soon after I passed a stone, about the size of the 
kernel of a pine-apple, and much the same 
shape. There were roses and artichokes to be 
had here in plenty at this time; but, for my 
part, I did not find the weather at all too warm, 
and wore just the same clothes and covering as 
when at home. They have less fish than we 
have in France; and as to their pike, they 
are of such inferior quality, that none but the 
poorer people ever touch them. They have 
soles and trout, but in no great quantity ; and 
barbel, which are excellent, and much larger 
than those you get at Bordeaux, — but then 
they are dear. Dorees are held in very great 
estimation here, as are their mullet, which are 
a great deal bigger than ours, and somewhat 
firmer. The oil here is excellent, and leaves 
none of that disagreeable feeling in the throat, 
which I experience elsewhere after taking 
much of it. They have fresh grapes all the year 
round ; at this very moment there are plenty of 
fine bunches hanging from the vines. The mut- 
ton is very bad, and is scarcely thought anything 
of. On the 18th the Portuguese ambassador did 
homage to the Pope, on behalf of King Philip, 1 
for the kingdom of Portugal. It was the same 
ambassador who attended at this court to repre- 
sent the late king, and the States in opposition 
to King Philip. On my return from St. Peter's, 
I met a man who mentioned two curious things : 
that the Portuguese paid their homage in 
Passion-week; and that on this particular day 
the Pope's visitation was to the church of St. 
John Porta Latino, in which church a party 
of Portuguese, some years ago, entered into a 
very extraordinary society. They married one 
another, man to man, before the altar, with 
the same ceremonies that we observe at our 
marriages: received the sacrament together 
read the same marriage service, and then went 
to bed and lived together. The Romans re- 
marked hereupon that, as, in the other conjunc- 
tion of man and woman, it is marriage alone 
that makes the connection lawful, so these 
worthies had taken it into their heads that the 
other connexion might be legitimized in like 
manner, by preluding it with the ceremonies of 
the church. Eight or nine Portuguese, belong- 
ing to this respectable community, were after- 
wards burnt. I was present at the homage. 
A salvo was fired from the castle of St. Angelo 



and from the palace, 2 and the ambassador was 
escorted by the Pope's trumpeters, drummers, 
and archers. I did not go to see the ceremony 
inside. The Muscovite ambassador, who was 
seated in an opposite window, dressed in his 
state robes, said he had been invited to witness 
a grand assemblage; but that in his country, 
when they spoke of troops and horses, they 
always meant twenty-five or thirty thousand; 
and he made a jest of the whole affair, as I 
learnt from the gentleman who had been ap- 
pointed to converse with him, by an interpreter. 
On Palm-Sunday, at vespers, I saw in one of 
the churches, a boy, seated on a chair at the 
side of the altar, clothed in a large robe of new 
blue taffeta, with a crown of olive round his 
head, and holding in his hand a lighted white 
wax taper. It was a lad of about fifteen, who 
had that day, by the pope's order, been libe- 
rated from the prison, to which he had been 
committed for killing another boy of his own 
age. At St. John Latran there is to be seen 
some transparent marble. 3 Next day, the pope 
made the visitation of the seven churches. He 
wore white boots, with a cross on each foot 
made of leather, still whiter than the boots 
themselves. He has generally with him a Spa- 
nish horse, a hackney, a mule, and a litter, all 
harnessed and accoutred in the same manner; 
but on this occasion the horse was not present. 
His squire, who awaited him at the bottom of 
St. Peter's stairs, had two or three pair of gilt 
spurs in his hand, but the pope would not have 
any of them put on, and got, instead, into his 
litter, in which I observed there were two scar- 
let hats, nearly of the same pattern, hanging 
against the sides on nails. The same day, in 
the evening, they returned me my Essays, 
marked with the ex purgata, suggested by the 
judgment of the learned monks. The Maestro 
del Sacro Palasso had no means of forming 
an opinion on the subject, but from the report 
made him by a French monk, for he did not 
understand a word of our language himself; he 
was so well satisfied, however, with the expla- 
nations I gave upon every article objected to 
by the Frenchman, that he left it to my con- 
science to correct what I should, on considera- 
tion, see was in bad taste. I begged him to 
take the opinion of the person he had appointed 
to read the book, rather than to leave the mat- 
ter to me; for I told him that as several of the 
points which were objected to, such as the use 
of the word fortune, the quoting heretical poets, 
the apology for the Emperor Julian, the re- 
mark as to people who are at prayers being 
exempt from vicious inclinations at the time; 
item, the opinion that all punishment beyond 
the infliction of simple deatli is cruelty; item, 
as to the education of children; that in these, 
and several other points, I had expressed my 
firm opinion, and that neither when I wrote 
them, nor now, did I regard them as errors; 



' The Vatican. 



1 Probably alabaster. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



and, as to a number of other points, I denied 
that the censor had at all understood my mean- 
ing 1 . The Maestro, who is a clever man, 
entered very much into my views, and gave me 
to understand that he was by no means an 
advocate for insisting upon these emendations ; 
and he, moreover, went, in my presence, into 
an able argument, in my behalf, with another 
person, also an Italian, who supported the 
views of the censor. They kept back my copy 
of the History of the Swiss, the French trans- 
lation, merely because the translator is a he- 
retic; his name, it is true, no where appears 
in the book, but it is amazing how familiarly 
they seem to know the names and places of 
pretty well all the men among us who have 
made themselves in any way noticeable; the 
best of it was, that no sooner did they see the 
book, than they told me off-hand, that the pre- 
face was condemned. The same day, in the 
church of St. John Latran, instead of the Peni- 
tentiaries, who usually perform this office in 
the churches, Monseigneur the Cardinal St. 
Sixtus, who was seated in a corner of the 
church, touched, with a long wand he held in 
his right hand, the heads of all the passers-by, 
men and women, looking at each more or less 
smilingly and graciously, according to their re- 
spective quality and beauty. On Wednesday, 
in Holy-week, I went the round of the seven 
churches, before dinner, in company with M. 
dePoix; it took us about five hours. I don't 
understand why some people should be so scan- 
dalized at hearing the vices of individual pre- 
lates commented on, when they are well known 
to the public ; for, on this occasion, both at St. 
John Latran and at the church of the Holy 
Cross of Jerusalem, I saw stories, written in 
detail on conspicuous places, about Pope Sil- 
vester the Second, as discreditable as any that 
can well be imagined. 

The circuit of the city, on the one side of 
the river, from the Porta del Popolo to the 
Porta San Paulo, may be made, as I have 
several times found, in about three hours and a 
quarter, riding at a quiet pace ; and the portion 
of the city which lies on the other side of the 
Tiber may be compassed in the same way in 
somewhat less than an hour and a half. Among 
other entertainments that Rome provided me 
withal, in Lent, were the sermons. There were 
excellent preachers to be heard every day, and 
one in particular, a converted rabbi, who ad- 
dresses the Jews every Saturday afternoon, in the 
quarter called the Trinity. There are sixty Jews 
always present, who have agreed to hear his 
reasonings. This man was a very noted doctor 
among them; and from their own arguments, 
from their own rabbis, and from the text of 
the Bible, he confutes their tenets ; and he is 
amazingly versed in the deep learning, and the 
various languages, which are essential to the 
performance of his task. There was another 
preacher, who preached before the pope and the 
cardinals, named Father Toledo, a man of rare 



knowledge and ability; another, a most elo- 
quent and popular man, who preached before 
the Jesuits, and exhibited a masterly command 
of language ; both the latter are Jesuits. 'Tis 
amazing what a position this society has attained 
throughout Christendom ; never, I believe, was 
there any community amongst us that ever 
occupied so high a place, or that ever produced 
such immense effects as these will do, if their 
plans are not interrupted. They occupy well 
nigh all Christendom, and daily send forth from 
amongst their body, great men in every class of 
greatness. It is the part of our system which 
threatens the greatest danger to the heretics of 
our time. One of the preachers jestingly said 
that we turned our coaches into observatories ; 
and, in point of fact, the prevalent occupation 
of the Roman population, high and low, seems 
to be lounging about in the streets, in coaches, 
on horseback, or a-foot; they are constantly 
going out, not with any definite intention of 
calling any where, but simply to pass through 
one street into another, and so on ; and there 
are two or three streets which are in particular 
favour, as lounging places. As to my own taste, 
I must confess that the main enjoyment of this 
way of passing the time is to look at the ladies 
at the windows on each side of the street, espe- 
cially the courtesans, who show themselves from 
behind their blinds with such skilful general- 
ship, that it seems impossible not to be at- 
tracted; yet when, as was often the case, I 
alighted from my horse on the spot, and ob- 
tained admission to the ladies whose appearance 
had so charmed me, I have often been amazed 
to find how much handsomer they had con- 
trived to seem, than they really were. They 
have an extraordinary faculty of letting you 
see only their best features, when you are look- 
ing at them from any distance; they will ma- 
nage to show only the upper part of the face, 
or the lower, just as the one or the other is 
the most favourable, so that in a whole street, 
you will not see an ugly woman at a window, 
whatever you may find them to be when you 
come nearer. There is no end to the bows and 
salutations, and gracious glances, which are 
exchanged between these ladies and the gentle- 
men, who pass beneath their windows ; for one 
of the privileges which you obtain for the 
crown or the four crowns you have given for 
passing the night in one of these houses is that 
of paying this public court to your fair hostess 
the next day. Here and there you see ladies 
of quality at the windows, but they are easily 
distinguishable from their frail neighbours. The 
best view you have is on horseback ; but this 
is an equipage only adopted by poor devils like 
myself, or by young gallants, as a method of 
displaying the caracolings of their steeds, and 
the graces of their own persons. With the 
exception of these latter, the upper classes all 
ride in coaches ; and many of the gayer sort of 
men, in order to have a good view of the ladies, 
have little windows in the roofs of their coaches; 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



which was what the preacher referred to, when 
he talked of their coaches being- observatories. 
On Maundy-Thursday, in the morning, the 
pope, in full pontificals, placed himself in the 
first portico of St. Peter's, on the second flight, 
with the cardinals round him, and holding- a 
torch in his hand. A canon of St. Peter's, who 
stood on one side, then read, at the pitch of his 
voice, a bull in the Latin language, excommu- 
nicating an infinite variety of people, and 
among others the Huguenots, by that term, 
and all the princes who detained any of the 
estates belonging- to the church; at which last 
article the Cardinals dc Medici and Caraffa, 
who stood close by the Pope, laughed heartily. 
The reading of this anathema takes up a full 
hour and a half; for every article that the clerk 
reads in Latin, the Cardinal Gonzaga, who 
stands on the other side with his hat oft', repeats 
in Italian. When the excommunication is fin- 
ished, the pope throws the lighted torch down 
among the people; and, whether in jest or 
otherwise, the Cardinal Gonzaga threw an- 
other; for there were three of them lighted. 
Hereupon ensues a tremendous struggle among 
the people below, to get even the smallest 
piece of this torch ; and not a few hard blows 
with stick and fist are given and returned 
in the contest. While the curse is read, a 
large piece of black taffeta hangs over the 
rails of the portico before the pope ; and when 
the reading is over, they take up this black 
taffeta, and exhibit one of another colour under 
it; and the pope then pronounces his public 
blessing on all the faithful members of the 
church. This same day, they show the Ve- 
ronica, the Vera Effigies, the representation 
of a face, worked in sombre colours, and en- 
closed in a frame like a large mirror; this is 
shown to the people, with much ceremony, from 
the top of a pulpit, about five or six paces wide. 
The priest who holds it has his hands covered 
with red gloves, and there are two or three 
other priests assisting him. There is nothing 
regarded with so much reverence as this; the 
people prostrate themselves on the earth be- 
fore it, most of them with tears rolling down 
their cheeks, and all uttering cries of commise- 
ration. A woman who was present, and who 
they said was a demoniac, got into a tremen- 
dous fury on seeing this effigy, yelling and 
throwing herself into infinite contortions. The 
priests take the effigy round the pulpit, and at 
every step or two, present it to the people who 
are standing in that particular direction, and on 
aach of these occasions the crowd raises a loud 
cry. They also show at the same time, and with 
the same ceremonies, the head of the lance, 1 en- 
closed in a crystal bottle. This exhibition takes 
place several times during the day, and the 
assemblage of people is so vast, that outside flu- 
church, as far as the eye can reach down the 



streets, you can see nothing but the heads of 
men and women, so close together that it seems 
as though you could walk upon them. 'Tis a 
true papal court; the splendour and the prin- 
cipal grandeur of the court of Rome consists 
in these devotional exhibitions. And, indeed, 
it is a very striking sight to witness, on these 
occasions, the infinite religious fervour of this 
people. In Rome, there are more than a hun- 
dred religious societies, with one or other of 
which almost every person of quality is con- 
nected. Some of these establishments are ap- 
propriated to foreigners. Our own kings belong 
to the society of the Gonsanon. All these pri- 
vate fraternities perform various religious cere- 
monies, though for the most part only in Lent. 
On this particular occasion, they all walk in 
procession, clothed in linen robes, each com- 
pany having a different colour, some black, 
some white, some red, some blue, some green, 
and so on ; they nearly all cover their faces 
with their cowls. The most impressive sight I 
ever saw, here or elsewhere, was the incredible 
number of people, who thronged every square 
and street, all taking an earnest part in the 
devotions of the day. They were flocking up 
towards St. Peter's all day long, and on the 
approach of night the whole city seemed in 
flames; for every man who took part in the 
procession of each religious community, as it 
marched up in its order towards the church, 
bore a lighted flambeau, almost universally of 
white wax. I am persuaded that there passed 
before me not fewer than twelve thousand of 
these torches, at the very least, for, from eight 
o'clock in the evening till midnight, the street 
was constantly full of this moving pageantry, 
marshalled in such excellent order, with every 
thing so well timed, that though the entire pro- 
cession, as I have said, was composed of a great 
number of different societies, coming from dif- 
ferent parts, yet not for one moment did I 
observe any stoppage, or gap, or interruption. 
Each company was attended by a band of 
music, and chaunted sacred songs as they went 
along. Between the ranks walked a file of 
penitents, who every other minute whipped 
themselves with cords; there were five hundred 
of these, at least, whose backs were torn and 
bleeding in a frightful manner. This part of 
the exhibition is a mystery I have not yet been 
able to make out; they are unquestionably most 
terribly mangled and wounded, yet, from the 
tranquillity of their countenances, the steadi- 
ness of their motion and of their tongue (for I 
heard several of them speaking), you would 
have formed no idea they were engaged even 
in a serious occupation, to say nothing of a 
very painful one, and yet many of them were 
lads of but twelve or thirteen years old. As 
one of them, a mere child, with an exceedingly 
agreeable and unmoved countenance, was pass- 
ing just close to where I stood, a young woman 
near mo uttered nn exclamation of pity at the 
wounds he had indicted on himself, on which 
2o 



610 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



he turned round and said, with a laugh : Basta, 
disse che fo questo per li lui peccati, non per li 
miei. 1 Not only do they exhibit no appear- 
ance of pain, or of being reluctant thus to man- 
gle themselves, but, on the contrary, they seem 
to delight in it; or, at all events, they treat it 
with such indifference that you hear them 
chatting together about other matters, laugh- 
ing, running, jumping, and joining in the shouts 
of the rest of the crowd, as if nothing ailed 
them. At certain distances, there are men walk- 
ing with them, and carrying wine, which they 
every now and then present to the penitents; 
some of whom take a mouthful. They also 
give them sugar-plums. The men who carry 
the wine, at certain intervals, moisten with it 
the ends of the penitents' whips, which are of 
cord, and get so clotted with gore that they re- 
quire to be wetted before they can be untwisted. 
Sometimes the wine is applied to the sufferers' 
wounds. From the shoes and the breeches worn 
by these penitents, it is easy to perceive that 
they are persons quite of the lower class, who, 
at all events the greater number of them, let 
themselves out for this particular service. I was 
told, indeed, that the shoulders were protected 
by some flesh-coloured covering, and that the 
appearance of the blood and wounds was arti- 
ficial ; but I was near enough to see that the 
cuts and wounds were quite real, and I am 
sure that the pain must have been very severe; 
and, besides, where is the merit of these peni- 
tential exhibitions, if they are merely a trick 
and imposition'? There are several other re- 
markable features in this procession, which I 
cannot stay to describe. After one company 
has seen el Viso Santo, the Sacra Effigies, it 
moves on, and gives place to another company, 
and so on. The ladies, on this occasion, are 
at liberty to go about as they please, and the 
streets all night long are full of them; they are 
almost all on foot. The church that looks finest 
on this occasion is that of Santa Rotonda, by 
reason of its illuminations. It is covered from 
top to bottom with moving lamps, which keep 
turning about all night long. On Easter-Eve, 
I went to see, at St. John Latran, the heads 
of St. Paul and St. Peter, which are exhibited 
here on that day. The heads are entire, with 
the hair, flesh, colour, and beard, as though 
they still lived ; St. Peter has a long, pale face, 
with a brilliant complexion, approaching the 
sanguine, with a grey, peaked beard, and a papal 
mitre on bis head ; St. Paul is of a dark com- 
plexion, with a broader and fuller face, a large 
head, and thick grey beard. These heads 
stand in a recess, some way above you. When 
they are shown, the people are called together 
hy the ringing of a bell, and a curtain is then 
slowly pulled down, behind which you see the 
heads, placed side by side. The time allowed 



for viewing them, is that in which you can re- 
peat an Ave Maria, and then the curtain is 
again raised ; shortly after the curtain descends, 
and once more ascends; and this is repeated 
thrice; so as to afford every one present an 
opportunity of seeing. This exhibition takes 
place four or five times in the course of the day. 
The recess is about a pike's length above you, 
and there is a thick iron grating before the 
heads. Several lighted tapers are placed in 
front of them, outside the recess, but still you 
cannot very well distinguish the particular fea- 
tures. At least, I could not, and I saw them 
two or three times. There was a bright polish 
over the faces, which made them look some- 
thing like our masks. 

On the Wednesday after Easter, M. Maldo- 
nat, 2 who was then at Rome, asked my opinion 
as to the manners and character of the people 
there, more particularly as to religion ; and he 
found that my opinion entirely coincided with 
his own: namely, that the lower classes are, 
beyond comparison, more devout in France 
than here; but that the richer people, espe- 
cially the courtiers, are somewhat less so. He 
told me, that whenever he heard it said, as 
he often did, particularly by Spaniards, of 
whom there are a great number in his society, 
that France was sunk in heresy, he always 
maintained that there were more truly religious 
men in Paris alone, than in all Spain put to- 
gether. 

The boats here are drawn up the Tiber, by 
ropes attached to three or four pair of buffaloes, 
as the case may be. As to the air of Rome, 
I do not know what other people may think 
of it, but I found it extremely pleasant and 
healthy. The Sieur de Vielart said he had lost 
his tendency to head-ache here ; which would 
seem to corroborate the popular notion that 
Rome is bad for the feet and good for the head. 
There is nothing more injurious to my health 
than ennui and idleness; here I had always 
some occupation, if not altogether as pleasant 
as I could have wished, yet very well answer- 
ing the purpose of relieving me from any ac- 
cess of tedium ; such as looking at the anti- 
quities, and walking through the vineyards, 
which here assume the form of pleasure-grounds, 
and are places of singular beauty; and here 
I first learnt how much art can do in trans- 
forming rugged, hilly, and uneven spots into 
delightful gardens, which even borrow an in- 
finity of graces, not known among us, from the 
very irregularity of the surface. Amongst the 
handsomest of these pleasure-grounds, are 
those of Cardinal D'Este, at Monte Cavallo; 
of Cardinal Farnese, on the Palatine Mount; 
of the Cardinals Ursino, Sforza, and Medici; 
that of Pope Julius; that of Madame; 3 the 
gardens of Farnese, and of the Cardinal 



i " Psliaw ! tell her I'm not <]riin« this fur my own sins, 
lmt for hers." Montaigne's Italian is uerer the most cor- 
rect in the world. 



2 The celebrated Jesuit, whom Montaigne also met at 
Epernay. 

3 So called from having belonged to Madame Marguerite, 
Duchess of Parma. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



611 



Riario at Transtevere ; and that of Cesio, out- 
side the Porta del Popolo. These beautiful 
spots are open to whomsoever chooses to visit 
them, and you can do what you like there, 
and even sleep there with your mistress, when 
the proprietor is not there, as is mostly the 
case: there are plenty of ways of passing the 
time there, either in listening to sermons, 
-which are always going on, or to controversial 
discussions; or to chat with some bona roba, 
on which occasions I have sometimes been put 
out by finding that they charge as dear for 
their conversation (which was what I mostly 
wanted, for I liked to hear their sharp tongues 
at work) as they do for the other favour, and 
are even more chary of it. These various 
amusements sufficed to keep me in occupation ; 
and neither in-doors nor out, was I ever troubled 
with melancholy, which is death to me, or with 
any feeling of annoyance. So you see, this is 
by no means an unpleasant place to live at; 
and, moreover, it is to be remembered that 
while I was at Rome, I only saw it in a general 
and public sort of way, as any obscure stranger 
might have done : If I had stayed long enough 
to see more of Rome, as it is seen and enjoyed 
by its own population, I cannot tell how 
much more delighted I might not have been. 
On the last of March, I had an attack of 
cholic, which lasted all night, but was not very 
severe; it stirred up my stomach, however, 
very much, and made my water sharper than 
usual. I passed some large gravel, and two 
stones. On Low Sunday, I saw the ceremony 
of the Virgin's alms. The pope, on this occa- 
sion, beside his usual train, has twenty-five 
horses led before him, richly caparisoned in 
cloth of gold, and ten or twelve mules decorated 
with crimson velvet; each of these animals 
being led by one of the pope's lacqueys on foot. 
His own litter was also covered with crimson 
velvet. He was immediately preceded by four 
men on horseback, each bearing, at the end of 
a truncheon, also covered with red velvet, and 
profusely ornamented with gold, a red hat: he 
himself rode on a mule, as did the cardinals 
who followed him, all apparelled in their robes 
of state: the tails of which were fastened with 
tags to their mule's bridle. The virgins were 
a hundred and seven in number, and each was 
accompanied by an elderly female relation. 
After mass, they left the church, and, forming 
in procession, filed off. As they left the choir 
of the church of Minerva, where this ceremony 
takes place, each kisses the pope's feet, and 
he, after blessing them, gives to each with his 
own hand, a purse of white damask, containing 
an order upon his banker for the amount of her 
dowry. It is understood, that all the girls who 
present themselves, are about to be married, and 
come here for their marriage dowry, which is 
thirty -five crowns a head, besides a white 
dress, which each has presented to her on the 
occasion, and which is worth five crowns more. 
Their faces are covered with white linen veils. 



which have only an opening for them to see 
out at. 

One of the great advantages of Rome, is that 
it is one of the least exclusive cities in the 
world ; a place where foreigners at once feel 
themselves the most at home ; in fact, Rome is, 
by its very nature, the city of strangers. Its 
sovereign is sovereign also over entire Christen- 
dom ; his jurisdiction generally subjects to his 
authority all Christians, wheresoever they are, 
even in their homes in the most distant coun- 
tries, as much as in Rome itself; and as to all 
the princes and grandees of his court, the con- 
sideration as to whence they came, is of no sort 
of weight. The free government of Venice, 
and the advantages for trade there, crowd it 
with strangers ; but they all have the effect of 
not being at home there. Here, they have all 
got charges, offices and places ; at least, all such 
as are in any way connected with the church ; 
for this is the throne of the ecclesiastical class. 
You may see quite as many, if not more, 
foreigners at Venice (as to the number of fo- 
reigners in France, or Germany, and other 
countries, it does not at all come into com- 
parison), but resident, domiciled foreigners, are 
far more numerous here. The common people 
take no more notice of our fashion of dress, or 
of the Spanish or German, than they do of 
their own ; and you hardly come across a beg- 
gar that does not ask you for charity in your 
own language. 

I set all my wits to work to obtain the title 
of Roman citizen, if only out of respect for its 
former dignity, and the once sacred character 
of its authority. I had some difficulty in the 
matter, but I succeeded, at last, without hav- 
ing recourse to any grandees' favour, and 
without even mentioning the subject to any 
Frenchman. The authority of the pope, how- 
ever, was called into requisition by the medium 
of Philippo Mussotti, his major-domo, who had 
taken a particular fancy to me, and exerted 
himself very zealously in my behalf. The 
favour was granted me on the 13th of March, 
1581, and I received the official document on 
the 5th of April, couched in the same compli- 
mentary terms that were addressed on the like 
occasion to the Signor Jacomo Buoncompag- 
none, Duke of Sero, the pope's son. 'Tis an 
empty title; but yet I felt infinite delight in 
I having obtained it. 

On the 3d of April I left Rome, very early 
in the morning, by the Porta S. Lorenzo Tibur- 
tina, and proceeded along a tolerably level 
road, with corn-fields on each side, but, like 
the other approaches to Rome, with but very 
few habitations to be seen. I passed the river 
Teverone, the ancient Anio, first over the 
bridge of Mammolo, and then over the bridge 
of Lucan, which still retains its ancient name. 
On this bridge there are some old inscriptions, 
the principal of which is quite legible. You 
pass three old Roman tombs on this road, but 
there are no other traces of antiquity, and but 



612 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



very little of the old Roman pavement ; yet 
this is the Via Tiburtina. I got by dinner- 
time to 

Tivoli, fifteen miles. This is the ancient 
Tiburtum, 1 a town seated on the very roots of 
the mountains, just where the first rise takes 
place, so that the views from it, and the situa- 
tion itself; are exceedingly rich and picturesque; 
an uninterrupted prospect over a vast plain, 
with that fine old Rome full in the distance. 
Before you the eye reaches as far as the sea ; 
behind you rise the mountains. It is bathed 
by the Teverone, which river, just at this place, 
takes a tremendous leap from the high ground 
down into a bason of rock, five or six hundred 
paces below, 2 and then flows on into the plain, 
where, after infinite meanderings, it joins the 
Tiber, a little above the town. Here are to be 
seen the famous palace and gardens of the Car- 
dinal of Ferrara ; a fine work, but incomplete 
in many of its parts ; nor does the present Car- 
dinal lvave anything done towards finishing it. 
I examined every feature with great attention ; 
and I would attempt to give some description of 
the place here, but there are already accounts of 
it in books, and representations of it in pictures. 
The water- works here, which send forth an 
infinite number of streams on your touching 
only one spring, and that at a good distance, 
I had seen elsewhere during my journey, both at 
Florence and at Augusta, as I have mentioned 
There is a real organ, which plays real music 
though always the same tune, and this is 
effected by the means of water, which, falling 
in a large body, and with a sudden descent, 
into a round, arched cave, strikes upon the air 
in it, and compels it to make its exit through 
the pipes of the organ, which are thus supplied 
with wind. Another fall of water turns a broad 
wheel, furnished with teeth, so fixed in it as to 
strike in due order the keys of the organ, and 
thus produce the tune to which the wheel is 
set; and by the same machinery they imitate 
the sound of trumpets. In another place, you 
hear the notes of birds blended in harmony, an 
artificial effect, produced by the same means, 
on a smaller scale, as those I have just de- 
scribed ; on touching a spring, you give motion 
to an artificial owl, which, on presenting itself 
on the top of a rock, causes a sudden cessation 
of the previous harmony, the little birds being 
supposed to have become alarmed at his pre- 
sence; then, on touching another spring, the 
owl retires, and the birds re-commence, and you 
can continue this sport as long as you like. 
In one place, you hear a roaring sound, like 
artillery ; in another, you are startled with the 
sharper discharge of gun-shots; both of these 
sounds being also produced by water, which 
falls into hollow places, and ejects the air. All 
these contrivances, or similar ones, I had seen 
elsewhere; but there was one thing in par- 



ticular, that I had never before observed : there 
are several large water-tanks, or reservoirs, 
with a margin of stone all round them ; on this 
margin stand a number of high stone pillars, 
at about four paces one from the other. From 
the top of these pillars the water dashes out 
with great force ; but, instead of spouting up, 
the current discharges itself into the reservoir. 
These various streams cross each other midway 
in the air, and produce a continuous and heavy 
rain, which descends violently into the water 
below, and the rays of the sun falling upon it, 
produce a rainbow well nigh as brilliant as that 
we see in the sky. Under the palace are con- 
structed a number of hollow places and air- 
holes, which communicate in the hottest weather 
a most refreshing coolness throughout the lower 
part of the mansion ; this part of the structure 
is, however, not quite completed. I saw several 
excellent statues here; especially a sleeping 
nymph, a dead nymph, a Minerva, a model of 
the Adonis at the Bishop of Aquino's ; one of the 
bronze wolf, and another of the Youth extracting 
a thorn, the originals of which are at the Capi- 
tol; another of the figure of Comedy, also at the 
Capitol ; one of the Laocoon, and another of 
the Antinbus, at the Belvidere ; another of the 
Satyr, at Cardinal Sforza's country-seat; an- 
other of the new production, the Moses, the 
original of which is in the church of St. Pietro 
in Vincula; and another, of the fine female 
figure, that lies at the feet of Paul III. in the 
new church of St. Peter. These are the statues 
that pleased me most at Rome. A very na- 
tural comparison arises in the mind between 
this place and Pralolino. In the variety and 
beauty of its grottoes, the Florentine grounds 
infinitely surpass the Ferrarese ; in the abund- 
ance of water, the latter have the advantage ; 
in the variety of amusing and agreeable water- 
works, they are about equal ; if'lhe Florentine 
artist, perhaps, displays somewhat more ele- 
gance in the arrangement of his details, the 
Ferrarese compensates for this by his fine statues 
and the splendour of his palace. " The Ferrarese, 
in charm of situation and beauty of prospect, 
far surpasses the Florentine; and I should be 
inclined to say that, in every respect, nature 
had given him greatly the advantage, were it 
not that, with the exception of one small foun- 
tain, rising in a small garden on an eminence, 
the water of which is conducted into one of the 
apartments of the palace, all the water here is 
river water, derived from the Teverone by 
means of a canal cut for that purpose. Were 
this water as clear and drinkable as it is other- 
wise, the place, in all natural qualifications, 
would be incomparable, more especially from 
its grand fountain, which is the most extraordi- 
nary construction, and the most beautiful of its 
kind, that ever I saw, here or elsewhere. At 
Pratolino, on the contrary, all the water is 



i The Latin name is not. Tiburtum, but Tibur. whose performance so delighted Wilson the painter, that 

a Montaigne refers to the celebrated cascade of Tivoli, he rapturously exclaimed, "Well done, water, by God!" 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



613 



spring-water, which is brought from a good 
distance off. As the Teverone approaches Ti- 
voli by a rapid descent from the mountains, 
several of the inhabitants of the place make use 
of it in the same way that the cardinal has 
done, so that his water-works do not create so 
much surprise, as they would do, were there no 
similar pieces of art to be seen about here. I 
left this place the next day, after dinner, and 
passed, on the right hand, an immense ruin, 
which they say extends over six miles, and 
looks as big as a town; this was the Prtedium 1 
of the Emperor Adrian. Further on, a sul- 
phurous stream crosses the road. Its borders 
are all whitened with the sulphur, the smell of 
which is perceptible for half a league round ; 
but they make no use of it medicinally. In this 
stream they find small substances, formed of the 
scum of the water, which resemble our comfits 
so much that almost any one would be de- 
ceived ; and the people of Tivoli form them 
into all sorts of shapes, and sell them in boxes, 
of which 1 bought two at seven sous six deniers 
each. There are several antiquities at Tivoli, 
such as two termini of a very early form, and 
the remains of a temple, several pillars of which 
are still standing entire ; they say this was the 
temple of their Sibyl. Upon the cornice you 
can still distinguish five or six large capital 
letters, which it is evident concluded the in- 
scription, whatever it may have been, for the 
rest of the wall on the right is entire ; the other 
end of the cornice, however, is broken off, so 
that other letters may have preceded these: 
however, all that now remain are: Ellius, 
L. F. I don't know what the meaning is. 
We returned in the evening to 

Rome, fifteen miles. I travelled all the 
way back in a coach, and, contrary to my ordi- 
nary experience, found myself very comfortable 
in it. They are far more attentive to their 
health in this city, than in any other place I 
ever saw. or heard of. Each quarter of the 
city, each street, nay, each portion of each 
house, is marked by them with some distinctive 
character as regards health, and every body, that 
can at all do so, changes his residence with 
the seasons. Some gentlemen keep up two or 
three palaces, at a very great expense, so that 
they may be able to move about from one to the 
other, according to the season and their physi- 
cians' orders. On the 15th of April, I went to 
take leave of the Maeslro del Sucro Palazzo 
and his colleague, who begged me to pay no 
attention to the censure of my books, which, they 
told me, several Frenchmen had since informed 
them, exhibited very great ignorance and im- 
becility; they assured me that they held in 
high honour and esteem my intentions and my 
ability; and that they had no doubt of my 
aflection towards the church ; adding, that 



they had such confidence in my conscientious- 
ness and candour, that they would leave it 
entirely to myself to omit or correct, in my 
book, when I wished to reprint it, what I 
should, on consideration, think too free-spoken; 
and they referred me, among one or two other 
points, to my treatment of the word fortune. 
I thought they seemed very well pleased with 
me. To excuse themselves for having so 
minutely examined my book, and condemned it 
in some things, they mentioned several books, 
written in our own time, by cardinals and other 
ecclesiastics of good reputation, which had been 
censured in like manner for some of their de- 
tails, but which censure was not considered as 
at all affecting the reputation of the author, or 
of the book generally. In conclusion, they 
entreated m'e to assist the church by my elo- 
quence (these are their main de courtoi.sie), and 
to take up my abode in their peaceful city, far 
removed from the troubles which agitated my 
own country. Both these were persons high 
in authority, and eligible for cardinals. 

We had artichokes, beans, and peas here, in 
the middle of March. In April, daylight be- 
gins at their ten o'clock; 2 and, I believe, in 
the longest days, at their nine o'clock. About 
this time, I made acquaintance, among 1 others, 
with a Pole, who had been Cardinal Hosius's* 
most intimate friend, and who presented me 
with two copies, corrected by his own hand, of 
the pamphlet he has drawn up, giving an ac- 
count of the cardinal's death. The longer I 
staid in this city, the more did I become charmed 
with it; I never breathed air more temperate, 
nor better suited to my constitution. On the 
18th April, I went to see the interior of Signor 
John George Cesarin's palace, which contains 
a great variety of rare antiquities, more espe- 
cially the genuine busts of Zeno, Possidonius, 
Euripides, and Carneades, whose names are 
inscribed thereon in very ancient Greek cha- 
racters. He has also a number of portraits of 
the handsomest living Roman ladies, among 
others, that of Signora Cltelia Fascia Famese, 
his wife, who, if not the most lovely, is beyond 
comparison, the most amiable woman in Rome, 
or, for any thing I know to the contrary, else- 
where. This nobleman claims to be of the race 
of the Caesars, and bears of right as such the 
banner of the Roman nobility. He is a very 
rich man. His arms have the bear and the 
column, and above the column an eagle dis- 
played. 

One of the great sights of Rome is the gar- 
dens and pleasure-houses, but these are seen to 
most advantage in the height of summer. 

Wednesday, 19th of April, I left Rome after 
dinner, and was accompanied as far as the 
bridge of Mola, by Messieurs de Noirmontiers, 
de la Tremouille, du Bcllay, and other gentle- 



1 The emintrv I Be. 

a About lisill'-|iast four, a.m. 

> A Polish canlinul, who opened the proceedings of the 



Council of Trent, as legate of Pope Pius IV. Orceory 
\i:i. in. nil' him Craml Penitentiary of the Koman Church. 
lie died at Koine, 1 J?'J. 



614 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



men. On passing this bridge, we turned to the 
right, leaving on the left, the high road to Vi- 
terbo, by which we had come to Rome, and on 
the extreme right, the Tiber and the moun- 
tains. We went along an open and irregular 
road, through a country unfertile and unin- 
habited. We passed the place called Pri?na 
Porta, the first gate, at about seven miles from 
Rome. Some say that the walls of ancient 
Rome extended as far as this, which, however, 
does not appear to me at all likely. Along the 
route, which is the ancient Via Flaminia, there 
are some fine remains of antiquity, very little 
known. We got by bed-tirne to 

Castel-Novo, sixteen miles, a small fortified 
town belonging to the Colonna family, com- 
pletely buried among the hills, in a situation 
that reminded me very strongly of the fertile 
passes through our Pyrenean mountains, on the 
road to Aigues-Caudes. Next day, 20th April, 
we went on through the same hilly country, 
which, however, was on both sides of us fertile, 
thickly populated, and very agreeable iu its 
aspect; and then descending into a small val- 
ley, along which ran the Tiber, we came to 

Borguet, 1 a small castle and village belonging 
to the Duke Ottavio Farnese. After dining 
here, we continued our journey through a very 
pleasant valley, and passed the Tiber at Corde, 2 
where you still see the large stone piers, the 
remains of the bridge that Augustus built here, 
to connect the country of the Sabines, that 
into which we were now entering, with that 
of the Faliscii, on the other side of the river. 
A little way on, we came to Otricoli, a small 
town belonging to the Cardinal of Perugia. 
Close to this place, seated in a very beau- 
tiful spot, there are the ruins of some very 
large and important structure. The scenery all 
along this route, is hilly and very picturesque ; 
and the land seems exceedingly fertile, even on 
the higher slopes of the ascents. You see houses 
in every corner; and we passed on the way an 
inscription in Latin, purporting that the pope 3 
had put this road into complete repair, and 
given it the name of the Via Buoncompagnone, 
after his own patronymic. This custom of set- 
ting up inscriptions to give notice to posterity 
of the share you have had in such works, 
which prevails very generally throughout Italy 
and Germany, acts as a very useful incentive: 
for many a man, who does not care a straw for 
the public, has been induced, by this hope of 
lasting fame, to execute works which are pro- 
ductive of the greatest advantage to society. 
As to the road I was traversing, it was now 
available even for coaches as tar as Loretto, 
whereas before it was almost entirely impracti- 
cable. We slept at 

Narni, ten miles, Narnia in Latin, a small 



i Borghetto. 

* Oil a. 

a Gregory XIII. 



town belonging to the Holy See, built on the 
summit of a rock, at the foot of which runs the 
river Negra, 4 Nar in Latin. One part of the 
town looks over a very beautiful plain, where 
this river is seen making an infinite variety 
of complicated twistings and turnings. In the 
public square there is a very fine fountain. I 
went to look at the church, where I saw some 
tapestry, in which the writing, both prose and 
poetry, is in the ancient French language. 
I could not learn whence this tapestry came; 5 
all I collected from my inquiries on the subject 
was that the people here seem to have an here- 
ditary attachment to our nation. The tapestry 
in question represents the Passion, and occupies 
the whole of one side of the nave. Having read 
in Pliny an account of a particular sort of earth 
here, which, he says, is softened by heat and 
dried by rain, I asked the people about it, but 
they had never heard of any thing of the sort. 
About a mile hence there are some cold springs, 
which produce the same effect as our hot 
springs; they are used by a few people, but 
have attained very little note. The inn we 
were at was a very good one for Italy. We 
had no candles, the whole house being lighted 
with oil. On the 21st, very early in the 
morning, we descended into an exceedingly 
pretty valley, watered by the river Negra, 
which we passed over by a bridge, at the gates 
of Terni. In the public square of this town, 
we saw a very ancient column still standing. 
I could perceive no inscription on it, but at its 
side is the statue of a lion, beneath which, in 
old characters, there is a dedication to Nep- 
tune, with a roughly carved representation of 
the god himself and all his train. In the same 
place there is a pedestal, which has been set in 
a prominent spot, on which I read an inscrip- 
tion purporting that "to A. Poinpeius, A. F., 
the inhabitants of this town (here called Inter- 
amnia, a name derived from the river Negra, 
that washes it on one side, and another stream 
which runs by it on the other) have erected a 
statue, in commemoration of the services he has 
rendered them." There is no longer any sta- 
tue, but I judged that the inscription was very 
old, from the use of the diphthong in periculeis 
and similar words. This is a pretty little town, 
singularly well placed. On the one side, whence 
we had approached it, there is a very charming 
and richly cultivated valley, with a large popu- 
lation, who, among other products, pay particular 
attention to their olive plantations, which pre- 
sent a very beautiful appearance. Every here 
and there, among the smaller hills, there rises 
one of tolerable height, which in almost every 
instance is cultivated, and yields abundance of 
produce of various descriptions, up to the very 
summit. I was at this time suffering from a 



t Nera. 

6 It was not improbably bronjrht hero by the French, who 
often passed into Italy in the wars under Charles VIII., 
Louis XII., anil Francis I. 



V 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



615 



severe attack of my malady, which had now 
lasted twenty-four hours, and was getting to its 
height; yet, for all my pain, I could not help 
feeling delighted at the beauty of the place. 
Shortly after leaving Terni, we found ourselves 
more decidedly entering upon the Appenincs, 
and then we began thoroughly to appreciate 
the advantages of the excellent new road that 
the pope has formed here, at such expense and 
labour. The people in the neighbourhood of 
the road all along, did the repairs and im- 
provements by their forced labour ; but they do 
not complain so much of having been obliged 
to work without being paid for it, as they do at 
being compelled to give up pieces of fertile and 
cultivated land, where these were required for 
forming the new road. On our right we noticed 
a hill, with a village on its summit. This hill 
the people here call Colle Scipoli, and they say 
that its ancient name was Castrum Scipionis. 
The other mountains, which are much higher 
than the one I have mentioned, are all barren 
and rocky. Following our road, which lay 
between these and the bed of a winter torrent, 
we reached 

Spoleto, eighteen miles, a celebrated and 
commodious town, seated amidst the mountains. 
We were here called upon to produce our certi- 
ficate of health, not on account of the plague, 
which at this time did not prevail in any part 
of Italy, but by reason of the fear which the 
people here are in of one Petrino, a fellow- 
townsman of their's, the most noted robber now 
in Italy, and of whom some tremendous stories 
are told. All the places about are in constant 
dread of being surprised by this man and his 
band. There are inns at short intervals all 
along the road and over the country; and in 
some places, where there is no regular house, 
you will find a hut formed of the branches of 
trees, where you can be supplied with boiled 
eggs, bread, cheese, and wine. They have 
no butter here, using oil instead, for all pur- 
]>oses. On leaving the town, which we did the 
same day after dinner, we found ourselves in 
the valley of Spoleto, as lovely a place as it is . 
possible to conceive, about two Gascon leagues j 
broad. The mountain sides are every here ' 
and there dotted with houses. The road along 
which we were now proceeding is a continu- 
ation of that of which I have already spoken, 
and runs as straight as a line. We pas ed b 
number of towns lying on either hand, and, 
among others, had another view of Terni. Ser- 
vius, in his notes upon Virgil, says that this is 
the Olivi favxque niustica; of which the poet 
speaks in Book vii., but others are of a diiferent 
opinion. However this may be, it is certain 
that it is a town built upon a high mountain, 
on the sides of which it extends until it reaches 
nearly half way; and the beauty of the scene 
is completed by the plantations of olive trees, 
which occupy all the other parts of the ascent. 
We got in the' evening to 

Foligni, twelve miles, a handsome town, 



standing in a plain; the general appearance 
strongly reminded me of St. Foi, 1 though 
the surrounding country here is far richer, 
and the town itself, beyond all comparison, 
prettier and more populous. A streamlet called 
Topino waters the place. This town was 
anciently named Fulignium, or, according to 
other authorities, Fulcinia, and was built on 
the site of Forum Flaminium. The inns on 
this route are much about the same as those in 
France, except that the horses can seldom get 
any thing but hay to eat. They have very 
little fresh fish in these parts. Throughout 
Italy they serve np the beans and peas un- 
dressed, and their almonds in a green state, and 
very seldom dress artichokes. Their rooms are 
floored with tiles. They guide their oxen by a 
rope fastened to an iron ring, which is passed 
through the muzzle of the nose, in the same 
manner that buffaloes are kept in. The car- 
rier-mules, which are very numerous here, and 
very fine, are not -shod in front in our fashion, 
but wear round shoes, bigger than the feet, and 
quite encompassing them. Every here and 
there you meet, on the road, monks who give 
holy water to travellers, and expect alms in 
return for it ; and there is no end to boys, who 
run along by your side, begging charity, and 
promising to say for you, in return, an infinity 
of paternosters, on the beads which they carry 
and hold out to you as a proof of their good 
faith. The wines are very indifferent. The 
next morning, soon after resuming our jour- 
ney, we left the beautiful valley I spoke of, 
and proceeded up the mountains, where, how- 
ever, we at intervals came upon other valleys, 
more or less agreeable. For the greater part of 
the morning, we were never tired of gazing at 
the lovely scenery which presented itself on 
either side of us; in every direction you see 
hills completely covered with fine fruit-trees 
and corn-fields, even in spots so abrupt and 
precipitous that it seemed a miracle how any 
horses or oxen could ever get there ; between 
these hills meander charming valleys, watered 
by an infinity of streams, and with so many 
villages and single cottages scattered about, 
that I should have been reminded of the ap- 
proach to Florence, but for the entire absence 
of palaces and the better sort of houses, and 
that, near Florence, the land is mostly unculti- 
vated, whereas here not one single inch of 
ground is lost. It is true that the season of the 
year was more favourable to the landscape, 
which so excited my admiration here. Very 
frequently, at a great height above us, we 
would see a handsome village perched on the 
mountain's edge; and looking down far be- 
neath us, as it, were at the Antipodes, the eye 
fell upon another village, embosomed in a deep 
valley. One circumstance that greatly aided 
the effect was that, behind these fertile and 
smiling hills, the Appenines showed their rug- 
ged and inaccessible peaks, whence we could 
' St. Foi, in Perigord, near Montaigne's residence. 






616 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



discern those very torrents rush foaming down, 
which, after having exhausted their original 
power and fury, modified themselves into the 
gentle streams which refreshed and adorned the 
valleys beneath us. Among the distant heights 
we could every now and then discern rich and 
fertile plains, many of which appeared to be of 
considerable extent. I do not conceive that 
any description, either on paper or on canvass, 
could at all convey to the eye or the mind 
the surpassing loveliness of the scenery. We 
got by dinner-time to 

La Muccia, twenty miles, a small town seated 
on the river Chiento. After dinner, we went 
on along an easy road, running low among the 
hills; and should have made a longer day's 
journey, but that, having given our vetturino 
a box on the ear, which is considered a great 
outrage in this country, as was shown in the 
affair of the vetturino who killed the Prince of 
Tresignano for having struck him, and having 
lost sight of the man, I conceived somewhat of 
an apprehension that he might be plotting some 
mischief against me, and so, contrary to my 
first plan, which was to go to Tolentino, I 
stopped to sleep at 

Val-Chimara, eight miles, a small village, 
though the post-town, standing on the river 
Chiento. Next morning, Sunday, we went on 
through the same valley to Tolentino, beyond 
which the ground grew flatter, and there was 
soon nothing but slight undulations on either 
side, which gave the country very much the 
appearance of the Agenois, where it is prettiest, 
along the Garonne ; except that, just as in 
Switzerland, you do not see here any castles or 
gentlemen's houses, but only villages or small 
towns. The road, which followed the river, 
continued to be a very fine one, and towards 
the end was paved with brick. We reached 
by dinner-time 

Macerata, eighteen miles, a pretty town, 
the size of Libourne, seated on an eminence 
rising in a cone. There are very few fine 
houses here, but among them I remarked a 
gentleman's mansion, built of freestone, the 
walls of which were all cut out into points, 
diamond fashion ; the form of the house alto- 
gether was like that of Cardinal d'Este at 
Ferrara, and is a construction which makes an 
exceedingly good appearance. At the entrance 
of the town there is a gate recently erected, on 
which is inscribed, in golden letters: "Porta 
Buoncompagno." Here terminates the line of 
road which the pope has reconstructed. This 
town is the seat of the legate for the Marches 
of Ancona. In this part of the country, they 
boil all their wines till at least half the quantity 
evaporates, imagining that they concentrate 
the strength and flavour of the whole in the 
portion which remains. It was now very easy 
to perceive that we were approaching Loretto, 
from the extent to which all the roads were 
crowded with people going and coming, num- 
bers of whom, not merely single travellers, 



but whole companies of rich men, were per- 
forming the journey on foot, dressed as pil- 
grims. Some of these companies were preceded 
by a man with a banner, and by another man 
bearing a crucifix; and all the persons com- 
posing each company were dressed alike. After 
dinner, we went on through a common-place 
sort of country, but tolerably fertile, exhibit- 
ing the ordinary proportions of river, hill, dale, 
and level ground, the road itself being almost 
all the way paved with bricks placed edge- 
wise. We passed through the town of Re- 
canati, a long, straggling place, built on an 
eminence, whose turnings and twistings it 
follows closely, and arrived in the even- 
ing at 

Loretto, fifteen miles, a small town, enclosed 
within walls, and fortified against the incur- 
sions of the Turks. It stands on a rising 
ground, overlooking a fine plain, and beyond 
this, at no great distance, the Adriatic Sea, or 
Gulf of Venice ; which, indeed, is so near that, 
in clear weather, you can see the Sclavonian 
mountains on the other side of the gulf. The 
town altogether is exceedingly well situated. 
There are very few inhabitants, beyond those 
who are actually engaged in the services of 
devotion; or indirectly, as innkeepers (whose 
houses are far from eligible places of resort), 
and dealers in wax candles, images, beads, 
Agnus Dei, Salvators, and such commodities, 
for the sale of which there are a number of fine 
shops, handsomely fitted up; as may well be, 
for they drive an excellent trade. I myself got 
rid of fifty good crowns in this way, while I was 
there. The priests, the churchmen, and the 
college of Jesuits, all live together in a large 
modern palace, where also the governor resides, 
himself a churchman, who has the ordering of 
all things here, subject to the authority of the 
legate and the pope. The place of 'devotion is 
a small brick house, very old and very mean, 
much longer than it is broad. ■ At the head of 
this is a projection, the two sides of which are 
iron doors, the front consisting of a thick iron 
grating ; the whole affair is exceedingly coarse 
and antiquated, without the slightest appear- 
ance of wealth about it. This iron grating 
reaches across from one door to the other, and 
through it you can see to the end of the build- 
ing, where stands the shrine, which occupies 
about a fifth part of the space, and is the prin- 
cipal object with the pious visitors. Here, 
against the upper part of the wall, is to be seen 
the image of our Lady, made, they say, of 
wood; all the rest of the shrine is so covered 
with magnificent ex-votos, the offerings of 
princes and their subjects in all parts of Christ- 
endom, that there is hardly an inch of wall 
discernible, hardly a spot that does not glitter 
with gold and silver and precious stones. It 
was with the utmost difficulty, and as a very 
great favour, that I obtained therein a vacant 
place, large enough to receive a small frame, in 
which were fixed four silver figures ; that of Our 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



617 



Lady, my own, that of my wife, and that of 
my daughter. At the foot of mine there is 
engraved in silver: Michael Montana.*, (Jul- 
ius Vanco, Eques Regii ordinis, 15bl ; ' at 
the foot of my wife's : Francisca Cassaniana 
uxor; 2 and at that of my daughter: Leonora 
Montana filia unica ; 3 the figure of Our Lady 
is in the front, and the three others are kneeling 
side by side before her. Besides the two doors 
I have mentioned, there is another door into 
the chapel, and as you go in at this door, you 
may see my offering on the left hand, fixed 
against the wall, to which I had it firmly 
nailed. I at first had a small silver chain and 
ring attached to the frame, that it might be 
hung up against the wall upon a nail, but the 
person who put it up preferred nailing it 
directly to the wall. In this place is the 
chimney, which you can see on lifting up some 
old drapery that hangs before it. Very few 
persons are permitted to enter this sanctum ; 
indeed over the door, which is covered with 
metal plates richly worked, with an iron grating 
before it, there is a notice forbidding all persons 
to enter without express permission from the 
governor. Among other richer presents, they 
carefully preserve, for the singularity of the 
thing, a large wax candle, which had not long 
before been forwarded there by a Turk, who 
had vowed to make this offering to Our Lady, 
on an occasion when, finding himself in some ex- 
treme emergency, he was willing to catch hold 
of every string that he thought would help him. 
The remaining portion of this edifice is used as 
a chapel, into which no daylight enters, except 
what may get in through the grating of which 
I spoke, close to which the altar stands. There 
is no chair, no bench, no painting, no tapestry, 
no ornament of any sort, in this chapel. You 
are not permitted to wear any description of 
weapon in this sacred place; and, once within 
its threshold, all distinctions of rank are for the 
time laid aside. We received the sacrament in 
this chapel, a privilege not accorded to every 
body; there is another place devoted to this 
purpose, for ordinary cases, on account of the 
vast number of persons who are anxious to com- 
municate here. There is such a crowd of people 
congregating in this chapel at all hours, that 
you had need to be early stirring to secure a 
place there. It was a German Jesuit who offi- 
ciated when I received the sacrament. The 
people are strictly prohibited from taking even 
a scratching of plaster from the walls; if any 
thing of this sort were once permitted, there 
would not be one stone left on another in three 
days. Every step in this place is celebrated 
for miracles, for which I refer to tiie printed 
accounts; there are several quite recent cases, 
exhibited in the mishaps which have occurred 
to persons who, from a spirit of devotion, have 
carried away some bit of the" building, even 



though by the pope's consent; and one little 
bit of brick, that was carried off at the time of 
the Council of Trent, has been brought back by 
some miraculous agency. The little building 
which contains the slirine is surrounded and 
covered over by a square marble structure of 
the richest and most ornate description ; there 
are very few structures at all comparable to it. 
This structure again is enclosed in a magnificent 
church, around which stand a number of beau- 
tiful chapels and funereal monuments, and, 
among others, one erected to the memory of 
the Cardinal d'Amboise by M. the Cardinal 
d'Armagnac. The square building which en- 
closes the shrine is, as it were, the choir of the 
church ; there is, however, a choir belonging to 
the church, but this is in a corner. The whole 
interior of the church is hung with pictures, 
portraits, and historical pieces of every descrip- 
tion. There are a great many rich ornaments, 
too, but by no means so many as 1 should 
have expected to find, considering the great 
fame this sacred edifice has for so long a 
period enjoyed. I am inclined to suspect that 
many of the older ornaments are melted down 
and applied to other uses. The annual dona- 
tions in ready money are estimated at ten 
thousand crowns. There are more of the ex- 
ternals of religion here than in any place I was 
ever at. Whatever is lost here, whether money 
or otherwise, which elsewhere would be appro- 
priated by the finder, the person who picks it 
up puts it into a public open box, kept for 
that purpose, and any other person may there 
go and take possession of it, without asking or 
being asked any questions, it being understood, 
as a matter of course, that he is the owner. 
While I was at the place, there were a number 
of things, beads, handkerchiefs, and purses, 
which lay there ready for the first person who 
chose to take them. Whatever you purchase 
here and actually leave for the service of the 
church, the seller will charge no profit upon, in 
order, as the idea is, to participate in the bles- 
sing which may be obtained ; you only pay for 
the materials : in the same way, the people con- 
nected with the church, who are zealous and 
active to a degree, will take nothing of you for 
confession, the sacrament, and other religious 
services, which they are ever ready to perform. 
The usual way is for you to give to one or other 
of them, a sum of money to be distributed in 
your name among the poor, when you have left 
the place. While I was in the sacrarium, there 
came in a man who offered the first priest he 
met a silver cup, which, he said, he had made 
a vow of; and as his vow was to the value of 
twelve crowns, and the , cup had not cost 
quite so much, he paid over the difference in 
money to the priest, who audited the calcu- 
lation of the value of the cup, and the 
balance remaining, as a matter due of course, 



i Michael de Mnntaiunc, Frenchman and (.'ascon, knight 
Of the order of the King, loot. 

52* 



2 Frances de la Cliassaigne, his wife. 

s Leonora de Montaigne, their only daughter. 



618 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



and having thereby satisfied the donor that 
he had scrupulously fulfilled his vow, he led 
him to the shrine, where, in his name, he 
offered the cup to Our Lady, adding a short 
prayer, and threw the money into the common 
box. Things of this sort are to be seen every 
day. The gifts proffered are received with 
the utmost indifference ; indeed, it would seem 
rather a matter of favour for them to be re- 
ceived at all. I stopped all Monday, Tuesday, 
and Wednesday, until after mass, when we left. 
I have a word to say here, in celebration of a 
place where I myself experienced very great 
gratification. While I was at Loretto, there 
was also there Michael Marteau, Seigneur of 
La Chapelle, a Parisian, a very rich young 
man, who was accompanied by a large train. 
From him and from his attendants, I had a very 
particular and curious account of the cure of 
his leg, which he ascribed to the virtues of this 
holy place, and certainly it was impossible for 
a miracle to be more clearly made out in all its 
effects, than in the account which these people 
gave. They said, that all the surgeons of Paris 
and Italy had entirely failed ; the young man 
had spent more than three thousand crowns in 
seeking a cure, yet, for the last three years, 
his knee had been getting worse and worse, 
more swollen, more painful, more inflamed, 
until at last it threw him altogether into a 
dreadful fever. At the time of his cure, he had 
taken no physic, or other external remedy, for 
several days; he was lying asleep when, all of 
a sudden, he dreamed that he was cured, and 
thought he saw a great flash of light ; he 
awoke up, exclaimed that he was cured, called 
his people, got up, and walked about the room, 
a thing he had not done since he was seized 
with the malady; the swelling from that time 
began to subside, the withered and well nigh 
dead skin to resume its healthy tone, and his 
cure was rapidly completed, without any sort 
of mortal aid. He was at this time in perfect 
health, for his cure took place a month or two 
before the time of which I write now, and he 
had since that been at Rome, where he was at 
the same time with us. From the account 
which he and his people gave, never was there 
a clearer case made out. The miracle by which 
the Santa-casa, which they hold to be the 
house at Nazareth in which Jesus Christ was 
born, was transported thence, first to Sclavonia, 
then to a place near Loretto, and lastly to 
Loretto itself, is written on large marble tablets 
along the pillars in the church, in the Italian, 
Sclavonian, French, German, and Spanish 
languages. In the choir, is suspended the 
banner of our kings, being the only royal 
arms that is to be seen there. I was told that, 
every now and then, large hordes of Sclavonians 
make a pilgrimage hither, who set up loud cries 
at sea as soon as thuv come within sight of the 
church, and fall to all ,:irts of protestations and 
promises to Our Lady, entreating her to return 
amongst them, and bewailing themselves for 



having given her cause to abandon them. I 
was informed that you can go from Loretto to 
Naples along the sea-shore in eight easy days' 
journeys, an excursion I have a great fancy to 
make. You must go through Pescara to the 
city of Chieta, where there is a conveyance that 
sets out. every Sunday for Naples. I offered 
money to several priests, but most of them re- 
fused it, and those that did accept it, were only 
prevailed upon with the utmost difficulty in the 
world. They keep their corn here in cellars, 
running under the street. It was on the 25th 
of April that I offered my ex-voto. To come 
from Rome to Loretto, which occupied us four 
days and a half, cost me six crowns fifty sols 
each, the persons who let us the horses keeping 
both them and us. This sort of bargain, how- 
ever, is exceedingly inconvenient, inasmuch as 
they hurry you on as much as possible to save 
expense, and, moreover, give you but shabby 
entertainment on the way. On the 26th, I went 
to see the port, which is three miles off, and is 
a handsome one enough; there is a fortress 
overlooking it, which belongs to the people of 
Ricanati. Don Luca-Giovar.ni, the incumbent, 
and Giovanni Gregorio da Calli, keeper of the 
sacristy, on my leaving the place, gave me their 
addresses, that I might write to them, did I re- 
quire any thing done for myself or others ; both 
these gentlemen had shown me much kindness. 
The former of them has the charge of the little 
chapel, and would take no fee from me in re- 
spect of it; I shall always feel grateful for their 
politeness and attention. On Wednesday, as I 
before said, after dinner, I left this place, and, 
proceeding through a varied and fertile country, 
got by supper-time to 

Ancona, fifteen miles. This is the principal 
town of the marches, in Latin, Piccenum. It 
has a large population, a considerable portion 
of whom are Greeks, Turks, and Sclavonians, 
for the place carries on a good trade. -The town 
is well built, and is flanked by two eminences, 
which run down into the sea. On one of these, 
by which we entered, there is a large fort, and 
on the other a church. The town is seated 
partly on the slopes of these two hills ; but the 
principal portion is in the valley between them, 
and along the sea-side. There is a good port 
here, where may still be seen a fine arch, erected 
in honour of the Emperor Trajan, his wife, and 
his sister. I was told that the passage over to 
Sclavonia is often performed in eight, ten, and 
twelve hours. I have no doubt 1 could have 
got a vessel here, which would have carried me 
to Venice for six crowns or a little more. I 
gave thirty-three derni-pistoles for the hire of 
eight horses to Lucca, about eight days' jour- 
ney, the vetturino to keep the horses, and if 
I was four or five days on the journey, beyond 
the eight specified, I was to have the horses for 
the same money, on paying for their keep and 
the attendance on them. The country abounds 
with excellent setters, which may be had for 
about six crowns each. There is an amazing 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



619 



number of quails caught here, but they are very 
poor. I remained till after dinner, on the 27th, 
to have a thorough examination of the beau- 
ties of the place. At St. Creaco, 1 the church 
which I mentioned as standing on the hill, 
there are more relics of note than in any church 
we ever saw. We learnt that the quails come 
over here in large flocks from Sclavonia, and 
that every night they are caught in nets on the 
sea-shore, by men who allure them in their 
flight by imitating the quail's notes. In Sep- 
tember, these birds return to Sclavonia. In the 
night, I heard the report of a cannon, as far off 
as from the Abruzzi, in the kingdom of Naples, 
and beyond that city. Every league along the 
coast there is a tower ; the first of these that 
discovers a corsair at sea, by firing a gun, gives 
a signal to the next tower, and so on, and in 
this way the alarm spreads with such rapidity 
that in one hour's time it reaches from the other 
end of Italy to Venice. Ancona takes its name 
from the Greek word (A'y^wv, elbow), from 
the form of the sharp bend of the sea in which 
it stands. There is a Greek church here. 
On an old stone, in the principal gate, I saw 
some characters, which I took to be Sclavonian. 
The generality of the women here are good- 
looking, and most of the men have the appear- 
ance of honest, industrious artisans. The sea 
here is much calmer than our ocean-tide. After 
dinner, we proceeded along the shore, which is 
cultivated almost down to the water's edge, and 
by bed-time reached 

Senigagla, twenty miles, a pretty little town, 
seated in a fair valley, quite at the sea-side. 
There is a very good port here, for the place 
is also washed by a river, which flows hither 
from the mountains. They have formed a large 
dock, surrounded with walls on every side, 
where vessels can ride in shelter, and the entry 
to which may be closed. I saw no remains of 
antiquity here. We put up at a good inn, 
the only one they have, which stands outside 
the town. The place was anciently called 
Senogallia, from some of our ancestors, who 
came and founded the place, after they had 
been beaten by Camillus; it is in the jurisdic- 
tion of the Duke of Urbino. In the last few 
days, I had not been very well. The day I left 
Rome, as M. d'Ossat was walking with me, I 
raised my hand to salute another gentleman, 
and did it so carelessly that I thrust my first 
finger into the corner of my right eye, and 
made it bleed ; it remained in a state of great 
inflammation for some time, and when the pain 
left that eye: erat tunc dolor ad ungue.m si- 
nistrem: "it went to the other." I forgot to 
mention that at Ancona, in the church of St. 
Creaco, there is a flat tombstone, in memory of 
one Antonia, Rocnmoro patre, matre Valelta, 
Galla, Aquilana, Paciocco Urbinati, Lusitano 



nupla, 2 who was buried there some ten or 
twelve years since. We leit this place at day- 
break, and, proceeding along a very agreeable 
road, crossed the river .Metro, Mtiaarus, by 
a large wooden bridge, and dined at 

Fano, fifteen miles, a small town on the 
sea-side, situated in a pleasant and fertile val- 
ley, but in itself ill-built and pent up. We got 
very good bread, fish, and wine here ; but the 
inn was a very poor affair. Fano has this 
advantage over Senigagla, Pesaro, and other 
places on this coast, that it has plenty of fresh 
water, there being a number of fountains, both 
public and private, whereas all the other towns 
have to fetch their fresh water from the moun- 
tains. We saw here an ancient arch, of con- 
siderable dimensions, on which there is an in- 
scription in the name of Augustus, qui muros 
dederat. The place itself was formerly called 
Fanum, Fanum Forlunx. Almost throughout 
I Italy, they boult the flour with wheels, by 
means of which the baker does more in one 
hour than ours do in four. Almost at all the 
inns you find a set of poets, who make off-hand 
rhymes, applicable to their auditors. 3 Every 
body here has a guitar, down to the stocking- 
mender at the corner of the street. There are 
no good-looking women here; they are all 
j excessively the reverse; indeed, an honest fel- 
low in the town, whom I questioned as to this 
point, told me he believed the age of pretty 
women was passed. You pay on this route 
twenty sous a day a man, and thirty a horse, 
every thing included ; together fifty sous. This 
town belongs to the Church. We did not go, 
though only a little further on, to Pesaro, a 
fine town, well worth a visit, to Remini, or to 
old Ravenna ; at Pesaro, especially, there is to 
be seen a fine edifice, oddly placed, which the 
Duke of Urbino, I was told, was erecting; 
these are all on the road to Venice, but we 
did not go to them. We left the searcoast at 
Faro, and, turning to the left, went on through 
a large plain, along which runs the Metaurus. 
On each side are to be seen, in the near dis- 
tance, some charming hills, and the whole 
appearance of the country reminded me of the 
j plain of Blaignac, at Castcllon. 4 In this plain, 
: on the other side of the river, was fought the 
! battle of (Livius) Salinator and Claudius Nero 
against Asdrubal, in which the latter was killed. 
; Just at the opening into the mountains, which 
rise at the end of this plain, is 
I Fossombruno, fifteen miles, belonging to the 
Duke of Urbino, a town built on the slope of 
; a hill, with one or two fine streets at the bot- 
tom, straight and well-built. The inhabitants, 
however, are not near so rich as those of Fano. 
In the middle of the square here, is a large 
marble pedestal, bearing an inscription of the 
time of Trajan, in honour of some private citizen 



• The cathedral ; the name 
the patron saint. 



corruption of St. Cyriaco, 
2 Antoinette, a Ilocamoro on the father's side, a Valetla 



on the side of her mother, a Frenchwoman and Gascon; 
man nil to I'aciocto of Urbino. a Portuguese by birtU. 

' In 1'erigord. 



620 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



of the town; and there is another standing 
against one of the houses, which has no inscrip- 
tion or mark denoting its period. This place 
was formerly called Forum Sempronii, but the 
inhabitants maintain that their ancient town 
stood further off in the plain, in a much finer 
situation; and they say that some of the ruins 
are still to be seen. There is a stone bridge 
here over the Metaurus, towards Rome, per 
Viam Flaminiam. As I arrived here early (for 
the miles are short, and our days' journeys do 
not exceed a quiet ride of seven or eight hours), 
I had plenty of time to converse with some 
honest fellows belonging to the place, who told 
me all they knew about the town and its en- 
virons. We went also to see a garden belonging 
to the Cardinal Urbino, where there are a 
number of vines grafted on other vines for the 
improvement of the stock. I had a long talk 
with a worthy bootmaker that lives here, named 
Vincentia Castellani. I left the place next 
morning, and, after riding three miles, turned 
off to the left, and, crossing by a bridge the Car- 
diana, a river which runs into the Metaurus, 
followed for another three miles a narrow and 
very disagreeable road through some wild and 
rugged hills, at the end of which rOad we came 
to a passage of full fifty paces long, cut through 
the thick of a high rock. This must have been 
an immense undertaking. It was begun by 
Augustus, who had an inscription placed here 
to that effect, which time has since effaced ; an 
inscription at the other end, in honour of Ves- 
pasian, who completed the work, still remains. 
In the vicinity are some stupendous works for 
raising and conveying water, for which purpose 
immense rocks have been cut through in all 
directions. All along this road, which leads to 
Rome, the Via Flaminia, are remains of the 
old pavement, which, however, for the most 
part, has sunk into the ground ; and the road 
itself, which formerly was forty feet wide, is 
now not more than four. I had come out of 
my way to see this place ; so, having satis- 
fied my curiosity, I retraced my steps, and re- 
sumed my route, which led me along the base 
of a range of easy and fertile hills. Towards 
the end of our stage, the road became more 
ascending, and when we reached 

Urbino, sixteen miles, an indifferent town, 
we found it stuck at the top of a tolerably high 
hill, the streets in all directions following the 
twistings and ins and outs of the ascent, so 
that you are continually going up and down 
hill, as you walk through the place. They 
were very busy with the market, for it was 
Saturday. We saw the palace, which is greatly 
famed for its beauty; it gave us, however, 
rather an idea of 'size than of any thing else, 
and indeed it is an enormous pile of buildings, 
extending nearly to the bottom of the hill. 
The view extends over a great distance, but is 
not any way remarkable. As the people here 
have not much to say in behalf of the beauty 
of the place, inside or out, — for the only garden 



is a strip of ground of some twenty-five paces, 
— they insist upon a wonderful story that there 
are as many rooms in the palace as there are 
days in the year ; and, indeed, there are a vast 
number, as is the case also at Tivoli and other 
Italian palaces. Looking through one door, 
you may see a vista of twenty more openings, 
all running in the same direction, one after 
another, and looking round to the right or left, 
you may see as many more through another 
door. Some portions of the building are old ; 
but the major portion of it was erected in 
1476, by Frederic Maria de la Rovera, who 
well nigh filled a whole cabinet with the 
documents connected with his various diplo- 
matic charges and warlike expeditions; with 
representations of which latter many of the 
walls also are covered. In one place there is 
an inscription setting forth that this is the finest 
mansion in the world. The house is of brick, 
and built throughout archwise, without any flat 
ceiling, as is the case with most of the houses 
in Italy. The present prince is Duke Fre- 
deric's great-nephew. They are a race of good 
princes, and are all beloved by their subjects. 1 
They have all had, from father to son, a taste 
for literature, and the palace possesses a fine 
library; but the key could not be found when 
I was there. Their tendencies are altogether 
j Spanish. The arms of Spain are everywhere 
prominent in their heraldic displays, together 
with the order of England and of the Fleece: 
the arms of France do not appear at all. They 
have a portrait of the first duke of Urbino, a 
young man, who was killed by his subjects for 
his tyranny; but he did not belong to this 
family. The present duke married the sister of 
the Duke of Ferrara, who is ten years older 
than he; they lived together for some time on 
very bad terms, and at last separated, merely 
on account, as I was told, of her jealous tem- 
per. Thus, besides her being forty-five years 
old, it does not seem very likely they will have 
any children, in which case the duchy will go 
to the Church, — a prospect which the people are 
by no means pleased with. I saw here an 
exact resemblance from the life, of Pico Miran- 
dola : a pale, handsome face, without a beard, 
and seemingly of about the age of seventeen or 
eighteen ; a long nose, soft eyes, thin face, and 
light hair, which falls over his shoulders. He 
is dressed in a strange sort of costume. They 
have, in many places in Italy, a way of making 
the stairs straight and flat, so that you can 
ascend them on horseback, and this is the 
fashion of the stairs here. The place, they say, 
is very cold in winter, and accordingly the duke 
only comes here in the summer months. To 
provide against the cold, in the corners of two 
of the chambers there are smaller rooms divided 
off, and enclosed on all sides, with only a win- 



i We must except from this praise the t"-o popes this 
family contributed, in the persons of Sixtus IV. and Julius 
II., his nephew, who were by no means popular. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



dow which receives light from the larger apart- 
ment, and in one of these cabinets is the duke's 
bed. After dinner, I went five miles out of 
my road to see a place that the people, from 
time immemorial, have called the sepulchre of 
Asdrubal, situated on a high, steep hill, named 
Monte Deci. There are four or five wretched 
little houses here, and a chapel; and, besides 
those, the tomb in question, a building con- 
structed of large bricks, about twenty -five 
paces round, and twenty -five feet high. All 
around it, aLevery three paces, there are seats 
with rails to kneel on. The building is 
strengthened with arched buttresses. You 
have to get into the place by a ladder, for 
there is no entry from below ; and when you 
are there, you see nothing but the roof and 
the bare walls. There is no inscription of any 
sort; the people of the place say there used to 
be a marble, with some characters on it, but 
that, within the last few years, it has been car- 
ried away. When or how this building obtained 
its name, I do not know, and I can hardly be- 
lieve it was ever applied to the purpose which 
that name imports: and yet, after all, it is very 
certain that Asdrubal was defeated and killed 
not far from the place. Upon leaving this spot, 
we went on along a rugged road, which became 
a mass of mud, after it had rained about an 
hour; and by-and-by re-crossed the Metaurus 
on horseback, for the river here is a shallow 
stream, that will not float a boat; and then 
getting into a tolerably good road, towards the 
evening, we reached 

Castel-Durante, fifteen miles, a small town, 
belonging to the Duke of Urbino, seated in a 
flat country, on the banks of the Metaurus. 
The people here were firing feux-rle-joie, and 
exhibiting other testimonies of rejoicing on the 
occasion of a son being born to the Princess de 
Besigna, their duke's sister. The velturino 
always takes off the saddles of the horses 
whenever he takes off" the bridles, and lets 
them drink as much as they like, without any 
reference to the state they are in. The wines 
here are not at all good. Sunday morning, we 
went on along a fertile plain, flanked with 
gentle hills, and passed through a pretty little 
town, called St. Angelo, belonging to the Duke 
of Urbino, seated on the banks of the Metaurus, 
and approached at either entrance by handsome 
avenues of trees. We found here some mid- 
lent frogs, for it was the eve of the 1st of May. 
Thence we went on along the same plain, and 
passed through another small town in the same 
jurisdiction, called Marcatello, and then, by a 
road which already began to give one a touch 
of Appenine ascents, we got at dinner-time to 

Borgo-a-Pasci, ten miles; a small village, 
with a miserable inn, at the edge of the moun- 
tains. After dinner, we went on foot along a 
wild, narrow, and stony road, and then up a 
high hill of two miles ascent; the road was 
rough and tiresome, but not dangerous or ap- 
palling, for the precipices which it overlooked 



were not so abrupt but that the eye had some- 
thing to rest upon. We accompanied the Me- 
taurus to its source, which is on this height; so 
that we had now watched this river from its 
end to its beginning, having seen it fall into 
the sea at Senigagla, and witnessed its rise 
here. On descending the mountain on the 
other side, there opened before us a wide and 
handsome plain, along which runs the Tiber, 
which is here only eight miles or thereabouts 
from its source, and beyond this plain rose other 
mountains. The scene altogether reminded me 
of La Limaigne, in Auvergne, as you descend 
from Puy de Dome to Clermont. Upon the 
height where we now were, terminates the 
jurisdiction of the Duke of Urbino; and we 
then entered the territories of the Duke of Flo- 
rence, the Pope's states lying on the left. We 
got by supper-time to 

Borgo San Sepolchro, thirteen miles ; a small 
town, belonging to the Duke of Florence, 
situated in the plain before mentioned, and pre- 
senting no feature worth noticing. We left it 
next morning, 1st of May. At a mile from the 
town we crossed, over a stone bridge, the river 
Tiber, the water of which here, and for many 
miles on, is fair and clear; a proof that the 
dirty, reddish colour, fiavum Tiberim, which 
it exhibits at Rome, is occasioned by the mix- 
ture of some other river before it reaches that 
city. We went along this plain for about four 
miles, and then ascended a hill, at the top of 
which we found a small town. Several girls, 
both here and at other places on the road, came 
up to us, and, taking hold of our horses' bridles, 
sang a sort of song, begging us to make them 
some present on that day of rejoicing. From 
this hill we descended into a low and rocky 
valley, where we had much difficulty in picking 
our way along a bad road, which followed the 
course of a mountain torrent; and then we had 
to mount a steep hill, three miles up, and as 
many in the descent, which brought us into 
another large plain, in traversing which we 
crossed the river Chiasso, over a stone bridge, 
and afterwards the river Arno, also over a 
stone bridge, a very large and fine one, on the 
other side of which we halted at 

Ponte Boriano, eighteen miles; a small and 
miserable inn, as most of those on this route 
are. It would be very absurd to bring any 
thing like good horses here; for there is not a 
bit of hay to be got. After dinner, we pro- 
ceeded through the plain, which is all cut up, 
as well as the road, with horrible holes and 
pools of water, so that in winter this part must 
be exceedingly dangerous; they are, however, 
mending the road a little. Soon after leaving 
Ponte Boriano, we passed, about two miles on 

j our left, the town of Arrezo, the situation of 
which is higher than that of the country 

I about it. Passing over the Ambra, on a hand- 

I some stone bridge, we reached, in the evening, 
Lavenelle, ten miles. The inn is about a 

I mile or so on this side the town, and is cele- 



622 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



brated as being the best in Tuscany, and very- 
likely it is so; for certainly it is the best we 
have met with in Italy. It is held in such 
high estimation that the nobility and gentry of 
the country often meet together here, as we do 
at Le More's at Paris, or Guillot's at Amiens. 
They serve up your dinner on pewter, which 
is a very rare article here. The house stands 
by itself, in a very agreeable situation, and has 
a spring of fresh water in the grounds belonging 
to it. We left this house in the morning, and 
went on, over the plain, by a very excellent 
straight road, passing on our way through four 
small towns, Mantenarea, S. Giovanni, Fligine, 
and Ancisa, and by dinner-time reached 

Pian della Fonte, twelve miles; an indif- 
ferent inn, situated a little beyond Ancisa. 
This latter town, which occupies an agreeable 
site in the Val d'Arno, is spoken of by Pe- 
trarch, who, it is said, was born here, 1 or at 
least, in a house a mile off, of which only a 
few ruins remain; the place, however, is pointed 
out. They were sowing an after-crop of me- 
lons amongst those already growing, which they 
expected would be ready in August. This 
morning I had a heaviness in the head, and a 
dizziness before my eyes, such as used to trouble 
me in my old head-aches, which I had not felt 
for ten years past. The valley through which 
we were passing was once a marsh, and Livy 2 
tells us that Hannibal was obliged to pass it on 
an elephant, and lost an eye here from the in- 
clemency of the weather. The place is still 
very low and damp, and subject to inundations 
from the Arno. I would not take any dinner 
here, and was sorry for it afterwards, as eating 
would have induced a vomit, which is my 
speediest cure ; otherwise I carry this heaviness 
of the head about with me for a day or two, 
as was the case on this occasion. The road 
was full of country people, carrying all sorts of 
provisions to Florence. We entered 

Florence, twelve miles, by one of the four 
stone bridges which traverse the Arno here. 
The next morning, after hearing mass, we 
left this place, and, turning a little to the 
right, went to see Castello, of which I have 
spoken elsewhere; but as the duke's daughters, 
who were staying here, were at this moment 
going through the garden to hear mass, we 
were requested to stay until they had re- 
turned, which I would not do. We met on 
the road a number of processions, marshalled in 
this order: first came the banner; then the 
women, most of whom were good-looking, with 
white sleeves, and excellent straw hats, which 
they make better here than anywhere else, and 
all well dressed for country-people; after these 
came the clergyman, and then the men. The 



Petrarch's father anil mother had some property at An- 
a; but lie himself, according to Heccatelli, was born at 



1 Anthony du Prat, Chancellor of France, and after- 



day before we saw a procession of monks, who 
all wore these straw hats. We proceeded 
through a broad and lovely valley; and, to 
say the truth, I was well nigh constrained to 
admit that neither Orleans nor Paris have their 
environs adorned with so great a number of 
houses and villages, and to so great a distance, 
as is Florence : as to fine houses and palaces, 
there is no doubt about the matter for a mo- 
ment. By dinner-time we found ourselves at 

Prato, ten miles, a small town, belonging to 
the Duke of Florence, situated on the river 
Bisanzo, which we crossed over a stone bridge 
at the entrance of the town. There is no coun- 
try where the roads and bridges are so numerous 
or so well kept up; every here and there, on 
your way, you see a stone pillar, with an in- 
scription, setting forth what roads are to be 
kept in repair by such and such a state and 
district, and intimating that such state is held 
responsible to the community for maintaining 
such roads in the requisite order. In the town- 
hall here we observed the arms and name of 
the Legate du Prat, 3 who, they say, came from 
this place. Over the entrance to this town-hal) 
there is the statue, larger than life, of a man, 
crowned, holding a representation of the world 
in his hand, and with this inscription at his 
feet : Rex Robertas* They say that this town 
formerly belonged to us : there are the jleurs- 
de-lys to be seen every where, and the arms of 
the town are gueules, seme de fleurs-de-lys d'or. 
The principal church is a fine one, enriched 
with an abundance of white and black marble. 
Leaving this place, we made another detour of 
full four miles, for the purpose of seeing Poggio, 
a house which is talked a great deal about, 
belonging to the duke, and situated on the 
river Unjbrona. The form of the building is a 
model of Pratolino. 'Tis wonderful how, in so 
comparatively small a space, they have ma- 
naged to contrive a hundred good-sized rooms. 
I saw here, among other things, a quantity of 
bed-curtains, of a very fine stuff, though of no 
intrinsic value, being but fine wool, worked 
with four-thread taffeta. We saw the duke's 
laboratory, and his turning-room, and other 
work-rooms; for he is a great mechanician. 
Thence, by a very straight road, running 
through an extremely fertile country, with a 
hedge on each side of the way, formed of vines 
trained upon trees, a very picturesque object in 
itself, we got by supper-time to 

Pistoia, fourteen miles; a large town situated 
on the river Umbrona, with wide streets, paved 
in the same manner as Florence, Prato, Lucca, 
and other towns/ with broad, flat stones. I 
forgot to say that you can see Florence, Prato, 
and Pistoia, from the dining-rooms at Poggio, 



wards Archbishop of Sens, Cardinal, and Legate a Latere 
in France. 

4 It is by no means clear who this King Robert can he. 
Robert the Devout, King of France, son of Hugucs Capet, 
was never in France, as far as we know. Perhaps it was 
his son Robert, third of tho first royal branch of the Dukes 
of Burgundy. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



as you sit at table ; when we were there, the 
duke was at Pratolino. Pistoia is but thinly 
populated. There are a great number of fine 
churches and houses. I enquired here as to 
the price of the straw hats, and found they 
were fifteen sous apiece; it seemed to me that 
in France they would be worth as many francs. 
It was in the territory of Pistoia, and not far 
from the town, that Catiline was defeated and 
killed. At Poggio they have pictures in 
tapestry, of every description of hunting; and, 
among others, I saw one representing an 
ostrich-hunt, in which the game is pursued by 
men on horseback, who pierce it with javelins. 
The Latins called Pistoia, Pistorium; 1 it be- 
longs to the Duke of Florence. They say that 
it was the ancient feuds of the houses of Can- 
cellieri and Pansadissi, that, some tune back, 
depopulated the town to that extent, that it 
now contains but eight thousand souls altoge- 
ther; whereas Lucca, which is only the same 
size, has more than twenty-five thousand inha- 
bitants. Messer Tadeo Rospiglioni, 2 who had 
received a letter, from Rome, recommending 
me to his favour, from Giovanni Franchini, 
asked me to dinner the day after my arrival, 
together with all the gentlemen in my com- 
pany. The decorations of the palace were very 
splendid, but the dinner was served up after a 
somewhat strange fashion ; there were very few 
servants in attendance; the wine was placed 
on the table after dinner, as it is in Germany. 
We went to see the churches; in the principal 
church they have a flourish of trumpets when 
the host is elevated. Among the choristers 
there were several priests, who played on sack- 
buts. This poor town fancies that it indemni- 
fies itself for its lost liberty by this vain image 
of its ancient form ; they have nine magis- 
trates, with a gonfalonier, who is elected every 
two months; but these authorities, who have 
charge of the town, are maintained by the 
duke, as they used to be in former times by the 
inhabitants, and live at the palace,. where they 
are, as it were, prisoners, seldom leaving it 
unless they go out altogether. The gonfalo- 
nier, in processions, takes precedence of the 
podesla, who is named by the duke, but the 
podesta has all the real power ; the gonfalo- 
nier, however, assumes quite the air of a petty 
sovereign, and returns no person's salutation. 
'Twas a melancholy sight to see them taking 
this miserable pretence for current coin, though 
the grand duke all the while makes them con- 
tribute a ten times larger subsidy than they 
used to be called upon for, in the old time. 
Most of the principal walks in the large Italian 
gardens, are covered with grass, which is kept 
regularly mown. The cherries were beginning 
to ripen at this time, and on the way from 
Pistoia to Lucca, the country people accosted 

i And also Pistoria. 

a The name is ttospigliosi. Pope Clement IX. was of 
tlii« family. 
3 Lucca. 



us, and offered bunches of strawberries for sale. 
We left Pistoia on Thursday, Ascension-day, 
after dinner, and proceeded for some time along 
the same valley I have already spofien of, and 
then we came to an ascent, which, after some 
time, brought us to another broad and pictu- 
resque plain. Amid the corn-fields, there are 
ranges of trees, along which the vines are 
trained in rich profusion, giving the fields the 
appearance of a wide-spread garden. The 
mountains on this route are covered with trees, 
principally olive, chesnut, and mulberry, which 
latter are of great importance for feeding the 
silk- worms. In this plain you come to 

Lucques, 3 twenty miles, a town one-third 
smaller than Bordeaux, and a free-town, except 
that its weakness has compelled it to place 
itself under the protection of the emperor and 
the house of Austria. It is well walled, but 
the fosse is shallow, with but little water in it, 
and the bottom is covered with broad flat grass. 
All round the walls, on the platform inside, are 
two or three rows of trees, which serve for 
shade in summer, while their cuttings are given 
out as fire-wood to the poorer inhabitants. 
From the outside, these ranges of trees have 
the appearance of a forest, which conceals the 
houses of the town. They have a garrison 
here, constantly kept up, of three hundred 
foreign soldiers. The town is thickly popu- 
lated, and a great portion of its inhabitants are 
occupied in the silk manufacture; the streets, 
though narrow, are handsome, and in every 
direction you see fine large houses. They are 
constructing a canal through the town, which 
will be supplied from the river Cerchio; and 
they are also engaged in the erection of a pa- 
lace, now a good way advanced, which is to 
cost thirty thousand crowns. Besides the popu- 
lation of the town, they state that they have 
120,000 subjects, but they have no other town 
under their dominion, and only two or three 
small castles. All the people here, including 
the gentry and the military, are more or less 
engaged in traffic. The Buonvisi are reputed 
the richest among the citizens. Strangers are 
only allowed to enter at one gate, where a 
strong guard is always posted. The town is 
one of the most pleasantly situated that I ever 
saw ; it is surrounded by a lovely plain of two 
leagues in extent, and this again is environed 
by a circle of picturesque hills, which are for 
the most part cultivated to the summits. The 
wines are but indifferent. The expense of living 
is about twenty sous a day; the inns, as else- 
where throughout the country, are poor places. 
I received many civilities from several indivi- 
duals, with presents of wine and fruit, and 
oilers of money. I stayed here Friday and 
Saturday, and left the place on Sunday after 
dinner, of which, however, I did not partake, 
I as T was fasting. The hills next the town are 
I covered with handsome houses. Our road, for 
the most part, lay along a valley, between 
I thickly-wooded hills, with the river Cerchio 



624 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



on our right. We passed several villages, and 
two large towns, Reci and Borgo, and crossed 
the Cerchio over a bridge of unusual height, 
which throws itself over the wide stream by one 
sing'e arch; we saw several of these bridges 
in other places. At two o'clock in the after- 
noon, we reached 

Bein ' della Villa, sixteen miles. The country 
here is quite mountainous. In front of the 
Bath, along the river, there is a small plain, of 
' about three or four hundred paces in extent, 
and the Bath stands above this, on the side of 
a hill, very much in the situation of the spring 
at Banieres. The Bath stands on a level 
spot, and consists of between thirty and forty 
houses, extremely well adapted to the purpose. 
The rooms are pleasant and private, so that 
any visitors that so choose may be quite to 
themselves. Each set of apartments has a 
water-closet, and a public and private entrance. 
I looked at nearly all of them, before I agreed 
upon one, and chose the best there was to be 
had, particularly with reference to the prospect, 
which (at least, from the chamber that I se- 
lected) embraces the valley below, with the 
river La Lima, and the mountains around, 
which are all cultivated and planted to the 
very tops; the trees principally grown are 
chesnut and olive. Each gradation of every 
hill is surrounded, on the outer edge, with a 
circle of vines, within which you see another 
circle, or corn-field ; and the slope above this 
is covered with trees, till you come to another 
I girdle of vines. From my chamber, I could 
hear all night the gentle murmur of the river 
below. Adjoining the houses, there is a terrace 
for the visitors to promenade upon, whence 
they have a good view of the valley, and 
river, two hundred paces down which you 
see a pretty little village, which affords ad- 
ditional accommodation for invalids, when 
the Bath itself is full. Most of the houses 
are newly built, and there is an excellent road 
to it. In the winter time, a great portion of 
the residents at the Bath retire to this village, 
as being a more sheltered and warmer place, 
and all round the year, keep up shops there, 
which are principally apothecaries' shops. 
My landlord is called Captain Paulini, a 
real captain in the army. He let me a 
sitting-room, three bed-chambers, a kitchen, 
and offices for the servants, with eight beds, 
two of which had curtains; and agreed to 
supply us with salt, clean napkins every day, 
a clean cloth every third day, cooking imple- 
ments, and candlesticks, for eleven crowns a 
fortnight, a few sous more than ten pistolets. 2 
Dishes, plates,- which are here of earthenware, 
glasses, knives, and so on, we had to buy. 
There is plenty of veal and kid-venison to be 
had here, hut scarcely any other description of 
meat. In every house, they offer to market for 
you ; and I believe you could manage to board 



very well at twenty sous a day each ; and you 
can always find, in every lodging, a person 
that can cook every thing you require for 
table. The wine is by no means good ; but 
those who are particular about the matter can 
easily procure it, either from Pescia or from 
Lucca. I was the first arrival at the Bath, 
except two Bolognese gentlemen, who had no 
great train, so that I had the whole place to 
choose in, and, as I was told, got my lodgings 
cheaper than I should, if the company had 
arrived, who, it appears, come in crowds; but 
the season does not commence till June, lasting 
till September : by October none of the invalid 
visitors are left; but there are pleasure parties, 
who come either earlier in the year, — there 
were several leaving it when I arrived, who 
had been staying a month, — or in October, 
though the number in the latter month is 
limited. One of the houses here, called the Pa- 
lace, belonging to the Buonvisi family, is much 
handsomer than any of the rest, and is, indeed, 
a very magnificent mansion. There is a fine 
fountain in the hall, and a variety of other 
useful and ornamental features. I had an offer 
of this house, either the whole of it or a suite 
of four rooms, whichever I preferred ; the four 
rooms they would have let me furnished, in 
excellent style, for twenty crowns a fortnight, 
currency of that country, but I would only 
give a crown a day, on account of its not being 
the season, a circumstance which makes a vast, 
difference in the value of these places. My 
landlord is not obliged to keep to his bargain 
after May: if I stay beyond that month, we 
are to come to a fresh agreement. The waters 
here are both drunk and taken as a bath. The 
bath-room is a covered place, vaulted and some- 
what dark, about half the size of my drawing- 
room at Montaigne. They have a machine 
here, called a doccia, 3 by which they direct 
showers of water against the particular part of 
the person that is affected, more especially the 
head, through small jets, which continually 
discharge themselves upon the part, and warm 
it, and the water then falls into a wooden 
trough, something like that used by washer- 
women, which carries it off. There is another 
bath-room, also vaulted and dark, appropriated 
to the female visitors; both of which are sup- 
plied from a spring, very pleasantly situated 
in a nook, where you have to descend several 
steps when you drink the water. 

On Monday morning, the 8th of May, I 
took, with very great reluctance, a dose of 
cassia, which my host brought me, though 
not with the grace of my apothecary at Rome. 
I sat down to dinner two hours after, but could 
not get on with it at all: for, as soon as 
I had eaten a little, the physic made me sick, 
and I threw up all I had taken, and I was sick 
again afterwards. I had, besides, three or four 
stools, with very great pain in the stomach, in 



Bagno, bath. 



■■ About forty-two shillings. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



625 



consequence of the wind, caused by the physic, 
and which tormented me for twenty- four 
hours, so I made up my mind I would swal- 
low no more of that stuff. I had rather have 
a fit of the cholic than have my stomach thus 
disturbed, and iny whole system deranged, 
with this confounded cassia. Before I took 
this-stuff, I was very well; so much so that, on 
the Sunday, after supper, the only meal I had 
taken that day, I enjoyed very much an excur- 
sion we took to see the Eath of Corsena, a good 
half mile thence, on the other side of the hill, 
at about the same elevation as the Bagno della 
Villa. The former Bath is in much greater 
repute for bathing and the doccia, for our bath 
is not generally recommended, either by the phy- 
sicians or by custom, for anything but drinking; 
and they say, too, that the Corsena Bath is 
much more anciently known. Indeed, they 
date it back to the time of the Romans; but 
certainly there is no trace of antiquity at either 
the one Bath or the other. At Corsena, there 
are three or four large vaulted bath-rooms, 
with an aperture in the centre of the roof for 
the admission of air; but they are all dark and 
disagreeable. There is another hot spring at 
about two or three hundred paces from this 
Bath, a little higher up the mountain, called 
Saint John; 1 here they have a small bath-room, 
also covered, but there is no house on the spot, 
but only a place with room enough for a camp- 
bedstead, where you can lie down for an hour 
or two in the day-time. The waters at Corsena 
are never drunk, but they diversify their exter- 
nal application in every imaginable way : one 
operation simply refreshes the system, another 
warms the blood ; one way cures one malady, 
another another, and they relate a thousand 
miracles on the subject ; the short of which is 
that there is no malady, on the face of the 
earth, which may not find its remedy here. 
They have a good inn, with about twenty 
other houses of a poor class. There is no 
comparison between this place and Della Villa; 
in point of convenience, or in the beauty of 
the prospect, although the river runs by Cor- 
sena as well as by Delia Villa, and they have 
a valley spread out before them of a much 
larger extent than ours; yet Corsena is by 
far the dearest place. Many people frequent 
both Baths, drinking at the one, and then 
taking a course of bathing at the other. 
Corsena, however, is, upon the whole, most 
in vogue. 

Thursday, 9th of May, 1581, early in the 
morning, before sunrise, I went to drink the 
waters at the spring. I took seven glasses, 
one after the other, altogether about three 
pounds and a half, for they reckon by weight 
here. The seven glasses might, perhaps, hold 
about as much as twelve of ours. The water 
is of a medium temperature, like that of Aigues- 
Caudes, or Barbotan, with less taste than any 



San Giovanni. 

53 



water I ever drank. I could perceive nothing 
about it but extreme insipidity, and a sweetish 
savour. That day it had no operation ; and, 
though it was five hours before I took any 
dinner, I did not discharge a single drop of it 
all that time. Some of them said I had taken 
too little; for here it is a frequent thing to 
drink a flask containing sixteen or seventeen 
glasses, about eight pounds. My own notion 
is that, finding my stomach so empty, in con- 
sequence of the cassia, the water resolved itself 
into aliment. This same day, I had a visit from 
a Bolognese gentleman, a colonel commanding 
a body of twelve hundred foot, in the service of 
the State. This gentleman, who himself was 
residing at a place four miles off, stopped with 
me two hours, and offered me his best services. 
On leaving, he ordered my landlord and other 
people in the place, to show me the utmost at- 
tention in their power. It is part of the 
plan of government, here, to employ foreign 
officers for the higher grades; the troops are 
distributed throughout the towns and villages, 
in numbers proportioned to the size of the 
respective places, and there is a colonel ap- 
pointed for each district, which districts vary 
very much in extent. These colonels receive 
regular pay ; but the inferior officers, who are 
chosen from among the inhabitants of each 
place, are only paid in time of war, when they 
are called upon to take their respective com- 
mands. My colonel had sixteen crowns a month, 
and had nothing to do except keeping himself 
ready for service. They observe a stricter 
regimen here than they do at our baths, 
and pay particular attention to fasting before 
they drink. I was more comfortably lodged 
here than I had been at any other bath, not 
even excepting Banieres. The situation of the 
place, too, is far more picturesque than any of 
the others, except that of Banieres. The ac- 
commodations for bathing, and the lodging- 
houses at Baden, are, no doubt, far more elegant 
and commodious than is the case here; but the 
prospects at Della Villa are infinitely prettier 
than those at Baden. As I before said, the 
water I drank on Tuesday had no sort of opera- 
tion; for, though I had a stool immediately 
after taking it, I attributed this to the medicine 
of the preceding day, there being no sign of 
the water in it: so, on Wednesday morning, 
when I again took the waters, I drank seven 
pound glasses, which was at least twice as much 
as I had taken the day before, and, I believe, 
much more than I had ever before drunk at 
once. This dose gave me a great inclination 
to perspire, which I resisted, having been often 
told that this was not what I needed. All that 
day I kept in my room, sometimes walking 
about, sometimes sitting still. The water was 
principally voided in the shape of several thin, 
loose stools, which came from me without the 
slightest effort. I am convinced that I did 
wrong to take the cassia, for the operation of 
the water afterwards, followed the course which 
2p 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



the physic had, as it were, opened for and 
pointed out to it, whereas my object was to 
ease and benefit the bladder; and I am deter- 
mined, the first bath I take, simply to prepare 
for it by dieting myself the day before. I take 
these waters to be of very mild operation, and 
therefore very safe and good for persons of a 
delicate turn. They are much praised for 
strengthening the liver, and for removing erup- 
tions and blotches on the skin; which I note 
as a useful memorandum for an amiable lady, 
a friend of mine, in Prance. The water of St. 
John's Bath is much used in the preparation of 
pomade, it being very oily. There are large 
quantities of it conveyed in barrels, on the backs 
of asses and mules, for the use of people in 
Reggio, Lombardy, and elsewhere. Some of 
the patients drink it in bed ; but, wherever it 
is taken, the rule is to keep your stomach and 
feet warm, and to remain quiet for some time 
after. The people in the neighbourhood 
have it brought to their houses, perhaps 
three or four miles off. To show that this 
water is not very aperient, I need only mention 
that it is the custom here to take previously a 
glass of the water of a bath near Pistoia, the 
taste of which is very sharp, and which is 
very hot at the spring; this is dispensed by 
the apothecaries here, for the express purpose 
of helping the Delia Villa waters. The second 
day, I voided coloured water, and a quantity of 
gravel ; but this I ascribed, in great measure, 
to the cassia, which produced the same effect 
the day I took it. I was told a curious thing : 
a native of the place, named Giuseppe, once c 
soldier, but now a galley-slave at Genoa, seve 
ral of whose relations I saw here, being some' 
time since at sea, in time of war, was taken 
prisoner by the Turks. In order to be set 
free, he turned Turk (a thing which has been 
done by a good many of the people from these 
mountains, when similarly circumstanced), was 
circumcised, and got married. Having entered 
the enemy's service, and taking part in an ex- 
pedition to pillage this coast, he landed; and 
getting too far up the country, was taken pri- 
soner, with several other Turks, by the inhabit- 
ants, who had rushed to arms. It at once 
occurred to him to say that he was a Christian 
and that he had come there for the purpose of 
getting out of the power of the enemy, and he 
was accordingly set at liberty a few days after 
and, returning to his native place, proceeded to 
his mother's house, which stands just opposite 
to where I lodge. He entered without cere- 
mony, and saw his mother, who sharply asked 
him who he was, and what he wanted ; for he 
still had his sailor's dress on, a somewhat un- 
usual garb in that part of the country. He 
had been absent and deemed lost, for ten or 
twelve years, so that he was not readily recog- 
nized; but when he made himself known, and 
advanced to embrace his mother, she uttered a 
terrible shriek, and fell breathless and senseless 
on the floor ; nor was it till the next day that 



the physicians succeeded in restoring her to 
animation. She recovered, however, but only 
for a short time, for she died in a few weeks ; 
and every person was of opinion that the shock 
had materially abridged her life. Our friend 
Giuseppe was joyfully received by his former 
companions, and, publicly abjuring the faith 
he had adopted, received the sacrament from 
the hands of the Bishop of Lucca, and several 
other imposing ceremonies were -gone through; 
but it was all deception on his part. His heart 
was with the Turks; and, in order to return 
among them, he slipped away from Delia Villa 
and got to Venice, whence he easily managed 
to find his way back to Barbary, and joined 
a fresh expedition, which was then on the point 
of starting. He fell into the hands of the 
Genoese, who, finding him to be a man of 
unusual strength, and of great experience as a 
sailor, kept him in their service, taking the 
precaution tp have him constantly well fettered 
and bound. The seigneury have a large force of 
militia, consisting of the male inhabitants of the 
country places, whose names and abodes are all 
carefully registered, so that they may be called 
upon when required. The sole business of the 
colonels, in time of peace, is to exercise these 
militia-men, and to render them conversant 
with the various military manoeuvres. The 
men receive no pay, but they are privileged to 
wear what arms and armour they please ; they 
are exempt from arrest for debt, and in time of 
war they receive pay. The captains, ensigns, 
Serjeants, and so on, are all selected from the 
natives of each place; it is only the colonel 
that must be a foreigner, and stipendiary. Co- 
lonel del Borgo, the gentleman who came to 
visit me, sent, the next day, a man with a pre- 
sent to me of sixteen lemons and sixteen arti- 
chokes, from the garden of his house, which 
lies four miles from the Bath. The mildness of 
the water here is further shown in the circum- 
stance that it readily turns into aliment ; it soon 
becomes coloured, and does not occasion that 
constant, uneasy desire to urine, which I have 
experienced elsewhere, but not here, and 
others have made the same remark to me. As 
I said before, I was exceedingly well lodged 
here, well nigh as well as at Rome, and yet 
there was neither chimney nor glass window in 
my room. This shows that the weather in Italy 
is much more equable than among us, for we 
should consider the merely having wooden 
shutters, without glass windows, as an insup- 
portable disadvantage, yet this is the case here 
almost universally. Besides this, 1 slept very 
well. The bedsteads, indeed, are miserable 
little tressels, crossed breadthways with wooden 
laths: but putting a palliasse on this, and a 
mattress upon the palliasse, you can manage 
exceedingly well, if you have got a curtain. 
They have three plans for hiding the frame of* 
the bed; first, by valances, the same as the 
curtain, like what I had at Rome; secondly, 
by having the curtains made so long as to reach 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



627 



to the ground, and completely cover in the 
whole bed, which is the best plan; thirdly, by 
a coverlid, which reaches to the ground, and is 
fastened at each corner with buttons. This 
coverlid is made of some light material, such as 
white fustian, and there is another coverlid 
beneath it for warmth. At all events I have 
got, from seeing these beds, an idea that will 
effect some saving of expense and trouble for 
my own house, and for the poor people about 
me, for these beds are cheap and comfortable, 
and the vermin do not get into them. This 
same day I took a bath after dinner, contrary 
to the rules of the people here, who say that 
the one operation impedes the other, and who 
accordingly go upon the plan of taking the 
waters internally for so many days, and then 
externally for so many days, without mixing 
the operation. The general rule is to drink the 
waters eight days, and to bathe for thirty, 
drinking here, and bathing at the other place. 
The bath is very mild and pleasant; I was in 
it for half an hour, but scarcely perspired at 
all ; it was about supper-time. As soon as I 
left the bath, I went to bed, and supped upon 
sugared lemon slalad, without taking anything 
to drink; the whole of that day I had not 
drunk a pound of water, and I believe that by 
the next morning I had barely voided that 
quantity. I was rather alarmed at finding that 
the water did not pass more freely, yet my 
breath seemed tolerably good, and my spirits 
were light, as at the other baths. It was much 
the same with me elsewhere, but here they deem 
it almost a fatal presage, and if you do not void 
at least two-thirds of the water you have taken 
the very first day, they forthwith advise you to 
leave off drinking, or, at all events, to take 
medicine at the same time. My opinion about 
these waters is that they neither do much harm 
nor much good; except, indeed, that I doubt 
whether, if they produce any effect at all, they 
do not heat the parts more than they clear 
them ; I strongly suspect that I require much 
warmer and more aperitive waters. Thursday 
morning, I drank five pounds, apprehensive that 
the dose might again fail me, and that I should 
not pass the water properly. They occasioned 
a stool, had but very slight operation in the other 
respect. This morning, as I was writing to 
M. d'Ossat, 1 my thoughts reverted to M. de la 
Boetie, and the recollection threw me into such 
a fit of desponding melancholy, that it was some 
time before I recovered my serenity, and the 
depression of my mind made me feel quite ill. 
The bed of the spring whence the water is 
taken is red, and covered with rust, which, 



Afterwards Cardinal d'Ossat. 



coupled with its insipidity, gave me an idea 
that there is a great deal of iron in it, and that 
it is binding. I did not dine this Thursday till 
five hours after I had taken my dose, yet all j 

that day I did not void the fifth part of what / 
I had drunk. There's but poor reliance upon 
these physicians and their remedies! I said 
just now, that I was sorry I had purged 
myself so much, for that I conceived that the 
water, finding me empty, stopped to serve as 
aliment, instead of passing on. I have just 
seen a book that has been printed on the sub- 
ject of these waters, by a Doctor Donati, who 
practises here, and who advises the patients to 
make but a light dinner, and to eat the more 
at supper; and the experience I have had, in 
drinking these waters, makes me think he 
is right, and that I, too, was right in regret- 
ting I had taken the waters on an empty sto- 
mach. The other physician, Doctor Franciotti, 
is of the contrary opinion, both on this and on 
several other points. Towards the close of the 
day, I felt a heaviness in the bladder, which I v 
feared was occasioned by the water collecting 
there; yet, reckoning all I had voided in the 
twenty-four hours, I found it came very near 
what I had drunk, including the little I took 
with my meals. Friday morning, instead of 
drinking, I took a bath, and bathed my head 
also, contrary to the practice of the place. 
It is the custom here to assist the operation 
of the waters by some drug, sugar -candy, 
manna, or even stronger auxiliaries, and they 
also generally mix with the first glass you drink 
of their water, some aqua del Testuccio, which 
I tasted separately, and found it saltish. I 
have, however, some suspicion that the apo- 
thecaries, instead of sending for this water 
from Pistoia, fabricate it at home with some 
infusion or other in river water; for, besides 
the saltness, there is a taste about it that 
I did not at all understand, and had never 
before met with. This water is heated, and 
some people take as many as two or three 
glasses to begin with, but I have never noticed 
any particular effect that it produced. Others 
put salt into the first few glasses. They have 
a notion that to perspire, or go to sleep, after 
taking the water, is a most alarming symptom, 
but, I sometimes found the water had a great 
tendency to produce perspiration. 

Let me try 2 my hand at the other language, 
more especially now that I am in that part of 
the country where, as it appears to me, they 
speak the purest Tuscan, particularly those of 
the inhabitants who have not corrupted their 
tongue with the admixture of the surrounding 



hie; and, fortunately 
if letters, M. liartoli. 
i. and who had insi 
the Academic Regale 
■■■ri.it iu be in Pans 
■ was limiting, and 
taliari portion, atask 
h i~ from his cdi- 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



patois. Saturday, very early in the morning, I 
went to drink the waters at St. Barnaby, one 
of the springs which this mountain produces, 
and what an amazing quantity of water, hot 
and cold, it discharges ! The mountain itself 
is of no great height, and may have a 
circuit of three miles. The only waters, that 
are ordinarily drunk from it, are those of 
one principal spring, and of the other I men- 
tioned, which has only been in vogue a few 
years. A leper, of the name of Barnaby, having 
tried all the other baths in vain, came here, 
and was cured, and hence its name, and what 
reputation it has. There are no houses here, 
but only a small covered room, and stone seats 
round the fountain, which, though formed of 
iron, and placed there very recently, is already 
much eaten with rust, which shows the power 
of the mineral in the water. The water is 
hotter than that at Delia Villa, and, according 
to the general opinion, heavier and more violent 
in its operation; it smacks of sulphur, but 
only slightly. The bed of the spring is tinged 
with a colour like ashes, as ours is, but not so 
marked ; the distance from Delia Villa is about 
a mile, and it stands much lower down the hill 
than any other of the hot springs. The distance 
from the river is about two or three pikes' 
length. I drank five pounds with some diffi- 
culty and distaste, for I did not feel at all well. 
The day before, I had taken a walk of about 
three miles, after dinner, in the sun, and per- 
haps in consequence of this I the better felt the 
effects of the water. It began to digest about 
half an hour after I had taken it. On leaving 
the place and returning home, I made a detour 
of about two miles, and I don't know whether 
the unusual exercise did me any great good ; all 
the other mornings I had returned immediately 
to my chamber, to avoid the cold morning air,- 
for the houses are not thirty paces from the 
spring. On this occasion, the first water I 
voided was liquid, with a good deal of gravel ; 
then came some that was colourless and imma- 
ture, and I was sadly plagued with the wind. 
When I had passed about three pounds, the 
urine began to assume a reddish hue. Before 
dinner I had passed more than half what I had 
taken. In my walks about the mountain, I 
saw several hot springs, and the country people 
say that, in winter, you can perceive distant 
exhalations from other parts of the hill, which 
shows that there are a vast number of these 
springs about it. What I tasted of these other 
waters was hot, insipid, and without smell or 
smoke, as compared with ours. At Corsena, 
besides the principal bath, I saw a place lying 
lower down the hill, where the water is col- 
lected from different springs into little channels, 
where it is much easier got at. They told me 
that these reservoirs were supplied from eight 
or ten springs. Each of these has a name in- 
scribed upon it, in reference to its supposed 
effect : one is the Savoury, another the Sweet, 
another the Amorous, a fourth the Crowned, a 



fifth the Despairing One, and so on. Some of 
these canals are hotter than others. 

The mountains in the neighbourhood where, 
fifty years ago, nothing but chesnut and other 
forest trees grew, are now covered with rich 
corn-fields and vine-yards. There are visible 
from this place several mountains, bare, uncul- 
tivated, and capped with snow, but these are a 
long way off. The people eat pane di legno, 1 
by which name they popularly designate the 
chesnut, an article which with them is of the 
very first importance to life, and which they 
make into a cake, something like our ginger- 
bread. I never saw so many snakes and toads 
as there are here. The children very often are 
even afraid, on account of the snakes, to go and 
pick the strawberries that grow in quantities on 
the mountain and among the bushes. Ma'ny of 
those who drink the waters take, in every glass, 
three or four grains of coriander seed, as a 
remedy against wind. Easter Monday, 14th 
May, I drank five pounds and more of the 
water of Barnaby, for my glass holds rather 
more than a pound. I immediately voided a 
quantity of gravel, and, within two hours, had 
passed more than two-thirds of the water I had 
taken. It kept the stomach free, and passed 
without any difficulty. The Italian pound con- 
tains only eleven ounces. 

You live here very cheap. Veal, very good 
and tender, costs about three French sous a 
pound. There are plenty of trouts, but they 
are small. There are several excellent parasol- 
makers here, an article that every body carries. 
The whole country is very hilly, and the roads 
in general very uneven ; but, in other respects, 
they are pleasant enough ; and all those on the 
mountain itself have a paved way. After din- 
ner to-day, I gave a dance to the country girls, 
and danced with them myself, in order not to 
appear airish. In some parts of Italy, such as 
Tuscany and the duchy of Urbino, the women 
courtesy in the French fashion, by bending the 
knees. At the spring nearest the village there 
is a low square marble pillar, which was placed 
there exactly a hundred and ten years ago, on 
the 1st May, whereupon is an inscription set- 
ting forth the various properties of these waters. 
I do not give the inscription, as it may be found 
in several books, wherein mention is made of 
the baths of Lucca. At all the bathing places 
there are sand-glasses for the use of the visitors; 
and I had, besides, two of them on my table, 
which the host had lent me. In the evening, 
I took only three slices of toast, buttered and 
sugared, without any thing to drink. On 
Monday, thinking that by this time the Bar- 
naby water had sufficiently cleared the passage, 
I resumed the ordinary waters, of which I drank 
five pounds; but on this occasion it did not 
make me perspire, as it usually did. The first 
time I passed water, I voided with it some 
gravel, which had every appearance of being 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



fragments of stone. This water seemed to me 
almost cold, in comparison with that of Bar- 
naby, although the latter itself is but of a 
moderate heat, very far from the heat of the 
waters of Plombieres and Bagnieres. The two 
together had a very good effect, and I was ex- 
cessively delighted that I had paid no attention 
to the directions of those physicians who say 
you are to leave off drinking the waters, if they 
do not succeed the very first day. On Tuesday, 
16th May, in compliance with the custom here, 
a custom which hits my taste very well, I took 
a bath, instead of drinking, and remained in the 
water a full hour, placing myself close under 
the source, for elsewhere the water seemed to 
me cold. Afterwards, as I experienced a great 
deal of annoyance from wind, which I con- 
sidered was owing to the waters, I left oft" 
drinking them. I felt so comfortable in the 
bath, that I could willingly have gone to sleep 
there. It did not make me perspire, but it 
opened the pores thoroughly; and when I got 
out, I had myself well rubbed, and went to 
bed, where I stayed some time. 

Every month, in each parish, they have a 
review of the soldiery. My friend the colonel, 
from whom I had continued to receive infinite 
civilities, at this time reviewed those of the 
parish in which we now were. There were 
about two hundred pikemen and harquebussiers, 
who, being arranged in parties, manoeuvred 
against one another, and, for rustics, seemed to 
understand their evolutions very tolerably ; the 
colonel's principal business, however, is to keep 
them in good order, and to teach them military 
discipline. The people here are divided into 
two parties, French and Spanish, and this divi- 
sion often produces serious quarrels, which some- 
times break out publicly. The men and women 
who are of our party wear bunches of flowers in 
their caps or hair, over the right ear ; while the 
Spanish party wear similar bunches of ilowers 
over the left ear The country people here all 
dress like gentlefolks. There is not a woman 
among thern that does not wear white shoes, 
fine thread stockings, and a coloured silk 
apron ! They are very fond of dancing, and 
cut their capers and turn their pirouettes in ex- 
cellent style. When they speak of the prince 
in this State, they mean the Council of one 
hundred and twenty. The colonels of the troops 
cannot marry without the permission of the 
prince, which is not obtained without a great 
deal of difficulty : for it is not considered good 
policy to allow these officers to make any very 
close connexions with the people of the country. 
Neither are they permitted to acquire any pro- 
perty within the territories of the State. No 
soldier may leave the country without leave of 
his superiors. There are many of them whom 
poverty compels to beg upon their mountains, 
until they have saved enough to buy their 
military equipment with. 

Wednesday, I went to the bath, and re- 
mained in it for upwards of an hour; I perspired 
53* 



a little, and dipped my head. The stoves that 
they use in Germany are exceedingly convenient 
in winter for drying your clothes, and so on ; 
here the person who has charge of the baths 
dries the towels and clothes by means of a 
chafing-dish, filled with coals, and placed on 
bricks over a small fire, which answers the 
purpose much better and more quickly than 
our way. 

They call all the grown-up girls, until they 
are married, and all the lads, until they have 
beards, children. 

On Thursday, I took another bath, very 
much at my ease, and perspired a little. I put 
my head quite under the spout. I felt that the 
batl) weakened me a little, and caused a heavi- 
ness in the bladder; however, I voided gravel, 
and expectorated a good deal of phlegm, as 
when I was drinking the waters; and, in other 
respects, I found that taking these waters ex- 
ternally produced much the same effect as 
drinking them. I took another bath on Friday. 
Every day there are large quantities of the 
waters, both of this bath and of Corsena, sent 
off to different parts of Italy. It seemed to me 
that the bathing cleared my complexion. I was 
still annoyed with wind, though it was not 
painful ; it was probably this that produced in 
the water I passed a great deal of foam, and 
small bubbles which did not burst for a consi- 
derable time. Sometimes, also, it contained 
black hairs, though very few, and now I recol- 
lect that, on former occasions, I have passed a 
great many more than I did here. Almost 
always my water was full of some oily matter. 
The people about here are not near such meat- 
eaters as we are. They have nothing but the 
commonest kind of meat, and hardly set any 
price upon it. A very fine hare was sold to me, 
I just about this time, for six French sous. They 
' do not sport at all, and nobody brings any game 
here, for nobody would buy it. 

Saturday, as it was very bad weather, the 
wind, among other discomforts, blowing so hard 
that even in our chambers we were sensibly re- 
minded of the want of glass windows, I neither 
bathed nor drank the waters. I observed one 
extraordinary effect of these waters in the case 
of my brother, 1 who, though he did not recol- 
lect ever having voided gravel, either naturally 
or from the other waters he had elsewhere drunk 
with me, passed a large quantity here. Sunday 
morning, I bathed again, but without dipping 
my head. After dinner I gave a ball, and dis- 
tributed a number of public presents or prizes, 
as is the custom here, and I was glad to pay 
them this compliment in the spring time. Five 
or six days before, I had caused notice to be 
given of the intended fete in all the neighbour- 
mg villages; and, the evening before it took 
place, I sent special invitations, as well to the 
ball as to the supper that was to follow, to all 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



the gentlemen and ladies who were then staying 
at the two baths. I sent to Lucca for the prizes ; 
the custom is to give several of these, in order 
not to appear to favour one particular woman 
more than the rest ; and, to avoid all jealousy 
and suspicion, there are always eight or ten 
prizes for the women, and two or three for the 
men. I had no end of applications made to me 
by different women, one begging me not to 
forget herself, another not to pass over her 
niece, a third, not to omit her daughter, and 
so on. Some days before, M. Gio. da Vincenzio 
Saminiati, a particular friend of mine, sent me 
from Lucca, as I had requested him by letter to 
do, a leather belt and a black cloth cap, for 
presents to the men; and for the women, two 
taffeta aprons, one green and the other violet- 
colour (for you always have some articles better 
than others, that you may favour one or two 
amongst them) ; two other aprons of tamminy, 
four boxes of pins, four pair of shoes, of which 
I gave one pair to a pretty girl, out of the ball ; 
a pair of slippers, to which I added a pair of 
shoes, making one present of the two articles ; 
three gauze head-dresses with braids of hair, 
which made three prizes; and four small pearl- 
necklaces, making nineteen prizes fop' the wo- 
men. The whole cost me something more than 
six crowns. Then I had five fifers, whom I 
found in provisions for the whole day, and 
paid them a crown amongst them ; and I had a 
good bargain here, for in most cases you have 
to pay them more. The prizes are attached to 
an ornamented hoop, and placed where every 
body can see them. 

We began dancing on the green, and at this 
time there was no one present but our own peo- 
ple, and I began to fear we should remain by 
ourselves ; but soon after there arrived plenty 
of company, from the different places in the 
vicinity, and among them several ladies and 
gentlemen, whom I entertained in the best way 
I could, and they seemed very well pleased with 
their reception. As it was rather hot, we 
adjourned to the great hall in the Buonvisi 
palace, which was extremely well adapted for 
a ball-room. When the evening began to close 
in, about 22 o'clock, 1 I addressed the most dis- 
tinguished ladies present, and said that being 
myself neither able nor willing to decide among 
the number of charming and beautiful girls 
that I saw around me, I entreated that they 
would take upon them the charge of distribut- 
ing the prizes, according to their knowledge of 
the respective merits of the parties. We were 
a long time getting this point arranged, for the 
ladies to whom I appealed at first declined so 
delicate a commission, supposing that I made 
the offer out of mere politeness to them. At 
length they accepted the charge, on my agree- 
ing to this compromise, that, if they thought 
tit to admit me to their deliberations, I would 
give my opinion in any case suggested to me. 



> Seven o'clock, 



Accordingly, I made the best use I could of my 
eyes among the crowd of my fair visitors, select- 
ing those who struck me as being the prettiest 
and the most graceful ; for I pointed out to my 
coadjutors that the charm of a dance does not 
merely consist in the movement of the feet, but 
has a great deal to do with the face and figure 
and elegance of the fair ones who take part in 
it. The presents were distributed in the pro- 
portions, and among the persons we had agreed 
upon ; the lady who undertook their distri- 
bution presented them to the dancers in my 
name, and I, on my part, transferred all the 
merit to her. All this part of the affair passed 
off exceedingly well, and without any interrup- 
tion, except that one of the girls declined the 
present we offered her, and begged me to give 
it, for her sake, to another girl, whom she 
pointed out; but this I did not think fit to do, 
inasmuch as I did not at all admire the looks of 
the latter. The manner of distribution was 
this: as the name of each girl we had selected 
was called out, she left her place in the circle, 
and came and stood before the lady-distributress 
and myself, who were seated side by side. After 
giving her a kiss, I handed the prize intended 
for her to the lady, who then presented it to 
her, saying, with an amiable smile: "It is this 
gentleman whom you must thank for this hand- 
some present;" whereupon I would say: "Not 
at all ; whatever obligation you may feel is due 
to this lady, who, among so many other candi- 
dates, has judged you worthy of this slight 
token of approbation. I only regret that it is 
not more worthy of your such or such quali- 
ties," particularizing in each case the quality 
which most struck me about the recipient. 
There Was much the same sort of form gone 
through in giving the men their prizes. The 
gentlemen and ladies of course had nothing to 
do with these little presents, but they all took 
part in the dancing. It is really a most charm- 
ing, and, for a Frenchman, unusual spectacle, 
to see these country girls so handsome and so 
well dressed, nuite like ladies, dancing with as 
much grace and elegance as the best amongst 
us, only in a different fashion. I invited every 
one there to take supper, which in Italy is 
a very slight affair, in comparison with our 
notion of the thing in France. I got off for 
a joint or two of veal, and a few pair of 
j fowls. The only persons 1 had to supper at my 
own table, were the colonel of the district, 
M. Francisco Gambarini, a Bolognese, and a 
French gentleman. I, however, gave a seat at 
my table to Divizia, a poor peasant, who lives 
two miles from the Baths, and who, as well as 
her husband, lives by the labour of her hands. 
She is very ugly, is thirty-seven years old, 
has a goitre in her neck, and can neither read 
nor write. ' But there having resided in her 
father's house, an uncle of hers, who, from her 
tenderest years, used to read aloud in her pre- 
sence Ariosto and some other poets, her mind 
became so alive to, so imbued with, the spirit of 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



631 



poetry, that not only does she compose 
off-hand with the most surprising facility, but 
she moreover introduces into her compositions 
ancient fables, the names of gods, countries, 
sciences, and illustrious men, as readily as 
though she had gone through the regular course 
of studies. She composed a number of these 
verses before me. They are indeed nothing but 
verses and rhymes, but they are at the same 
time conceived in an easy and elegant style. 
There were more than a hundred women at my 
ball, though the time was not very favourable, 
it being just at the period when they are ga- 
thering in their grand harvest of all; and when 
the whole of the labouring population is en- 
gaged, every morning and evening, without 
regard to any fetes or other amusements, in 
picking mulberry-leaves for their silk-worms; 
and, almost without exception, all the young 
women take part in this work, so that I was 
especially favoured. 

Monday morning, I went to the Bath some- 
what later than usual, for I was detained by the 
barber cutting my hair and shaving me. I 
bathed my head, and had a shower-bath, for 
a quarter of an hour, right under the great 
spring. 

Among my visitors at the ball, was the 
deputy-judge, one of the officers whom the 
government appoints in each district, with cog- 
nizance of civil cases, where the amount in 
question does not exceed a small fixed sum ; the 
appointment is for six months only, and the 
officer is then transferred to another district, 
and succeeded by the officer whom he displaces, 
if their conduct has been such as to merit their 
continuance in office. There is another officer, 
who has cognizance of criminal cases. 1 told 
this gentleman that it appeared to me the 
government would do well to institute a certain 
regulation here, which it would be very easy to 
introduce, and the outline of which I pointed 
out to him. It was simply this: that all the 
water-dealers, who come here in great numbers 
to purchase the waters, and carry them to all 
parts of Italy, should be furnished with an 
attestation of the quantity of water they have 
purchased, which would prevent their commit- 
ting a fraud, a specimen of which had fallen 
under my own observation. One of these mule- 
teers had come to my landlord, who is only a 
private individual, and begged of him to give 
him a written certificate that he had twenty- 
four loads of these waters, whereas, in point of 
fact, he had only four. My landlord, at first, 
refused to" sanction this falsehood ; but he at 
last gave the certificate, upon the muleteer's 
promising to return in four or six days and fetch 
the other twenty loads, which he never did. 
The judge paid great attention to my sugges- 
tion, and was very anxious to learn from me 
the name of the muleteer, or, in default of that, 
his appearance, and the horses he had, but I did 
not give him any information of the sort. I 
told him that I was going to try and establish 



here a custom observed in all the more noted 
baths of Europe, where every person of any rank 
leaves a copy of his armorial bearings in or on 
the house where he lodged, as a testimony 
of the obligation he has to the waters ; for 
which intention of mine, the gentleman warmly 
thanked me, in the name of his government. 
They were beginning to cut hay at about this 
time, in several places. 

Tuesday, I remained two hours in the bath, 
and kept my head under a shower-bath for 
somewhat more than a quarter of an hour. 

To-day, there arrived at the baths a Cremo- 
nese merchant, settled at Rome ; he was afflicted 
with several extraordinary maladies, yet talked 
and walked about nevertheless, and even seemed 
gay and satisfied with life. His principal ma- 
lady was in the head; which had become so 
weak that he told us his memory had got so 
bad, that, after he had dined, he had no re- 
collection of what he had had for dinner. If 
he went out on some business, he had always 
to come back eight or ten times, to ask what it 
was he was going about. He could hardly say 
his paternoster through. Even when he had 
managed to say it, he would begin again, and 
so on, perhaps half a dozen times, never in the 
slightest degree aware when he had finished 
that he was beginning again, or, when he was 
beginning again, that he had finished. He 
had laboured under deafness, blindness, and 
well nigh every possible malady ; he was even 
plagued with such heat in the reins, that he was 
obliged to wear a leaden girdle there. For 
several years past, he had been under the disci- 
pline of physicians, whose directions he observed 
with religious exactitude. It was amusing 
enough to hear the different regimens that had 
been prescribed him in different parts of Italy, 
all differing from one another, especially as to 
these baths, and as to shower baths. There 
had been twenty consultations about him, in no 
one of which had the learned professors come to 
any thing like an understanding; in each case, 
the present physician had condemned his pre- 
decessor, and denounced him as a homicide. 
This gentleman was subject to one very strange 
effect from the wind that he was full of: it 
would burst from him at the ears with such 
violence as frequently to prevent his sleeping; 
and, whenever he yawned, it would bur>t out 
impetuously at the same place. He said that 
the best recipe for clearing the stomach was 
to put into your mouth four large grains of 
coriander-comfits, and having moistened them 
into one mass with your saliva, to use them 
as a clyster, the effect of which, he told us, was 
immediate and apparent. He was the first 
person I ever saw with one of those peacock- 
feather hats, that some people use instead of 
parasols, the carrying of which on horseback is 
certainly very inconvenient. This gentleman's 
hat was about seven inches hisrh, and very large 
in diameter; the width of the crown was not 
less than a toot and a half. The frame of the 



J 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



hat is of taffeta, wadded with silk, to keep out 
the heat. 

As I have on former occasions been sorry 
that I had not written more at length my 
observations upon the baths I had visited, in- 
asmuch as that I thereby lost materials for 
comparing them with the baths I subsequently 
used, I will this time go into greater detail 
upon the matter. 

Wednesday, I went to the bath, where I 
experienced great heat in the body, and per- 
spired to a very unusual extent, which made 
me feel somewhat weak. My mouth became 
dry, with a bitter taste in it; and on leaving 
the bath a faintness came over me, such as I 
had felt on former occasions from the heat of the 
water at Plombieres, at Bagnieres, at Pressac, 
&c. I did not, however, experience this' effect 
at Barbotan, nor had I felt it here until to-day ; 
whether it was that the water was hotter than 
usual, or that on this occasion I bathed earlier 
than on former days, and before I had eased 
myself. I remained in the bath an hour and a 
half, and had the water poured on my head for 
about a quarter of an hour. It was going 
quite contrary to rule to have the shower-bath 
in the other bath, for the custom is to take them 
separately ; and it was a further departure from 
rule to have the shower-bath here at all: for 
the general custom is to take this sort of bath 
at the other bath, where they take it at such 
and such particular springs; some at the first 
spring, some at the second, some at the third, 
according to the doctor's direction. So again, 
in drinking the waters, I used to drink the 
Waters, and then bathe, and then drink again, 
without attending to any of the rules as to the 
particular course of days tor drinking, and days 
for bathing, which are carefully observed here ; 
paying no attention to the regular routine of 
drinking ten days, and bathing twenty-five; 
some weeks I bathed every day, others every 
other day; and, finally, I persisted in bathing 
but once a day, while the other visitors always 
bathed twice, and would never remain long 
under the shower-bath, while the general prac- 
tice is to remain under it always an hour at 
least in the morning, and another hour in the 
evening. As to the fashion in use here, of 
having the top of the head shaved, and wearing 
there a piece of stuff or wool fastened with a 
band, my bald head made this unnecessary. 

This morning, I received a visit from the 
deputy and other distinguished gentlemen who 
were lodging at the baths about here. The 
deputy told me of a singular accident that had 
happened to him some years ago, in consequence 
of a prick from a beetle, that he received in the 
fleshy part of the thumb, and which threw him 
into such a state of weakness, that he was well 
nigh at death's door. He was reduced to 
such an extremity that he was kept to his bed 
five months, without being able to stir ; and 
remaining in this position for this long time 
so heated his reins, that at length the gravel 



was generated, from which, and from the cho- 
lic, he endured great suffering for more than 
year. At about the end of that time, his 
father, who was Governor of Veletri, sent him 
a particular sort of green stone, which he pro- 
cured from a monk, who had been in the Indies ; 
and the virtue of which was such, that while 
he carried it about him he was never troubled 
with gravel. He had been in this state for two 
years. As to the local effect of the prick, the 
thumb, and nearly the whole hand, had since 
been all but useless ; and the arm was so weak- 
ened that he was under the necessity of coming 
every year to the baths at Corsena to strengthen 
it, as well as the hand, by the use of the 
shower-bath. 

The people here are wretchedly poor; so 
much so that I have seen them eat green mul- 
berries, which they pick as they are gathering 
the leaves for their silk-worms. 

As the bargain for letting the house 1 occu- 
pied, had been left uncertain in reference to the 
month of June, I thought it better to come to 
an understanding on the subject with my land- 
lord ; and he, seeing how I was solicited by all 
his neighbours to lodge with them, especially 
by the proprietor of the Buonvisi Palace, who 
offered to let it me for a gold crown a day, made 
up his mind to allow me to stay where I was 
as long as I liked, at the rate of twenty-five 
gold crowns a month, commencing from the 
1st of June, up to which time my first bargain 
remained in force. Envy, hatred, and malice, 
more or less disguised, reign here, as well as 
elsewhere, among the inhabitants, though they 
are almost all related amongst one another : a 
woman one day repeated to me this proverb: 
" Whoever wishes his wife to become fruitful, 
let him send her to these baths, and keep away 
from them himself." What, among other 
things, more particularly pleased me in the 
house where I lived, was that I could pass from 
it to the bath and back again, over a smooth 
path, across a court-yard of about thirty paces 
long. I was vexed to see the mulberry trees 
stripped of their foliage ; it produced the effect 
of winter in the middle of summer. The gravel 
that I was continually passing with my water 
seemed to me at this time more rough than 
usual, and gave me a great deal of pain. 

Every day you see people going about to 
the different visitors' lodgings, with samples of 
wine in small flasks, but there is very little good 
wine to be had here. The white wine is light, 
but sharp and rough to the taste, and by no 
means salutary for the stomach. If you take 
the trouble to send to Lucca, or Pescia, for the 
Vino Trebiano, you get a tolerably mellow 
white wine, but not pleasant to the taste. 

Thursday, Corpus-Christi Day, I took a 
bath, and, it being of a temperate heat, re- 
mained in it for more than an hour; I perspired 
very little; and when I came away, did not 
feel any debilitating effect from it. I had a 
shower-bath on my head for seven or eight 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



633 



minutes; and when I got into bed again, fell 
into a profound sleep. This bathing and taking 
the shower-bath I found exceedingly pleasant, 
more so than anything else. I felt an itching 
occasionally, in my hands and all over my 
body indeed ; and the people about, I under- 
stood, were very subject to the itch: among 
the children, the thrush was very prevalent. 
Here, as well as at the other baths I have 
visited, the people about think nothing at all 
of that which strangers come so far to procure; 
a great many of the country people, that I 
spoke to, had never even tasted the water, and 
had no sort of opinion of it. Yet it is sur- 
prising they do not try the effect, for they 
seem by no means a long-lived people. In the 
mucous matter which I was constantly passing 
with my water, there was occasionally gravel. 
When I took the shower-bath on the lower 
part of my stomach, I found it produce the 
effect of expelling wind ; and at these times, 
the swelling which troubled me in those parts 
visibly diminished ; so that I concluded this 
swelling to be occasioned by the wind. 

Friday, I remained in the bath the usual 
time, and took a shower-bath on the head, for 
somewhat longer than my general custom. The 
extraordinary quantity of water that I was con- 
stantly passing, made me suspect that it pro- 
ceeded from the bladder, where it had gathered, 
for by putting the gravel together, I could 
often have made a large ball; which proved 
that it rather proceeded thence than from the 
water, which would have passed it immediately 
that it had formed it. 

Saturday, I remained in the bath for two 
hours, and took a shower-bath for more than 
a quarter of an hour. 

Sunday, I took no bath. The same day, one 
of the gentlemen of the place gave us a ball. 
The want of clocks here, as well as almost all 
over Italy, seemed to me an extreme incon- 
venience. In the bath-house there is an image 
of the Virgin, with this inscription in verse: 
Auspicio fac, Diva, tuo quicumque lavacrum 
ingreditur, sospes, ac bonus hlnc abeat. 1 One 
cannot too warmly praise the combination of 
beauty and utility which characterises the 
method they have here of cultivating the moun- 
tains, up to the very summits, by laying out 
the circumference of each hill in great circular 
platforms, round and round, ascending from 
one to the other by a sort of staircase, the top 
of each of which is strengthened, where neces- 
sary, by stones, or some other casing. Each 
platform forms a corn-field, on the outside of 
which is a border of vines, which thus encir- 
cle the whole mountain, in gradually ascending 
gyrations, up to the very top. Where one of 
these platforms is not sufficiently level by 
nature, and cannot be rendered so by art, it 
is covered with vines altogether. 



i " Oraitt, holy Lady, that whosoever entereth this bath, 
may leave it in good health, both of mind and body." 



At the ball given by the Bolognese gentle- 
man, which I mentioned just now, a woman 
danced for some time, balancing on her head a 
pitcher full of water, and managed this feat 
with such skill and nicety that she did not 
spill one drop of the water, nor did the pitcher 
once seem to Jose its equilibrium. 

The physicians were astonished at seeing 
most of us Frenchmen drink the waters in the 
morning, and then bathe the same day. 

Monday morning, I remained two hours in 
the bath ; but I did not have a shower-bath, 
as I took it into my head to drink three pounds 
of water, which had a slight operation. I 
used to bathe my eyes every morning, by 
opening them when I was in the water, a 
process which did me neither good nor harm. 
I believe I got rid of my three pounds of water 
before I left the bath, what with perspiration 
and other evacuations. As for the last two or 
three days, I had found my stomach somewhat 
too bound, I took, as had been recommended 
me, three grains of coriander comfits, which 
greatly relieved me both of the wind, which 
I had been full of, and in other respects. But 
though I had thus thoroughly purged my reins, 
I still felt a sort of pricking there, which I 
attributed more to the wind than to anything 
else. 

Tuesday, I did not drink the waters, but I 
remained two hours in the bath, and kept my 
head a quarter of an hour under the shower-bath. 

Wednesday, I stayed in the bath an hour 
and a half, and had a shower-bath for about 
half an hour. 

Up to the present time, sooth to say, the 
little intercourse I had had with these people, 
had not even given me an opportunity of bear- 
ing out the reputation for capacity and mind, 
that, somehow or other, I had got credit for; I 
had given no specimen of any extraordinary 
talent, to excite their admiration, or warrant 
them in over-estimating the few advantages I 
possess. Yet, to-day, some physicians, having 
to meet on a more than usually important con- 
sultation, namely, respecting a young noble- 
man, M. Paul de Cesis (nephew of the cardinal 
of that name), who was at this time at the 
baths, came, at his request, to beg that I would 
be present at their consultation, and, having 
heard their various opinions, would give my 
opinion thereon ; for that he had made up his 
mind to abide entirely by my decision. This 
made me laugh in my sleeve; but the same 
thing has happened to me more than once 
before, both here and at Rome. 

I at times experienced a weakness and dim- 
ness in the eyes, when I read much, or looked 
fixedly at any luminous object ; and what made 
me the more uneasy at this was that I had felt 
it, more or less, ever since I had the attack of 
sick head-ache near Florence. A heaviness in 
the forehead,' unaccompanied by pain, would 
come over me, and then before my eyes there 
would arise a sort of hazy cloud, which, though 







634 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



it did not prevent my seeing 1 , confused the 
sight, in a peculiar way that I cannot describe. 
By degrees, these head-aches, when they came, 
lasted longer and longer, though, except in the 
way I have mentioned, they did not incom- 
mode me; and since I had taken to the shower- 
baths on my head, I had suffered an attack 
every year, and there was almost constantly a 
mist before my eyes, but still without pain or 
inflammation. Now up to the time when this 
disagreeable sort of thing came upon me at 
Florence, I had not had a head-ache for full 
ten years, so that it somewhat alarmed me; 
and, fearing lest the use of the shower-hath 
should weaken my head, I determined not to 
repeat it. 

Thursday, I was in the bath only an hour. 
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 1 did nothing, 
being somewhat alarmed at these head-aches, 
and not feeling, in other respects, inclined to 
bathe, or drink the waters, for I was constantly 
passing a quantity of gravel. My head, how- 
ever, did not regain its proper state; every 
now and then it became troublesome, especially 
whenever I got thinking about anything. 

Monday morning, I drank thirteen glasses, 
containing six pounds and a half, of the com- 
mon spring; I passed about three pounds of 
this in a crude state before dinner, and the rest 
afterwards, by degrees. Though my head-ache 
was neither very violent nor unremitting, it 
^j turned my complexion to a shocking hue. Yet 
still it did not incommode or weaken me, as it 
had done on former occasions, except in the one 
respect of confusing my vision. To-day they 
began cutting rye in the plain. 

Tuesday, at day-break, I went to Bar- 
naby's spring, and drank six glasses, containing 
six pounds of water, which made me per- 
spire a little. There was a drizzling rain this 
morning. The water I had taken soon pro- 
duced its effect, and gave me a thorough 
scouring ; I did not, however, pass much 
water, but in two hours I had resumed my 
natural colour. 

You can board at some houses here for six 
gold crowns a month, or thereabout, for which 
you have a room to yourself, and every con- 
venience you can desire, and they keep your 
valet into the bargain; if you have no servant 
of your own, the landlord provides you with 
every necessary attendance. 

Before the day was over, I had passed all the 
water, and indeed more than I had drunk alto- 
gether, which, besides what I had drunk at the 
bath, was a half pound of wine and water I 
took at dinner. I ate hardly any supper. 

Wednesday, a very wet day, I drank seven 
pounds of water in seven glasses, and passed it 
all before the end of the day, together with 
what else I had drunk. 

Thursday, I took nine pounds, seven in the 
first instance, and when I began to pass it, I 
sent for two more, and this, too, I passed the 
whole of, in due course. 



Friday and Saturday I repeated the dose. 
Sunday, I drank none at all. 

Monday, I drank seven pounds of water, in 
seven glasses. I still passed gravel, but some- 
what less than when I used to bathe ; and I 
observed that this was also the case with several 
other persons, at the same time. To-day I felt 
a pain in the lower part of the stomach, the 
same as I generally feel in passing a stone, and 
towards the evening, accordingly, I did pass a 
small one. 

Tuesday, I passed another, and I am con- 
vinced by experience that the water here is 
powerful enough to break stones, for I have felt 
them descending into the bladder quite large, 
and afterwards I passed them broken into small 
pieces. To-day I drank eight pounds of water, 
at eight times. 

If Calvin had known that in these parts the 
preaching monks call themselves ministers, he 
would doubtless have given his preachers some 
other name. 

Wednesday, I took eight pounds of water, in 
eight glasses. I nearly always passed half what 
I had taken, in three hours, in a crude state, 
and in its natural colour; and, shortly after- 
wards, a half pound more, tinged of a red 
colour ; the rest passed off after dinner, and in 
the course of the night. 

The season that was now come on, brought a 
great deal of company to the bath ; and from 
the instances that I now had an opportunity of 
observing, and from the opinions of the physi- 
cians themselves, particularly of M. Donato, 
the author of a treatise on these waters, I 
found I had not been so very wrong in tak- 
ing a shower-bath on my head in the bath : 
for it is a frequent practice for them to apply 
the shower-bath to their stomachs, by means of 
a long tube, one end of which is attached to the 
mouth of the spring, and the water is thus con- 
veyed in a powerful stream to the exact part of 
the body where it is required. It is also the 
custom always to bathe the same day that you 
take this shower-bath; so that the only differ- 
ence between them and me was, that I took the 
shower-bath when I was actually in the bath, 
and put my head directly under the spring, 
instead of having the water brought through a 
tube. The only question is, whether I was not 
wrong in not continuing this course. 1 have, 
ever since, all along had a strong notion that, 
had I done so, I might by degrees have got rid 
of all the humours that plague me. M. Donato 
approved of people's drinking and bathing in 
the same day ; and his sanction makes me the 
more vexed that I had not the firmness to per- 
severe in my first idea, of drinking the waters 
every time I bathed. The doctor was also loud 
in his praises of the Barnaby spring; but, not- 
withstanding all his learned reasonings, it is 
quite clear that these waters produced no effect 
upon several persons I saw there, who were not 
subject to passing gravel in their water, as I 
continued to do; which I mention because I 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



cannot make up my mind to believe that this 
gravel was produced by these waters. 

Thursday morning', in order to get the first 
place, I went to the bath before daybreak, and 
drank, at intervals, for an hour, without bathing 
my head ; and I imagine that this getting up so 
early, and the going to bed again afterwards, 
disagreed with me ; my mouth got so hot and 
dry that, in the evening, before going to bed, 
I drank two large glasses of the same water 
cooled, which produced no other effect than 
that of refreshing me. 

Friday, I did nothing. The Franciscan mi- 
nister, as they call the provincial, a man of 
great merit, learned, and very pleasing in his 
manners, who was residing at the bath, with 
several other monks of different religious orders, 
sent me a present of some excellent wine, and 
a variety of sweetmeats. 

Saturday, I neither bathed nor drank the 
waters, but went to dine at Menalfio, a large 
and handsome village, situated at the top of one 
of the mountains of which I have spoken. I 
took some fish with me, and got accommodation 
at the house of a soldier, who, after travelling 
about a great deal in France and other coun- 
tries, married a woman in Flanders, with whom 
he received some money, and has since settled 
here : his name is Santo. There is a fine church 
here. Among the inhabitants there are a great 
number of retired soldiers, most of whom have 
also seen a good deal of the world. They are 
all divided off here into two parties, the one 
siding with France, the other with Spain, and 
I happening, without thinking of it, to put a 
flower behind my left ear, it gave vast offence 
to the French party. After dinner, 1 went up 
to the fort, which stands at the very summit of 
the hill, and is a tolerably strong place, with 
high walls rising from the steep sides of the 
rock. Even up to the very base of this fort, 
however, the ground is highly cultivated ; in- 
deed, all about this part of the country, it 
seems to be a rigid principle not to lose a single 
yard of ground that can by any possibility be 
made available ; on the wildest and most rugged 
places, on rocks and precipices, even in the cre- 
vices of the mountain, you find vines and crops 
of corn and hay, while in the plain below 
they have not a bit of hay. I descended the 
mountain on the other side, and then returned 
home. 

Sunday morning, I went to the bath with 
several other gentlemen, and remained there 
half an hour. I received from M. Louis Pini- 
tesi a present of a large quantity of very fine 
fruit, amongst which were some figs, the first 
that had appeared this season at the bath, and 
also a dozen flasks of excellent wine. The same 
day the Franciscan minister also sent me a 
quantity of fruit, so that I was able, in my 
turn, to make presents to my neighbours. 

After dinner, there was a ball, where several 
ladies were assembled, very well dressed, but 
by no means remarkable for beauty, though 



they were reckoned among the handsomest 

women of Lucca. 

In the evening, M. Louis Ferrari of Cremona, 

who knew me very well, sent me some boxes of 

excellent quinces, some lemons of a rare sort, 

and some oranges of an extraordinary size. 
In the night, a little before day-break, I had 

a cramp in the calf of the right leg, accompa- 
nied with severe pains, which came on every 
now and then. The cramp held mo for a full 
half hour. 'Tis a long time since I had a similar 
attack, and that only lasted for half a minute 
or so. 

Monday, I went to the bath, and kept my 
stomach under the spring for an hour ; at one 
time I felt a little pricking in the leg where I 
had the cramp. 

It was now the time of year when the wea- 
ther begins to feel warm ; the grasshoppers are 
not more troublesome here than in France ; and 
the air seemed to me generally much fresher 
and purer than it is at home. 

Among free nations, you do not see the same 
distinction of ranks and persons as among other 
people ; here, where I am, persons of the hum- 
blest station bear themselves quite in a lordly 
style ; even the beggars address you in an 
authoritative and dictatorial tone ; for instance : 

j " Give me something, will you '!" or, " Give me 

: something, d'ye hear!" At Rome, the phrase 
is, " Benefit me, for your own sake." 

I Tuesday, I remained an hour in the bath. 

I Wednesday, 21st June, early in the morning, 
I left this place, and, upon taking leave of the 

j company whom I found assembled at the bath, 
I received from them the kindest assurances of 
friendship and good-will. I proceeded through 

I a series of steep, but at the same time pictu- 

! resque and well-cultivated, hills to 

I Pescia, twelve miles, a small town with a 
castle, situated on the river Pescia, in the ter- 
ritory of Florence, where there are some good 

I houses. Here is the chief mart of the famous 
Trebiano wine, the growth of a vineyard situ- 
ated in the centre of large plantations of olive 
trees. The inhabitants of this town are warm 
friends of France, in token of which, appa- 
rently, they have a dolphin for their town- 
arms. 

After dinner, we went on through a fine 
open plain, thickly studded with gentlemen's 
seats and other houses. I had intended a visit 
to Monte Catino, to taste the hot salt water 
of the Tettuccio; the place lay on my right 
hand, about a mile out of the road, and nearly 
seven miles from Pescia, but I forgot all about 

| it until I had nearly reached 

Pistoia, eleven miles. I put up at an inn on 
the other side of the town, where I received a 
visit from the son of M. Ruspiglioni, who is 
making a journey through Italy with a vettu- 
rino, and herein he is wrong ; for it is tar better 
in every respect to take horses from one place 
to another, than to put yourself into the 
hands of a vetturino for the whole of a long 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



journey. From Pistoia to Florence, a distance 
of twenty miles, the horses cost only four 
julios. Leaving Pistoia next morning, I 
passed through the little town of Prato, and 
got by dinner-time to Castello, where we dis- 
mounted at an inn opposite the grand-duke's 
palace. After dinner, we went to give his 
garden a close examination, and I found herein 
another instance how the imagination trans- 
cends reality. I had seen this garden in the 
winter-time, when it was all bare and leafless, 
and at that time my fancy had pictured forth a 
glowing representation of what the place would 
be in a more favourable season ; but I now 
found that my imagination had been far too 
sanguine. 

From Prato to Castello, seventeen miles. 
After dinner, we went to 

Florence, three miles. Friday, I witnessed 
the public processions, and the grand-duke in 
his state-coach. Among other grand sights 
exhibited on this occasion, there is a sort of 
small moveable stage, gilt on the outside, on 
which there are four little children, and a 
monk, or a nun dressed up as a monk, with a 
great false beard, who represents St. Francis 
d'Assisi, standing, holding his hands crossed 
upon his breast, as in the portrait of him, and 
with a crown over his head, fixed on his hood. 
There were other children on foot, armed, one 
of whom represented St. George. When these 
came to the square, there rushed out upon the 
champion a great dragon, made to look very 
terrible, and spouting flames from his jaws, and 
so large as evidently somewhat to stagger the 
men who carried him. 

The young St. George attacked in his turn 
the dragon, and struck him, now with his sword 
and then with his lance, and at last vanquished 
the monster, and stabbed him deep in the 
throat. 

While at this place, I received a great deal 
of kindness from one of the Gondi family, who 
resides at Lyons. He sent me some excellent 
wine. 

The weather had now got so hot that the 
people of the place themselves were astonished 
at it. 

In the morning, at day-break, I had an attack 
of cholic in my right side, and suffered a great 
deal of pain from it for about three hours. To- 
day I ate the first melon I had tasted this year. 
They had had pumpions and almonds here from 
the very first day of June. 

On the 23d, there was a grand chariot race, 
in a large open square, of an oblong form, and 
surrounded on all sides by handsome houses. 
At each corner of this place they had erected a 
wooden obelisk, and a long cord extended from 
each of these to the other, to prevent people 
from crossing the ground ; there were, besides, 
several men stationed along these ropes, to keep 
any person from getting over them. The bal- 
conies were full of ladies; the grand-duke, with 
the duchess and the court, occupying the lower 



balcony of the principal house. The other 
spectators were ranged along the sides of the 
square, outside the ropes, and on a sort of 
scaffolds, on one of which I got a place. There 
were five chariots or cars to run. They took 
their places by lot, in a row, by one of the obe- 
lisks. It seemed to be considered that the out- 
side place was the best, as giving the driver 
the most command of the ground. The horses 
started at the sound of a trumpet. The chariot 
tiiat had the lead on arriving at the starting- 
post, in the third run round the course, was the 
winner. The grand-duke's car had the best of 
it up to the commencement of the third round, 
but then Strozzi's charioteer, who had kept 
very close to the grand-duke's, urged his horses 
to the utmost, and managed to get so nearly on 
a level with the latter as to make the victory 
a question between them. I observed, that the 
populace broke their previous silence when they 
saw Strozzi's charioteer making head, and began 
shouting and encouraging him with all their 
might and main, utterly regardless of their 
prince's being present. And afterwards, when 
the dispute, as to the victory, was referred to 
the decision of the judges of the course, those 
among them who were in favour of Strozzi 
having appealed to the judgment of the as- 
sembly, there was raised an almost unanimous 
shout in favour of Strozzi, who ultimately 
obtained the prize; though it seemed to me 
that the grand-duke's charioteer was really the 
winner. The value of the prize was a hundred 
crowns. I was more pleased with this spectacle 
than with any other I had witnessed in Italy, 
for my fancy was tickled with its resemblance 
to the races of the ancients. 

This being St. John's eve, the roof of the 
cathedral was surrounded by two or three rows 
of lamps, and a number of rockets were let 
off. They say, however, that it is not the 
general custom in Italy, as in France, to have 
fire-works on St. John's day. 

This festival came round, in its due course, on 
the Sunday, and being, of all the saints' days, 
the one observed by the people of Florence 
with the greatest solemnity and rejoicing, every 
body was from an early hour abroad to take 
part in it, dressed in their best. I had thus an 
opportunity of seeing all the women, old and 
young ; and I must confess that the amount of 
beauty at Florence appeared to me very limited. 
Early in the morning, the grand-duke took his 
seat in the palace square, upon a platform, which 
occupied the whole front of the palace, the 
walls of which, as well as the platform, were 
hung with rich tapestry. He was seated under 
a canopy, with the pope's nuncio at bis side on 
the left, and the Ferrarese ambassador on his 
right, but not so near him by a good deal as 
the nuncio. Here there passed before him a 
long procession of men in various guises, em- 
blems of the different castles, towns, and states 
dependent upon the archduchy of Florence, and 
the name and style of each, as its representa- 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



637 



tive passed, was announced to the assembled 
multitude by a herald, who stood by in full 
costume. Representing Sienna, for instance, 
there came forward a young man, habited in 
white and black velvet, bearing in one hand a 
large silver vase, and in the other, an effigy of 
the she-wolf of Sienna. These offerings he laid 
at the feet of the duke, accompanying them 
with a suitable address. When lie had passed 
on, he was followed in single file, and as their 
names were successively called out, by a number 
of ill-dressed men, mounted on sorry hacks or 
on mules, some carrying a silver cup, others a 
ragged banner. These fellows, of whom there 
were a great number, went on through the 
streets, without any sort of form or ceremony, 
and, indeed, without exhibiting the slightest 
gravity or even decency of demeanour, but 
rather seeming to treat the whole thing as a 
jest. They took their part in the affair as 
representatives of the various castles and other 
places in immediate dependence upon the state 
of Sienna. This ceremonial takes place every 
year. 

By and by, advanced a car, bearing a great 
wooden pyramid, with steps all up it, on which 
stood little boys dressed in different fashions, 
to represent saints and angels. The pyramid 
was as high as a house; and at the top of it 
was a St. John, that is to say, a man dressed 
as St. John, bound to an iron bar. Next after 
this car came the public officers, those connected 
with the revenue occupying the first rank. 

The procession was closed by another car, 
on which were several young men, with three 
prizes, which were afterwards run for, in dif- 
ferent sorts of races. On each side of the car 
were the horses that were about to take part 
in the races, led by the jockeys, wearing the 
colours of their different masters, among whom 
were some of the greatest nobles of the country. 
The horses were small, but exquisitely formed. 

The heat at this time was no greater than 
we feel it in France ; but, to avoid the effects 
of it as much as possible, I resorted to the ex- 
pedient of having my bed made up on the 
dining-table, every night, for the bedsteads and 
beds they have here are utterly intolerable to 
strangers; and I moreover managed in this 
way to escape the vermin, which swarm in 
every bed of every inn, in these parts. In fact, 
in almost every respect, this is a very uncom- 
fortable place for travellers, who are not pretty 
well case-hardened. 

There is very little fish to be got at Florence, 
and what you do get, in the way of trout, &c, 
comes from such a distance, that it has first to 
be salted. Giovanni Mariano, a Milanese, who 
was staying in the same inn where I was, 
had a present sent him from the grand-duke 
of wine, bread, fruit, and some live fish ; but 
these fish were very small, and were brought 
in jars of water. 

All day long my mouth felt dried up, and 
I was tormented with a parching, insatiable 
54 



thirst, such as I am sometimes annoyed with at 
home in the extreme heats of summer. I ate 
nothing but fruit, and sugared salad ; yet, 
notwithstanding this temperate diet, I continued 
very unwell. 

The amusements which we in France enter 
upon after supper, here precede that meal. In 
the very long days, supper is not taken till late 
at night, and people do not rise till seven or 
eight in the morning. 

After dinner, everybody went to see the 
horse-racing. The Cardinal de Medici's horse 
won; the prize was worth about 200 crowns. 
This spectacle is not so agreeable as the chariot- 
race, for it takes place in the street, and all 
you see is the horses tearing past where you 
stand, at the top of their speed, and there 
is an end of the matter, as far as you are 
concerned. 

On Sunday, I went to see the Palace Pitti. 
Among other things there, I noticed the statue 
in marble of a mule; the original is still alive, 
and earned its honours by its services as a 
draught-mule during the erection of this palace ; 
at least, so say the Latin verses, which form 
an inscription on the statue. I saw here also, 
the antique chimsera, an animal with the body 
of a lion, and a head with horns and ears. 

On the preceding Saturday, the grand- 
duke's palace was thrown open to all comers, 
without exception, and was crowded with 
country people, who, by and by, nearly all 
collected in the great hall, where they fell to 
dancing. As I looked upon them, it seemed 
to my fancy an image of a people's lost liberty, 
an all but extinguished light throwing out a 
flickering gleam once a year, amid the shows 
of a saint's day. 

Monday, I went to dine with Signor Silvio 
Piccolomini, a man of distinguished merit, and, 
among other accomplishments, pre-eminent for 
his skill in the use of the rapier. There was 
a large party of gentlemen present, and we 
conversed upon a variety of topics. Signor 
Piccolomini holds in very slight estimation the 
practice of even the most celebrated Italian 
fencing-masters, such as II Veniziano, II Bo- 
lognese, II Patinostrato, and others; the only 
professor that he thinks anything of, is a pupil 
of his, that has established himself at Brescia, 
where he teaches the art to the gentry about 
there. He said, that the way in which all the 
masters he spoke of taught fencing, had neither 
method nor manner about it. lie particularly 
condemns those long, sprawling passes, which, 
nine cases out of ten, place your weapon in the 
power of a skilful adversary ; he maintained 
that men who are actually engaged in combat 
do nothing of the sort, as all experience showed ; 
j he said it was to him quite absurd to see a 
man making an immense lunge, which all but 
throws him off his balance, then draw back, 
and then make another lunge, longer, if pos- 
sible, than the first, as if lie had nothing to 
do but to go through a set of postures. M. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



Piccolomini told us he was about to print a 
work on this subject. The conversation then 
turned upon warfare, in reference to which 
our host expressed his contempt for artillery, 
and proceeded to make some remarks upon this 
point, which pleased me very much. He quite 
concurs with what Machiavel has written upon 
the subject. In reference to fortifications, he 
said that the most skilful engineer living is 
a gentleman now at Florence, in the service 
of the Grand-Duke Francis. 

They have a custom here of cooling their 
wine, by putting snow in the glass. I myself 
put very little, for I was far from well ; 1 had 
frequent pains in the kidneys, and was con- 
stantly passing quantities of gravel ; and, more- 
over, had not yet succeeded in getting rid of 
the disagreeable fits of weakness and aching 
in my head ; every now and then I had a 
swimming there, accompanied by a heaviness 
that involved forehead, eyes, nose, and every 
part of my face, in its effects. It occurred to 
me that these attacks were brought on by the 
sweet heady wines of the country. I remem- 
ber that just after my arrival here, when I was 
tormented with a sick head-ache and a horrible 
thirst, I drank a quantity of Trebiano; but it 
was so sweet that it did not at all quench my 
thirst, and only made me feel heavy. 

After all, I cannot refrain from confessing 
that Florence has most justly received the title 
of La Bella. 

To-day, just in order to pass away the time, 
I went to call upon some of those ladies whose 
doors are open to all comers with money in 
their pockets. I saw some of the most cele- 
brated of them, but they did not strike me as 
being any thing remarkable. They live by 
themselves, in a particular part of the town 
assigned them, and their wretched lodgings as 
little resemble those of the Roman and Venetian 
courtezans, as they themselves resemble the 
latter ladies in beauty, dress, and deportment. 
If any public woman prefers living in another 
part of the town, she must keep her vocation a 
secret, and have some other occupation, as a 
blind to cover her frailty. 

I went to look at the silk-spinners, and ob- 
served that, by means of a certain machine, one 
woman can turn five hundred spindles at once. 

Tuesday morning, I passed a small red stone. 

Wednesday, I went to see the grand-duke's 
country-house. What struck me most here 
was an artificial rock, of a pyramidal form, 
composed of all sorts of natural minerals, piled 
together in some particular arrangement. From 
this rock spouted a powerful fountain of water, 
which, falling into a grotto that formed the 
interior of the rock, worked all sorts of ma- 
chinery and automata there, such as mills, 
clocks, sentinels, animals, &c. &c. 

Thursday, there was another horse-race, but 
1 did not think it worth while to go and see it. 
After dinner I went to Pratolino, which I ex- 
amined once more in detail. The keeper having 



requested I would give him my opinion of the 
beauties of the place, as compared with Tivoli, 
I did so, comparing the two places, not in gene- 
ral, but in detail, pointing out the advantages 
of each, and wherein the one was superior to, 
or fell short of, the other. 

Friday, I bought at the Juntas l eleven plays, 
and some other pieces. I saw here a printed 
copy of Boccaccio's will, with a discourse on 
the Decameron. This will shows to what as- 
tonishing poverty, to what extreme misery, this 
great man had become reduced. He leaves his 
sisters and cousins nothing but his bed and 
some bed-clothes; the few books he had are 
bequeathed to a certain monk, on condition of 
his allowing any person to see them, who 
applies for that purpose; he gives an exact 
inventory of every wretched little article of 
furniture, of every utensil he is possessed of; 
and at the end of the document, he gives direc- 
tions about his funeral, and what masses are to 
be said for him. The will is printed verbatim 
from the original, which was written on a 
ragged bit of parchment. 

The Roman and Venetian courtezans sit at 
their windows to attract visitors ; here, these 
ladies stand at the doors of their houses, where 
they remain on the look-out, during a good part 
of the day. Here you may find them, with 
more or less company, chatting, or very often 
dancing in the middle of the street, with a circle, 
of spectators round them. 

Sunday, 2d of July, I left Florence, after 
dinner, and passing the Arno, left that river on 
the right, though we still went in the direction 
of its course. We proceeded along a lovely 
and richly fertile plain, which produces among 
other things the finest melons that are grown in 
Tuscany. The best sort of melons are not ripe 
till about the middle of July. The place where 
the very choicest are produced is Legnaia, 
three miles from Florence. Our route con- 
tinued through a splendid open country, with 
castles, gentlemen's seats, detached houses, and 
villages, on one side or the other, almost the 
whole way along. Among the rest, we passed 
through a pretty place called Empoli, a name 
which to my ear smacked of the old time ; but 
I saw no vestiges of antiquity there, except, 
close by the high road, a ruined bridge, which 
had a look of something about it. 

I was struck in these parts, with three things : 
first, with seeing all the people of the district 
working on Sundays at getting in the harvest; 
secondly, with seeing the peasantry, after their 
day's labour, sitting with lutes in their hands, 
and their fair ones beside them, reciting from 
memory whole stanzas of Ariosto ; but this is 
also to be seen in every other part of Italy ; 
and, thirdly, with finding that they left their 
corn out in the fields, ten or fifteen days or 
more, without any apprehension of its being 
stolen. 



• The celebrated Florentine booksellers and printers. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



Towards evening, we arrived at 

Scala, twenty miles. There is only one inn 
here, but that is a very good one. I took no 
supper, and when I got to bed I hardly slept a 
wink, in consequence of a severe tooth-ache in 
my right jaw. I was often troubled with this 
malady, in combination with my head-aches; 
but it generally plagued me most when I was 
eating, for every thing I put into my mouth 
gave me pain. 

Monday morning, 3rd of July, we proceeded 
along a road on the banks of the Arno, which 
by and by brought us into a wide plain, covered 
with golden corn. About mid-day we arrived 
at 

Pisa, twenty miles, a town belonging to the 
Duke of Florence. It stands in a plain, on the 
banks of the Arno, which traverses its centre, 
and thence flows on to join the sea, six miles 
from the town. The river between Pisa and 
the sea is navigable by tolerably large vessels. 

The colleges and schools had just commenced 
their long vacation, which lasts the three hot- 
test months in each year. 

We found here an excellent troop of come- 
dians, called the Desiosi. 

As the inn where I at first put up did not 
please me, I hired a small furnished house, 
containing four bed-rooms and a sitting-room. 
The landlord undertook to cook for us. The 
rooms were large and handsome, and I only 
paid eight crowns a month for the whole. The 
landlord also supplied us, into the bargain, with 
table-linen, such as napkins and table-cloths, 
but this did not much add to his expenses, for 
in Italy they only give you two changes of these 
a week. We put our servants on board-wages, 
and we ourselves dined regularly at the inn, for 
tbur julios a day. 

Our house was very agreeably situated, with 
a fine view of the Arno, and the large basin 
which it forms here, and which is covered with 
merchant-vessels and boats laden with goods. 
Along the sides, are some handsome quays, like 
the Quai des Augustins, at Paris; and, over- 
looking these, are two rows of houses, among 
which was that I had hired. 

Wednesday, 5th of July, I went to see the 
cathedral, on the site of which formerly stood 
a palace of the Emperor Adrian. Here are 
an infinite number of marble columns, nearly 
all different in form and workmanship. The 
doors are made of some metal. This church 
is adorned with a variety of spoils of Greece 
and Egypt, and is itself almost entirely con- 
structed out of the ruins of the ancient edifice 
that preceded it. Every here and there, you 
sea inscriptions, some upside down, others half" 
broken off and defaced; and there are a few in 
unknown characters, said to be the ancient 
Etruscan. 

The Campanile here is an inclined one, like 
that at Bologna, deviating from the perpen- 
dicular not less than forty-two feet; it is sur- 
rounded by open pilasters and corridors. 



One day, I went to see the church of' St, 
John, an edifice full of fine sculptures and 
paintings. Among other beautiful things, is a 
marble pulpit, enriched with a number of 
figures, so exquisitely sculptured that Lorenzo, 
who, they say, killed Duke Alexander, took off 
the heads of some of them, as a present for the 
queen. 1 The form of the church closely resem- 
bles that of La Rotonda, 2 at Rome. 

The natural son of the Duke Alexander I 
spoke of, resides here. He is an old man, as 
far as I could judge. He lives very comfort- 
ably upon a pension from the present duke, 
and does not trouble his head about anything 
beyond that. His amusements are hunting 
and fishing, for which the surrounding country 
affords him every possible facility. 

There is no place in Italy which more abounds 
in holy relics, in rich works of art, in fine 
marbles, than does Pisa. 

I had very great gratification in going over 
the public mausoleum here, in the Campo 
Santo: it is an oblong building, of a very large 
size, three hundred paces long, and a hundred 
wide; the corridor that surrounds it is forty 
feet wide, and is roofed with lead, and paved 
with marble. The walls are covered with old 
paintings, among which is a portrait of a Gondi 
of Florence, the founder of the family of that 
name. 

The nobles of this town have for centuries 
been entombed under this corridor; you see 
here the names and arms of about four hundred 
families, of whom barely four now remain 
here, escaped from the ruthless sword of war, 
and the ruin of their ancient town, which, it is 
true, is still populous, but it is principally so 
with strangers. Of these noble families, among 
whom ranked marquisses, earls, and counts, 
some migrated to other parts of Christendom, 
where their descendants still flourish. 

In the middle of this building, there is an 
open space, where they still bury their dead. 
I was told that in most cases the bodies de- 
posited here, in the first eight hours swell so 
much that they seem to raise up the earth that 
covers them; eight hours after, the swelling 
goes down, and the bodies decay; and in 
another eight hours the flesh is entirely con- 
sumed, so that in twenty-four hours nothing 
remains but the bare skeleton. This is a phe- 
nomenon similar to that which takes place in 
the cemetery at Rome, where, as it is said, the 
earth thrusts back the body of any Roman that 
is deposited in it. This place is paved round 
with marble, as well as the corridor. Upon 
this marble there is a layer of earth, four or 
five feet deep, which earth, they say. WHS 
brought from Jerusalem, at the time of the 
expedition that the Pisans made there with a 
large army. By permission of the bishop, a 



i Montaigne probably refers to Uueen Catherine de 
Medicis. 
a The Pantheon. 



640 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



handful of this earth is occasionally carried away 
and put into other sepulchres, under the im- 
pression that it has the effect of consuming the 
bodies more speedily; an idea which would 
seem to gather strength from the fact, that in 
the cemetery here you find hardly any bones, 
as you do in other towns. 

The neighbouring mountains produce very 
fine marble, and the town is celebrated for the 
excellence of its works in this material. At 
this moment, they are actively engaged in pre- 
paring for the King of Fez, in Barbary, a splen- 
did set of ornaments for a theatre, of which they 
have made a design, and which, among other 
things, is to be adorned with fifty marble columns, 
of an immense height^ 

In a great many places in this town, you see 
the arms of France ; and there is a column here 
which our king Charles VIII. presented to the 
cathedral. On the wall of one house, looking 
into the street, this prince is sculptured, the 
size of life, kneeling before the Virgin, who ap- 
pears to be giving him advice. The inscription 
informs you that, as this monarch was supping 
one night in this house, there came into his 
head, all of a sudden, and quite fortuitously, a 
resolution to restore the Pisans to their former 
freedom ; wherein, says the inscription, he sur- 
passed the greatness of Alexander the Great 
himself. Among the titles of this prince, as 
set forth in this inscription, are King of Jeru- 
salem, of Sicily, <Sfc. The words which relate 
to this circumstance, of giving the Pisans their 
liberty, have been purposely defaced, so that 
they are scarcely legible. There are several 
other houses which are also decorated with the 
arms of France, to commemorate the nobility 
which the same king conferred upon their pro- 
prietors. 

There are very few remains of antiquity 
here ; the only things worth mentioning in this 
way are some ruins of a fine brick edifice, on 
the spot where the palace of Nero stood, whose 
name distinguishes these remains ; and a church 
dedicated to St. Michael, which was formerly a 
temple of Mars. 

On Thursday, St. Peter's day, it was men- 
tioned to me that formerly the Bishop of Pisa 
went in procession to the church of St. Peter, 
four miles from the town, and thence to the 
eea-side, where, casting a ring into the ocean, 
he solemnly espoused it; but at that time Pisa 
possessed a very powerful navy. At present 
the sea is married by deputy, by one of the 
masters of the college, who is not accompanied 
by anything at all in the shape of a procession. 
The clergy go no further than the church, 
where they distribute a number of indulgences. 
The pope's bull, which dates about 400 years 
back, says, upon the authority of a book which 
contains more than 1200 of thorn, that this 
church was built by St. Peter, and that while 
St. Clement ' was officiating in it, at a marble 



Hia successor. 



table, there fell upon the table three drops of 
blood from the holy father's nose. These drops 
of blood still remain, and are as fresh as though 
they had fallen yesterday. The Genoese, a 
good many years ago, came and broke off a 
piece of this table, in order to get possession of 
one of these drops of blood ; whereupon the 
Pisans forthwith removed the rest of the table 
from the church, and took it into the town. 
But every year, on St. Peter's day, it is car- 
ried to the church in procession, accompanied 
by almost the entire population, some on foot, 
some on horseback, others in boats. 

Friday, 7th of July, I went, early in the 
morning, to see the cassino, or farm, belonging 
to Peter de Medici, two miles from the town. 
This nobleman possesses immense property in 
this neighbourhood, which he makes exceed- 
ingly productive, by the plan of, every five 
years, putting upon the estate a set of' new 
labourers, who, in return for their services, re- 
ceive half the fruit and vegetables, to the culti- 
vation of which a considerable portion of ground 
is applied. The arable parts of the estate are 
fertile in the highest degree, and an immense 
quantity of all sorts of sheep and cattle are 
raised on the pastures. I dismounted from my 
horse in order the better to examine the details 
of the farm-house, and found an immense num- 
ber of persons engaged in making cream, butter, 
cheese, &c.,'the apparatus for all which was on 
the most extensive scale. 

Thence, crossing the plain, I rode on to the 
shore of the Tuscan Sea, where, on the right 
hand, I saw before me Ereci, and on the left, 
a good deal nearer me, Leghorn, a town with a 
castle, quite on the edge of the sea. From this 
point, you have a view of the Isle of Gorgona, 
and beyond it of that of Caprea, with Corsica 
in the extreme distance. I turned to the left, 
and rode along the sea shore, till we came to 
the mouth of the Arno, the entrance of which 
is very difficult for vessels of any size, in con- 
sequence of the mud and earth which are 
brought down into the Arno by the different 
streams which run into it, and which form in 
heaps at its mouth. I bought some fish here, 
which T sent to the actresses of the Pisa theatre. 
Along the banks of this river, you see a great 
many thickets of the tamarisk tree. I bought 
next day, a small runlet, made of the wood of 
this tree, and had it hooped with silver, for 
which part of the bargain, I gave a goldsmith 
three crowns. I bought also an Indian cane, 
as a walking-staff, for which I paid six julios; 
and a small vase and cup made of Indian nut, 2 
said, like the tamarisk, to be good against the 
spleen and the gravel, and for these I gave 
eight julios. 

The person of whom I bought these things, 
a man of great note as a mathematical instru- 
ment maker, told me that trees have all within 
them as many rings and circles as they number 



1 Probably the cocoa-nut. 



HJ 



k 



J 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



641 



years. He showed me examples of this in 
.every kind of wood in his shop, for he is a 
turner by trade. Those trees in a forest which 
look northwards, have these rings closer and 
thicker than the trees which stand in other 
directions; and this person told me that this 
was so invariably the case, that by looking 
at a piece of timber, he could tell how old the 
tree was, whence it came, and in what direction 
it had stood. 

About this time, I was extremely annoyed 
with several attacks of a kind of heavy, dull, 
head-ache, accompanied with a constipation so 
severe, that I had not a single stool, except by 
the aid of medicine, a bad and treacherous 
assistant. As to the stone, it was much as 
usual. 

The air of this place was for a long time 
considered very unhealthy; but since Duke 
Cosmo drained the marshes, which used to sur- 
round it almost on all sides, the air has become 
very good. Formerly, indeed, the place was 
so bad in this respect, that when the govern 
ment wanted to get rid of a man, they banished 
him to Pisa, where his business was settled in 
a very short time, and he gave the state no 
further trouble than to bury him. 

The Tuscan princes have at various periods 
taken a great deal of pains to introduce par- 
tridges in this neighbourhood ; but, somehow 
or other, they have never succeeded, and no such 
thing as a partridge is to be found here. 

I had received several visits from Jerome 
Borro, a doctor of physic; so on the 14th I 
went to see him in turn, when he made me a 
present of his book, on the Flux and Reflux 
of the Sea, written in the vernacular. He 
showed me another book he has written, in 
Latin, upon the various maladies of the body. 

The same day, twenty-one Turkish slaves 
made their escape from the arsenal, near my 
house ; and getting possession of a frigate full 
rigged, which Signor Alessandro del Piombino 
had left unguarded while he went fishing, set 
sail and got clear off. 

The Arno, and the canal which it forms as 
it traverses the town, some of the churches, and 
a few old ruins, and some private edifices, are 
well worth seeing ; but, in other respects, Pisa 
presents few points of attraction. It is, in 
some sense, a deserted place, and in its solitude, 
the form of its buildings, its size, and the width 
of its streets, it bears a close resemblance to 
Pistoia. One of its greatest defects is the bad 
quality of the water, which has a horribly 
marshy taste. 

The inhabitants are very poor, but not the 
less haughty and intractable, and rude towards 
strangers, and more especially so towards the 
French, ever since the death of one of their 
bishops, Pierre Paul de Bourbon, who claimed 
to be of our royal blood, and whose family 
still exists here. This bishop was so attached 
to our nation, and was of so generous a nature, 
that all the French who came here were enter- 
54* 



tained in his palace. This excellent prelate 
left behind him, throughout his diocese, the 
highest character for virtue and kindness. He 
only died within the last five or six years. 

On the 17th of July, I took part in a raffle, 
at a crown a head, for some clothes and other 
things, the property of an actor, named Farg- 
nocola. There were twenty-six of us in the 
raffle, and we threw first to decide who should 
play first, who second, and so on. As there 
were several prizes to be won, it was agreed 
that the two who threw highest and lowest, 
should be the winners. For my part, I played 
second, and got nothing. 

On the 18th, there was a grand squabble at 
the church of St. Peter's, between the priests 
of the cathedral and the monks. The evening 
before, a gentleman of Pisa had been buried 
in the church, and in the morning the priests 
came with all their paraphernalia for celebrating 
mass. The monks denied their right to do 
this; the priests contended that it had been 
their undoubted privilege and practice from 
time immemorial; the monks, on the other 
hand, maintained that it was their privilege, 
and nobody else's, to say mass in their own 
church. A priest then approached the high 
altar, and attempted to take possession of the 
table there ; a monk went up to him, and tried 
to make him let go, whereupon one of the 
vicars hit the monk a slap on the face. This 
was a signal for hostilities, which then began 
in good style on both sides : from slaps on the 
face they got to fisticuffs; and from fisticuffs 
to fighting with sticks, candlesticks, tapers, 
and anything else they could lay hands upon. 
The result of the battle was that neither party 
said mass, and that everybody was terribly 
scandalized. As soon as I heard of it, I went 
to the place, and heard the rights of the 
affair. 

On the 22d, at day-break, three Turkish 
corsairs landed on the coast, not far from us. 
and carried off as prisoners fifteen or twenty 
poor devils of fishermen and shepherds. 

On the 25th, I went to call on Cornacchico. 
the celebrated Pisan physician and professor. 
This gentleman lives after a fashion of his own, 
altogether opposed to the rules of his art. He 
goes to sleep after dinner, drinks a hundred 
times a day, &.c. He showed me some verses 
of his composition, in the Pisan dialect, which 
were pleasant enough. He has no great opinion 
of the Baths in the vicinity of Pisa, but thinks 
highly of Bacnacqua, about sixteen miles off. 
These Baths, according to him, are of marvel- 
lous efficacy in liver complaints (and he told 
me of some very extraordinary cures), and also 
very good for the stone and the cholic; but, 
before using them, he is of opinion that one 
should use the Delia Villa waters. He is con- 
vinced, he said, that, with the exception of 
bleeding, physic has no remedy equal to baths, 
if you only know how to employ them pro- 
perly. He also told me, that at the Baths of 
2q 



J 



642 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



Bagnacqua the lodgings are very good, and 
that you are very comfortable there. 

On the 26th, 1 passed, in the morning, some 
water thicker and blacker than I ever passed 
it before, and with it a small stone ; but, not- 
withstanding this, the pain that had been tor- 
menting me for about twenty hours before, 
below the navel, did not lessen ; as, however, 
it did not affect either the reins or the sides, 
it was endurable. Some time after I passed 
another small stone, and the pain went away. 

Thursday, 27th, early in the morning, we 
left Pisa, where I had found occasion to be 
abundantly gratified with the kindnesses I re- 
ceived from MM. Vintavinti, Lorenzo, Conti, 
Sanminiato (this last gentleman, who lodges in 
the house of the Cavaliere Camillo Gaetana, 
offered me his brother to accompany me into 
France), Borro, and others, merchants and 
tradespeople, with whom I had made acquaint- 
ance. 1 feel sure that, had I wanted money, 
I should have been furnished with it, though 
the people here have a character for being 
haughty and rude ; but, somehow or other, 
civility begets civility. 

On our way, we passed a great many houses, 
and saw quantities of nuts and mushrooms 
growing on both sides of the road. After a 
tiresome ride over the plain, we got to what 
are called the Baths of Pisa, situated at the 
foot of a slight ascent. There are several 
baths here, on one of which is a Latin inscrip- 
tion, on marble, which I could not very well 
make out, further than that it celebrates, in 
rhyme, the virtues of these baths, and is dated, 
as far as I could decipher, a. d. 1300. 

The largest and best of these baths is a square 
building-, with one of its sides open. It is ex- 
ceedingly well arranged, and has a handsome 
marble staircase. It is thirty paces long, on 
every side. The spring is in one of the corners ; 
I drank a little, just to see what sort it was, 
and found it without smell or taste, except 
perhaps, that it left a slight sharpness on the 
tongue; the heat is moderate, so that you have 
no difficulty in drinking off the water at once. 

I looked into the water, and saw the same 
sort of white stuff floating about, that annoyed 
rae at the baths of Baden, and which I then 
took to be some filth or other that got into it 
from the outside; but I now imagine that it is 
the result of some mineral decomposition, and 
I am the more inclined to this opinion from the 
circumstance, that this matter is in greater 
quantity close to the spring, where otherwise 
the water would be purer and clearer. The 
lodgings here are very indifferent, and the place 
has a most desert appearance; the baths, in- 
deed, are very little frequented, and the few 
who do use them generally come in the morn- 
ing from Pisa, which is only four miles off, and 
return home the same day. 

The great bath has no roof, and is the only 
one that has any appearance of antiquity about 
it : it is, perhaps, for this reason that the people 



here call it the Bath of Nero. It is said that 
this emperor had the water conveyed to his 
palace at Pisa, by an acqueduct. 

There is another bath, with a slight covering 
over it, which is used by the poor people; the 
water in it is very pure. It is said to be very 
good for all diseases of the liver. You drink 
the same quantity of water here that is pre- 
scribed at the other baths I have visited, and 
after drinking it, you walk about to assist the 
operation. After looking over these baths, we 
proceeded up the hill, and at its summit came 
upon one of the finest prospects in the world, 
embracing hill and valley, continent and island, 
sea and cities ; the two principal towns which 
lay before us being Leghorn and Pisa. De- 
scending the hill, we once more found ourselves 
in the plain, over which we proceeded until we 
came to 

Lucca, ten miles. This morning I passed 
another stone, a great deal larger than those 
that preceded it, and that had every appear- 
ance of having been detached from a still 
more considerable body. God knows how this 
may be : his will be done ! In the inn where 
we lodged, we were charged the same as at 
Pisa, namely, four julios a-day for each of the 
gentlemen, and three julios for each of the 
servants. 

On the 28th, I was induced by the kind and 
pressing solicitations of M. Louis Pinatesi.'to 
accept of a suite of apartments in his house, 
consisting of five bed-rooms, sitting-room, and 
a kitchen. The rooms were low, but very neat 
and clean, and well furnished in the Italian 
style, which in many respects is inferior to our 
fashion. It must be admitted that the fine 
arched roofs and ceilings, which form so promi- 
nent a feature in Italian architecture, the lofty 
porticoes, and the high, wide doors, add very 
much to the effect of the houses here. The 
gentry of Lucca take their meals, during the 
summer months, in the porticoes, in the sight 
of every body. 

In fact, I have always been, not merely well, 
but agreeably lodged, in every place that I have 
stopped at in Italy, except at Florence (where 
I did not quit my inn, though I found it very 
uncomfortable, especially when it was hotter 
than usual), and Venice, where we put up with 
very unsatisfactory accommodations, merely 
because we were going to make so short a 
stay, that it did not seem worth while to 
change. My own chamber here at Lucca, was 
quite private, and nothing was wanting to 
make it perfectly convenient and agreeable. 
1 experienced no annoyance or interruption. 
Even the politest attentions are sometimes 
troublesome and tedious, but here I was very 
seldom interrupted by the people of the place. 
I slept and studied just when and as I liked ; 
and when I took it into, my head to go out 
for a walk, I always found plenty of men and 
women to chat with; and then the shops, 
the churches, and the change of scene, altoge- 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



643 



ther furnished me with materials for satisfying 
my curiosity. 
» Amidst these various recreations, my mind 
was as tranquil as my infirmities and the ap- 
proach of old age 1 would permit; there was 
very little out of myself to disturb it. All that 
I felt was the want of a suitable companion, 
, with whom to interchange feelings and opin- 
ions, which the constant novelties gave rise to. 
As it was, I had no one but myself to whom 1 
could communicate the sentiments of delight 
which each stage of my journey produced. 

The Lucchese are excellent players at foot- 
ball, and almost every day there are matches 
played at this game. It is not the custom here, 
and you very seldom see it done, for men to 
ride on horseback in the streets, and it is quite 
as unusual for them to ride in coaches; the 
ladies ride on mules, attended by a running- 
fbotman. Strangers have a great deal of 
trouble in getting lodgings or houses, for there 
are so few visitors who come to stay at all, that 
no arrangements are made for them, and the 
town itself is pretty full of its own population. 
They asked me at one place seventy crowns 
a-month, for a very ordinary set of apartments, 
consisting only of four furnished bed-rooms, a 
sitting-room, and kitchen. There is very little 
society kept up at Lucca ; for almost every soul 
in the place, man, woman, and child, is for ever 
at work, manufacturing or selling the stuffs 
which are the staple trade of the town. It is 
therefore a somewhat dull and disagreeable 
place for strangers. 

On the 10th of August, we took a ride into 
the country in company with several gentlemen 
of Lucca, who lent me horses for the occasion. 
There are a number of very pretty country- 
houses in the environs, about three or four miles 
from the town, with handsome porticoes and 
long balconies, which have an extremely good 
effect. I noticed one large balcony in part' 
cular, full arched on the inside, and covered on 
the outside with a magnificent vine. 

My headache sometimes left me for five or 
six days, or more, but I never got quite clear 
of it. 

I had taken it into my head, some time back 
to study Tuscan, and to get thoroughly ac 
quainted with its principles, and I devoted a 
good deal of time and trouble to this pursuit, 
but I made very indifferent progress. 

The heat this summer was much greater here 
than is usually the case. 

On the 12th I rode a little way out of Lucca, 
to see the country-house of M. Benedelto 
Buonvisi, which did not strike me as particu- 
larly handsome. Among other things, I ob- 
served several artificial thickets, which are 
very much in fashion about here, and are 
formed in this way, and for this purpose: upon 
an elevated piece of ground they plant a dia- 



l Montaigne, IIioiil-Ii lit' talks hern about tliu approach of 
old age, was only in liis foriy-cighlh year- 



meter of about fifty paces, with all sorts of ever- 
greens, intersected with very narrow covered 
paths, and surrounded witli a small ditch. In 
the middle of this thicket, there is an open 
space, where the huntsman, at a certain time 
of the year, towards November, places himself, 
provided with a silver whistle, and some tame 
thrushes, trained for the purpose, and by means 
of these and bird-lime, disposed about in the 
different little lanes or runs, they sometimes 
catch two hundred thrushes in a single morn- 
ing. This is only done in a particular district, 
near the town. 

Sunday, 13th, I left Lucca ; I had previously 
ordered one of the servants to offer M. Louis 
Pinatesi fifteen crowns, for the apartments he 
had given up to me in his house (which was at 
the rate of a crown a-day), and he was very 
well satisfied. 

That day, we went to see several country- 
houses belonging to different Lucchese, all of 
which had their various beauties. There is 
plenty of water, but it has to be brought 
by artificial canals. It is, indeed, quite sur- 
prising to find so few springs in so hilly a 
country. 

The source whence they derive their supplies 
of water is the streams which run in different 
directions; from these they cut small canals, 
which bring the water to the place where it is 
required, and it is then raised, in various orna- 
mental shapes, through vases, figures, and so 
on. We got in the evening to a country-house 
belonging to M. Pinatesi, where we were en- 
tertained by M. Horace, his son, who accom- 
panied us. He gave us an excellent supper, 
which was laid out in a large balcony, where 
we had all the enjoyment of the fresh air. 
After this, he provided us with beds, each of 
us having a separate room, and we had plenty 
of fine clean linen, of the same excellent quality 
with that which had been furnished us in the 
house of his father at Lucca. 

Monday, early in the morning, we left this 
place, and on our way made a call, but with- 
out dismounting, at the country-house of the 
bishop, who happened to be at home. We were 
received with much politeness by his people, 
and were asked to stop and dine, but we pre- 
ferred going on at once to the 

Baths Delia Villa, fifteen miles, where I met 
with a cordial reception from all the gentlemen 
and ladies there, who, indeed, were so kind in 
their manner, that it seemed quite as though 
I had returned home, amidst relations and 
friends who had been long expecting me. I 
took up my quarters in my old lodgings, upon 
the same conditions as before, and on the same 
terms, namely, twenty crowns a-month. 

Tuesday, 15th August, I went early in the 
morning to bathe, and remained in the water 
somewhat less than an hour; it seemed to 
me rather cold, and did not make me perspire 
at all. At the time of my return here, 
I was well, and in excellent spirits. Upon 



J 



J 



644 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



) 



leaving the bath, I passed some very thick 
water; in the evening, after I had taken a 
rather long walk up the hill, I found that my 
water was tinged with blood; and when I 
got to bed, I felt a great deal of pain in the 
bladder. 

On the 16th I repeated the bath, and in 
order to be by myself, I bathed in the women's 
bath, which I had never before visited. It ap- 
peared to me too hot, either because it really 
was so, or because my pores being opened by 
the previous bath, I felt the heat more ; how- 
ever I remained in the water more than an 
hour. I perspired a little; the water that 
afterwards came from me was natural, and 
unaccompanied with gravel. After dinner, 
however, the water I passed was thick and 
red, and towards evening was again tinged 
with blood. 

On the 17th, I went into the same bath, 
which then appeared more temperate. I did 
not perspire much ; there was a little gravel in 
the water I voided; and my complexion had 
assumed a sort of jaundice hue. 

On the 18th, I remained two hours in the 
same bath. There was a very disagreeable 
feeling of weight about the bladder ; as to my 
stomach, it was as open as was necessary. 
From the first day of my return here, I was 
annoyed with flatulence, and this I have 
hesitation in attributing to these waters; for. 
when I was here before, I found precisely the 
same effect from the same cause. 

On the 19th, I bathed somewhat later in the 
day, in order to give time for a lady of Lucca 
to bathe before me, for it is a very reasonable 
rule here, that the ladies shall have the use of 
their bath for their own full time. I stayed in 
the water two hours. 

My head, for several days, had been very 
well; but to-day I felt a heaviness in that 
quarter. My water was still very thick, and 
contained a good deal of gravel. I felt also a 
great deal of commotion in the reins, which I 
take to be one of the principal effects of these 
baths. They not only dilate and open the pas- 
sages, but they project the matter, dissipate it, 
and eventually make it disappear. The gravel 
that I passed seemed to be pieces of broken 
stone, recently separated. 

In the night I felt, in the left side, the com- 
mencement of an attack of cholic, which had 
every promise of being a very severe and pain- 
ful one, and it plagued me for some time, but 
without getting worse, and at last went off, 
without descending to the lower part of the 



stomach, and in a way that induced me to sup- 
pose it was only wind. 

On the 20th, I remained two hours in the 
bath. Throughout the day, I had a great deal 
of pain in the lower part of the belly, from 
flatulence. My water was still thick and red, 
and contained some gravel. My head ached, 
and my stomach was more out of order than 
usual. 



They do not observe saints' days, nor even 
Sundays, so religiously here, as is the case 
amongst us ; the women do most of their work 
after dinner. 

On the 21st, after taking my bath, I felt a 
great deal of pain in my reins ; my water was 
abundant and thick, and brought some gravel 
with it. I conceived that these pains were 
occasioned by wind, which I was now exces- 
sively troubled with. The state of my water 
lately made me anticipate the descent of some 
large stone, and I was right enough in this. 
During the morning, I wrote the preceding 
portion of my journal, and then went to dinner ; 
and I had no sooner finished this meal, than I 
had a horrible attack of cholic ; to which, in 
order to keep me quite on the alert, was added 
a frightful tooth-ache in the left jaw, a malady 
to which I had never been subject. Not being 
able to endure so much misery up, I went to 
bed in about a couple of hours, and here my 
tooth-ache soon left me. The cholic, however, 
continued in full force, and as I found from 
the flatulence that, sometimes on one side, 
sometimes on the other, constantly annoyed 
me, that it was rather wind than the stone that 
disturbed me, I was obliged to ask for a clyster, 
which accordingly they gave me in the evening, 
r as made up by the apothecary with due propor- 
nt^/tions of oil, camomile, and aniseed-water. My \ 
landlord, Captain Paulino, administered it him- 
self, with a great deal of skill and address, 
concluding with the recommendation that I 
should retain the remedy within me as long as 
I could, a recommendation which I had no sort 
of difficulty in following, and I did retain it 
for three hours, when I thought it better to 
void the greater part of it. When I was out 
of bed, I swallowed, with a great deal of dif- 
ficulty, a little marchpane and four spoonfuls of 
wine ; I then returned to bed, and slept for a 
short time. In the course of the day, the re- 
medy I had taken produced such effects, that 
the next morning I found myself infinitely 
better, the flatulence having, to a great extent, 
disappeared. I felt very fatigued, but had no 
pain. At dinner, I ate a little, but without 
appetite ; and although I was thirsty, the wine 
I drank had no flavour. After dinner, the 
tooth-ache returned in my left jaw, and made 
me suffer a great deal till I went to bed. As I 
was convinced that the flatulence was occa- 
sioned by the bathing, 1 did not take a bath, 
and slept very well all night. 

On awaking the following morning, I felt 
myself weary and low-spirited, my mouth dry, 
with a bad taste, and my breath very feverish. 
I did not, however, feel any actual illness, but 
my water continued very thick and bad. 

At last, on the 24th, in the morning, I felt a 
stone, which, after making some way, stopped 
in the passage until dinner-time, when I passed 
it with a great deal of pain, and the loss of a ^ 
good deal of blood, both before and after it* 
exit. It was of the size and length of a pine- 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



645 



nut, on one side as broad as a bean, and exactly 
resembling in form the member through which 
it had passed. I felt infinite delight when I 
had got rid of it, though the passage was very 
painful : for I had never before voided so large 
a stone. I knew very well that something 
unusual was at hand; I shall see, thought I, 
what the result is. 

It would be weak and cowardly in me, to the 
last degree, if, living in the constant danger 
of dying from this cause, and death, besides, 
approaching me, in the due course of nature, 
nearer and nearer every moment, I were not to 
brace myself up, and unceasingly prepare my- 
self to meet the common fate, when it befals 
me. Reason enjoins us to receive with joy 
and gratitude the good it may please God to 
send us; and as to the ills which come upon 
mortals from every quarter, and at every mo- 
ment, the sole remedy against them, the simple 
rule for meeting them, whatever they may be, 
is to resolve either to endure them like a man, 
or at once, like a man, promptly and bravely to 
put an effectual end to them. 

On the 25th of August, my water resumed 
its natural colour, and I found myself as well 
as before. I suffered, indeed, both day and 
night, from head-ache, but the attacks were 
soon over, and by no means so painful as they 
were before. 

On the 26th, 1 went into the bath in the 
morning, and remained there two hours. 

On the 27th, after dinner, I wis so tortured 
with the tooth-ache, that I sent for the doctor, 
who, having carefully examined the seat of the 
disorder, was of opinion — an opinion corrobo- 
rated by the circumstance that the pain had 
already subsided — that the disorder was not 
occasioned by any local cause, but was owing 
to the wind, and to the stomach being other- 
wise out of order; and I was disposed to concur 
with him in this view of the matter, from hav- 
ing, at different times, had pains all over me, 
arising, as I imagine, from the same source. 

Monday, 28th of August, I went early in the 
morning to Barnaby's spring, and drank seven 
pounds and four ounces of the water, reckoning 
twelve ounces to the pound. They operated 
before dinner, and I voided about half the 
quantity I had taken. I had no difficulty in 
perceiving that this water gave me a feeling of 
weight and confusion in the head. 

Tuesday, 29th, I drank at the common spring 
nine glasses, each containing eleven ounces, and 
I had immediately afterwards a severe head- 
ache. It is true, that my head was by no means 
in a good state, and I had not, indeed, been 
myself, in this respect, ever since the first batli 
I took ; but of late, I had not been so much 
troubled with it as I used to be, a month or so 
ago, and there had not been the same weakness 
in my eyes. Whenever I had a head-ache, it 
brought on a tooth-ache, always in the left jaw, 
which would become thoroughly affected, to 
the very back teeth, and even to the ear, and 



part of the nose. The pain, indeed, did not last 
long, but it was very severe, and came on fre- 
quently. 

I am convinced that the vapour of this water, 
whether you bathe in, or only drink it (though 
more so in the former case), is very bad for the 
head, and even still more injurious for the sto- 
mach ; and this is the reason why the visitors 
here are obliged to take physic, to remedy this 
disadvantage. 

From one morning to another, I generally 
passed, within a pound or so, all the water I had 
taken, including what I drank at my meals, 
which, however, was no great deal, not a pound 
a day. To-day, after dinner, towards sun-set, 
I went into the water, where I remained three 
quarters of an hour, and on the following morn- 
ing I perspired a little. 

August 30th, I drank two glasses, holding 
nine ounces each, and of these eighteen ounces 
I had passed half before dinner. 

Thursday, I drank nothing, but mounted a 
horse, and went to see Controna, a populous 
village among the mountains. I went over 
several of the fine fertile plains that lie between 
the hills here, and observed several excellent 
pasture-grounds, nearly at the top of some of 
the loftiest elevations. The village I speak of, 
has several small farms attached to it, and has 
some neat stone houses, roofed with stone. I 
took a tolerably wide circuit before I returned 
home. 

I was not at all satisfied with the manner in 
which the water I had drunk latterly had come 
away from me, and I made up my mind, there- 
fore, to give up the drinking of it altogether. 

Friday, 1st of September, 1581, I bathed for 
an hour in the morning; before I had left the 
bath, I perspired a little, and, when 1 passed 
my water afterwards, I found it accompanied 
with a great quantity of red gravel. When I 
drank the waters, I passed hardly any. My 
water was much as usual, that is to say, in 
very bad condition. I began to get tired and 
annoyed with these baths; so much so, that 
had I received at this juncture the news from 
France, which for four months I had been 
fruitlessly expecting, I should have left the 
place forthwith, and have spent the autumn at 
some other bath, I cared not much which, 
wherever there seemed a chance of benefit ; and 
there were several of these : for on the way to 
Rome, there lay, at a short distance from the 
high road, the Baths of Bagnacqua, of Sienna, 
and of Viterbo ; and, on the road to Venice, 
those of Bologna and Padua. 

While I was at Pisa, I had my arms em- 
blazoned, in fine rich colours and gold, on 
canvass; and I now had the canvass framed, 
and carefully affixed against the wall of the 
chamber which I occupied, at Captain Pau- 
lino's, on condition that it was to be considered 
as a fixture there, as given to the house, not to 
the master of the house, and that these my 
arms were not to be removed from the place 



646 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



where I had them fixed, under any circum- 
stances that might happen, and this condition 
the captain promised me, and gave me his oath, 
he would strictly abide by. 

Sunday, the 3d, I went to the bath, and re- 
mained there rather more than an hour. I felt 
a good deal of flatulency, but it was not accom- 
panied with pain. 

In the night, and on the morning of Monday, 
the 4th, I was cruelly tormented with the tooth- 
ache ; and I began to suspect that these repeated 
attacks must arise from some decayed tooth. 
I chewed mastic all the morning, without get- 
ting any relief. Towards dinner-time, and for 
three or four hours after, the pain left me ; but 
about twenty o'clock, 1 it returned with such 
violence, and in both jaws, that I could not 
stand. The disorder was so violent, indeed, 
that it made me feel quite sick. Sometimes I 
was all in a perspiration, at other times I was 
shivering. And now again that the pain had 
hecome general, I doubted whether it could 
arise from a decayed tooth; for though the 
pain was greatest on the left side, it was some- 
times very violent in the temples, and in the 
chin, and extended even to the throat and both 
shoulders, so that I passed the most horrible 
night that ever I went through; I was mad 
with anguish and rage. 

In the course of the night, I sent for an 
apothecary, who gave me some brandy to hold 
in the part of the mouth where I suffered most, 
and this gave me great relief The instant that 
I got the cordial into my mouth, all the pain 
ceased, but, as soon as the brandy became ab- 
sorbed, the malady returned. I had thus the 
glass in continual requisition; but I could not 
keep any of the liquor in my mouth ; for the 
moment that, by its influence, the pain left me, 
the fatigue I had endured made me drop off to 
sleep, and then the brandy would get down my 
throat, and half choke me, before I could spit 
it out again. The pain, however, left me of 
itself towards daybreak. 

Tuesday morning, all the gentlemen who were 
at the Baths came to see me in bed. After they 
were gone, I had a small mastic plaster applied 
to the left temple, and I was not much troubled 
with the pain all that day. When night came, 
they put hot lint on the cheek, and on the left 
side of the head. I slept free from pain, but 
'twas somewhat a disturbed sleep. 

Wednesday, I had still some remains of the 
malady, both in the teeth and in the left eye ; 
my sleep, as on the day before, was free from 
pain, but disturbed. I passed gravel with my 
water, but not in so great a quantity as when 
I was here in the first instance ; the gravel had 
sometimes the appearance of small red millet. 

Thursday morning, 7th of September, I went 
into the grand bath, and remained there an 
hour. 

The same morning, I received, by way of 



i Six in the evening. 



Rome, a letter from M. Tausin, dated Bor- 
deaux, 2d of August, wherein he informed me 
that, on the preceding day, I had been unani- 
mously elected mayor of Bordeaux, and my 
correspondent called upon me to accept this 
office, for the love of my country. 

Sunday, 10th of September, I bathed for an 
hour, in the morning, in the women's bath, 
and, as it was somewhat warm, I perspired a 
little. 

After dinner, I rode out by myself, to have a 
look at some other places in the neighbourhood, 
more especially a small country-seat called 
Gragnaiola, situated at the very top of one of 
the highest mountains of the district. As I rode 
along the high lands, I saw some of the most 
fertile and most agreeable hill scenery that ever 
came under my observation. 

I got into conversation with some of the 
people of the place, and, among other things, 
asked one very old man whether they ever 
made use of the baths in- their vicinity ; and he 
replied that it was very much the same case 
with them, as with the people who live too near 
Our Lady of Loretto; the latter very seldom 
go a pilgrimage to the shrine, and the people 
here as rarely visit the baths, leaving them 
to operate almost entirely for the benefit of 
strangers. He added that, of late years, he had 
perceived with regret that these baths did more 
hurt than good to the persons who used them, 
which he attributed to the circumstance, that, 
whereas formerly there was not one single 
apothecary in the whole district, and that it 
was an exceedingly rare thing to see a physi- 
cian pay them a visit, the whole place now 
swarmed with these people, who, to promote 
their own ends, have spread abroad this notion ; 
that the baths are of no avail, unless you physic 
yourself, not only before and after you bathe, 
but even while you are bathing; and that to 
drink the waters is useless, unless you mix some 
medicine or other with them. The result was, 
he observed, that more people died at these 
baths than were cured there ; and he was fully 
convinced that, before long, the baths altoge- 
ther would get into complete disgrace, and be 
altogether abandoned. 

Monday, 11th of September, I passed in the 
morning a great deal of gravel, almost all of 
which was of the form of round, firm, millet, 
red on the outside, and grey within. 

September the 12th, 1581, we left the Baths 
Delia Villa, early in the morning, and got by 
dinner-time to 

Lucca, fourteen miles. The vintage was just 
commencing. The festival of the Holy Cross 
is one of the principal holidays observed here; 
on this occasion, all persons belonging to the 
town, who are keeping away on account of 
debt, are permitted to come and spend eight 
days with their friends, that they may be able 
to take part in the devotions which mark the 
festival. 

Throughout Italy, I have not been able to 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



C4T 



get hold of one single barber that could either 
shave me, or cut or arrange my hair properly. 

On Wednesday evening, we went to hear 
vespers in the cathedral, where almost the 
entire population was assembled. The Volto 
Santo ' was exhibited, an image held in great 
veneration by the Lucchese, from its great an- 
tiquity, and its having performed a vast number 
of miracles. The cathedral was built expressly 
as a worthy receptacle for this sacred relic ; the 
small chapel, in which it is generally kept, 
stands in the very centre of the cathedral, 
where, certainly, it has a very awkward ap- 
pearance, and evidently violates all the rules 
of architecture. When vespers were over, the 
whole assembly, churchmen and laymen, pro- 
ceeded to another church, which formerly was 
the cathedral. 

Thursday, I heard mass in the choir of the 
cathedral, where were assembled all the officers 
of state. They are very fond of music here ; 
you hardly ever meet with either man or woman 
that does not know something of one instru- 
ment or another ; and every body sings, though 
fine voices are rare. The mass that I heard was 
no great things; the only point aimed at, ap- 
parently, was who should shout loudest. They 
had constructed, for this occasion, an immense 
high altar of wood and pasteboard, which was 
covered with images, large candlesticks, and 
silver cups and plates, ranged as on a side- 
board, that is to say, a large bason in the mid- 
dle, and four dishes round it. The altar was 
covered in this way from bottom to top, 
produced a very grand effect. 

Every time the bishop says mass, as he did 
on this occasion, at the instant that he com- 
mences Gloria in excelsis, they set fire to a 
large bundle of tow, placed in some iron grat- 
ing that is suspended for this purpose in the 
middle of the church. 

The weather here was already getting cold 
and damp. 

Friday, 15th of September, I passed at least 
twice as much water as I had taken in the last 
twenty-four hours, so that if there had remained 
in me any of the bath water, I imagine every 
drop of it must have left me now. 

Saturday morning, I passed, without any 
pain, a small rough stone; I had felt it during 
the night in the lower part of the stomach. > 

Sunday, lbth of September, took place the 
change of the gonfaloniers of the town, 2 and I 
went to witness the ceremony at the palace. 
They make hardly any distinction here between 
Sundays and other days; they work on Sun- 
days, and keep many of the shops open, just 
the same as in week days. 

Wednesday, 20th of September, after dinner, 
I left Lucca, having previously had packed up 
a number of things in two chests, which I sent 
off direct for France. 



i The Sacred Face, a very ancient coclar crosB. 
•J Or, more correctly, the election of the c»nfalonier of 
the republic, who was Changed every two months. 



We proceeded along a tolerable road, through 
a sterile district of country, which reminded me 
very much of the Landes of Gascony. On our 
way we crossed a large stream that works the 
duke's iron-milis, over a bridge built by that 
nobleman, with a handsome house on this side 
of it. On your right hand, close to this place, 
there are three fish-ponds, full of eels; the bot- 
tom of these ponds is paved with bricks, and the 
water is so shallow that you can see the fish 
quite plain. We crossed the Arno at Fusec- 
chio, and got in the evening to 

Scala, twenty miles, which we left at day- 
break, and rode on through a very pretty un- 
dulating country, closely resembling the gene- 
ral character of the scenery of France. 

We passed through Castel Fiorentino, a small 
walled town, and then through Certaldo, which 
is close to it, a fine town with a castle, standing 
upon a hill. This is the native place of Boc- 
caccio. We reached by dinner-time 

Poggibonzi, eighteen miles, a small place, 
whence, after a short halt, we rode on to 

Sienna, twelve miles. You feel the cold at 
this time of the year much more sensibly in 
Italy than you do in France. 

The great square of Sienna is the finest in 
Italy. Mass is said here every day in public, 
at an altar so placed, that all the people who 
live in the square, or are at work there, can 
hear the service, without leaving their houses, 
or laying aside what they are about. At the 
moment of elevation, a trumpet sounds, to give 
notice to the public. 

Sunday, 23d of September, after dinner, we 
left Sienna, and by an easy, though somewhat 
unequal road, for the country is hilly, got to 

San Chirico, a small town and castle, twenty 
miles from Sienna. We lodged at an inn out- 
side the walls. The horse that carried our bag- 
gage had fallen, on the road, into a stream that 
we forded, and all my clothes, and, what was 
worse, my books, got wet, so that we had to 
stay till they were thoroughly dried. Among 
the places that we passed on our left were 
Montepulciano, Montecello, and Castiglion- 
cello. 

Early on Monday morning, I rode over to 
a bath, two miles off, called Vignone, after a 
small castle that stands near it. The bath is 
situated on a gentle elevation, at the foot of 
which runs the river Urcia. There are about 
a dozen small, mean, inconvenient houses here, 
and the whole place has a beggarly appearance. 
The principal bath is a large pond, about sixty 
paces long, and twenty-five wide, surrounded 
by a wall. The water, which rises through 
several springs, has no flavour of sulphur about 
it, and there is very little vapour from it. It 
deposits a reddish sediment, and seemed to me 
to have more of iron in it than of any thing 
else. They do not drink it. Around this large 
bath, which is kept very neat and clean, there 
are several smaller ones, covered in, and which 
are more generally used. 



648 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



The waters that the people about here drink 
are those of San Cassieno, which is near San 
Chirico, somewhat more to the left. 

The earthenware they make in this neigh- 
bourhood closely resembles porcelain, and is so 
white and clean, and so very cheap, that it 
seemed to me it would be infinitely preferable 
to the pewter we use in France, and which, 
especially in inns, is often very dirty and dis- 
agreeable. 

I thought my head-aches were entirely gone; 
but, for the last two or three days, I have had 
slight attacks every now and then. They came, 
as before, in the shape of a heaviness and con- 
fusion in the forehead and back part of my 
head, and a dazzling and mist before my eyes. 

Tuesday, we left San Chirico, and went on 
to dine at 

La Paglia, thirteen miles, whence we pro- 
ceeded to 

San Lorenzo, where we slept. The inns at 
both places were wretched holes. The vintage 
hereabouts was just beginning. 

Wednesday morning, there was a dispute 
between our people and the Vetturini of Sienna, 
who, finding that we were longer than usual 
on the journey, got angry at the additional 
expense they were at for the horses, and refused 
to pay for their keep this evening. The dis- 
pute, indeed, ran so high, that 1 was obliged 
to go and speak to the mayor on the subject, 
who, having heard the rights of the matter, 
decided it in my favour, and put the Vetturini 
in prison. I explained to him that the delay 
they complained of was solely owing to the 
sumpter-horse's falling, an accident with which 
we had nothing to do, and by which I had the 
greatest part of my clothes spoilt. 

Near the high road, on the right hand side, 
about six miles from Monte-Fiascone, there is 
a Bath, which we stopped at for an hour or 
two. It is in the plain, three or four miles 
from the hills, and is formed by a considerable 
spring of nearly boiling water, of a very sul- 
phureous flavour, and which deposits a white 
sediment. The supply from this spring is so 
plentiful as to form a small lake, whence the 
water is conveyed, through a pipe, to a house 
close by, where the baths are. There are 
two of these baths, and the house is divided 
off into a number of inconvenient little apart- 
ments, for the use of visitors ; but, as I under- 
stood, very few people come here. Those who 
do, generally drink ten pounds of water a day, 
for seven days. The water has to be cooled 
before you can drink it, as is the case at the 
Preissac Baths; there are also places for bathing 
in. The season here is in the spring. The 
person who leases this bath pays a rent of fifty 
crowns a year for it to some church, to which 
it belongs ; but, besides the profit he makes of 
the visitors, he makes a good deal of money by 
selling a particular sort of mud, which he gets 
out of the lake, and which the good souls 
about here imagine to be good for the itch in 



men, when mixed with oil, and for the scab 
in sheep and dogs, when mixed with water. 
This mud, as dug out of the lake, is sold for 
twelve julios the measure, and, when made up 
into dry balls, for seven quatrini. There were 
a number of Cardinal Farnese's dogs here, going 
through a course of this mud and water. Pro- 
ceeding on, we found ourselves, after a three 
mile ride, at 

Viterbo, sixteen miles. The day was so far 
advanced, that we were fain to make but one 
meal of dinner and supper. I found I had got 
a sad cold, and I could hardly speak, I was so 
hoarse. 

Instead of going to bed at San Lorenzo, I 
had laid down on a table, with my clothes on, 
for fear of the vermin, a thing 'which I had not 
had occasion to do before, except at Florence ; 
and I accounted for my cold in that way. I 
ate here a sort of acorn, or mast, very plentiful 
in Italy, called gensole ,• it is by no means a 
bad thing. There are such quantities of star- 
lings about here, that you can buy one for two 
liards. 

Thursday, 26th of September, I went to see 
some other Baths in the plain here, a good way 
from the mountains. Not long ago, these Baths 
were rather considerable; but the two prin- 
cipal ones have been abandoned, and all that 
remains is one small spring, which forms a 
pond, where you bathe. The water is warm, 
tasteless, and without smell. I should ima- 
gine there is a good deal of iron about it. 
Further on, there is a building, which the 
people here call the Pope's Palace, from its 
having been, as they say, built or repaired by 
Pope Nicholas V. Close to this palace, there 
are three hot springs, one of which is sometimes 
made use of. The water is of temperate heat, 
and has no disagreeable smell about it. I 
fancied that it had a good deal of nitre about it. 
My intention, in coming here, was to drink the 
water for three days. The plan of proceeding 
is much the same as at other baths; you drink 
a certain quantity, then you walk about, and 
it is considered a beneficial thing to perspire a 
good deal. 

These waters are held in such high repute, 
as to be carried about all over Italy. The 
author of a General Treatise on the Italian 
Baths, himself a physician, 1 assigns the first 
rank to these Baths for drinking. They have 
more particularly attained a great name as a 
remedy for maladies of my sort. The usual 
season for drinking them is May. My expecta- 
tions from them were, however, very conside- 
rably damped, from an invective against them, 
that a former visitor left written on the wall of 
the bath-room, in which he abuses the phy- 
sicians for sending him here, and says the water 
made him worse than he was before ; and my 
doubts of a beneficial result were augmented 
by the manner of the owner of the Baths, who 



J 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



649 



J, 



said the season was too far advanced, and did 
not appear at all desirous that I should make 
any experiment. 

There is but one house here, but this is large 
and commodious ; and as it is only a mile and a 
half from Viterbo, I proceeded thither on foot. 
It contains three or tour baths, the effects of 
which are various; there is also a shower-bath. 
The spring produces a very white foam or 
scum, which does not dissipate, but forms into 
a crust on the surface of the water. If you put 
a bit of linen on this substance, it adheres to it, 
as though it were frozen. This foam is thought 
an excellent dentifrice, and is sold, and even 
exported, for that purpose. It tastes like earth 
and sand. It is said to be the primary matter 
of marble, and if so, might very easily be sup- 
posed to petrify in the bladder. They assured 
me, however, that this water deposits no sedi- 
ment in the flasks in which it is bottled off, but 
remains quite clear and pure. I fancy you may 
drink as much of it as you like, without its 
hurting you. 

On my way back, I made a detour, for the 
purpose of seeing the place where the inhabit- 
ants of Viterbo (among whom there is not a 
single gentleman, every soul in the town being 
engaged either in manufacturing or selling) 
collect the flax and hemp of which they manu- 
facture their goods. The women take no part 
in the work. I found a great number of these 
labourers, near a large pond of water, which, 
they told me, is hot and boiling all the year 
round. From this pond, which, they say, has 
no bottom, is supplied the smaller ponds, in 
which they steep the hemp and flax. 

On my return from this little trip, I passed a 
small hard red stone, about the size of a large 
grain of wheat; I had felt the descent of this 
stone the night before, but it had stopped in the 
passage. To facilitate the exit of this sort of 
6tone, you would do well to stop the course of 
your water for a minute or two, for the increased 
force with which it comes forth afterwards 
greatly aids the progress of the stone. I got 
this hint from M. Langon, at Arsaci. 

Saturday, St. Michael's day, after dinner, I 
went to see the Madonna di Quercio, half a 
league out of the town. The road to this shrine 
is wide, straight, and well kept, with a row of 
fine trees on each side, extending the whole 
distance. It was made under the direction of 
Pope Farnese. The church, which is a very 
handsome structure, is full of religious monu- 
ments and votive pictures. In a conspicuous 
part of the interior, there is a Latin inscription, 
setting forth that, about a hundred years ago, 
a man who was attacked by robbers took re- 
fuge, half dead with fear, under the shade of 
an oak, whereon was suspended this image of 
the Virgin; and that having invoked her aid, 
he became miraculously invisible to the rob- 
bers, and was thus delivered from manifest 
danger. This miracle created a peculiar feeling 
of devotion in favour of this Virgin; and, ere 
55 



long, the present handsome church was built 
round the oak. The trunk of the tree still 
remains in the centre of the sacred edifice; the 
upper part of it, stripped of its branches, is fixed 
against the wall, and on it you see the image 
of the Virgin. 

Saturday, 30th of September, I left Viterbo 
early in the morning, and took the road to 
Bagnaia, a country-seat belonging to Cardinal 
Gambara, one of the most richly ornamented 
places I ever saw. It is so well provided with 
fountains, that in this respect it not only equals, 
but surpasses, both Pratolino and Tivoli. In 
the first place, there is a fountain of spring 
water, which is not the case at Tivoli; the 
water of this fountain is abundant, which is not 
the case at Pratolino; and this water has been 
made available for an infinity of ornamental 
designs, under the direction of Signor Tomasi, 
of Sienna, the constructor of the water-works 
at Tivoli, who, in addition to the admirable 
effects which his genius originated elsewhere, 
has here introduced some novelties, which infi- 
nitely surpass all his former efforts. When the 
decorations here are completed, it will be the 
finest place of the sort in the world. One of 
the more remarkable features, is a pyramid, 
which spouts forth water in different directions; 
at each base of this pyramid is a small lake, 
full of pure and limpid water. In the centre 
of each lake is a stone boat, wherein stand two 
figures, in the costume of cross-bowmen, who, 
through their cross-bows, shoot continuous 
streams of water against the pyramid. The 
grounds are traversed by a number of well- 
planned walks, with carved stone seats at short 
distances. The palace is small, but well- 
arranged. The cardinal was not at home; but, 
as he is French at heart, his people received us 
with the utmost kindness. 

Thence we proceeded to Caprarola, a palace 
belonging to the Cardinal Farnese, and which 
is highly spoken of throughout Italy. And 
well it may be so; for I have seen no structure 
at all comparable to it, in the whole of this fine 
country. It is surrounded by a wide, deep 
fosse, cut out of the soft gravel stone, on which 
the place is built; and the roof of the palace 
on each side forms a fine terrace, by which 
arrangement a very unseemly feature in ordi- 
nary domestic architecture is avoided. The 
form of the building inclines to the pentagonal, 
but it presents to the eye the appearance of a 
perfect square. Its internal form is exactly 
circular; and a large vaulted corridor, whose 
walls are covered with pictures, encircles the 
whole building, winding round and round it, 
from the base to the summit, and connecting 
the different floors. The rooms are all square. 
Among the other splendid apartments which 
adorn this structure, there is one, the vaulted 
ceiling of which represents a celestial globe, 
with all the figures accurately depicted ; while 
upon the walls of the apartment is represented 
the terrestrial world, with all its various con- 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



tinents and regions, forming a complete cos- 
mography. These paintings, which are all in 
the richest colours, entirely cover the walls and 
ceiling. In other rooms are depicted, in pic- 
tures of various sizes, the life and actions of 
Paul III., and the other distinguished members 
of the house of Farnese. Besides these, there 
are portraits so admirable, that those who have 
seen the originals at once recognise them all at 
the first glance, of our Constable, 1 the Queen- 
Mother, 2 her children, Charles IX., Henry III., 
the Duke of Alencon, the Queen of Navarre, 3 
and King Francis II., the eldest of them all, as 
well as Henry II., Piero Strozzi, and others. 
In the same room with these, are two busts, 
one at each end ; one, which stands in the place 
of honour, of Henry II., with an inscription 
upon it, in which he is designated the preserver 
of the house of Farnese ; and the other, which 
stands at the other end of the room, that of 
King Philip II. of Spain, the inscription on 
which sets forth, that it was placed there in 
memorial of the numerous benefits which the 
Farnese family had received from him. In the 
grounds, also, there are several things well 
worth seeing, and, among others, a grotto, 
whence the water showering out into a small 
lake, gives to the eye a close imitation of the 
fall of real rain. This grotto stands in a wild 
and desert spot, and the water whence it is sup- 
plied has to be brought from Viterbo, which is 
fully eight miles off. 

Leaving this magnificent place, we rode on, 
over a wide plain, where, every now and then, 
upon barren and grassless spots, we found 
springs of cold water, clear and pure to the 
sight, but so impregnated with sulphur, as to 
cast the odour of it for some distance around. 
We slept at 

Monte-Rossi, twenty-three miles; and next 
day, Sunday, 1st of October, reached 

Rome, twenty-two miles. The weather was 
excessively cold, and we were annoyed with a 
freezing north wind. On the Monday, and for 
several days after, my stomach was so much 
out of order, that I determined to take my meals 
for a short time by myself, so that I might eat 
less. However, in other respects I was toler- 
ably well, except, indeed, that my head had not 
yet quite resumed its proper state. 

On arriving at Rome, I found a letter from 
the jurats of Bordeaux, reminding me in very 
courteous terms of my election as mayor of that 
town, and earnestly requesting me to proceed 
thither without delay. 

Sunday, 8th of October, 1581, I went to 
Monte Cavallo, to see an Italian who, having 
been for a long time a slave in Turkey, had 
there acquired amazing skill in equestrian exer- 
cises. For instance, while riding at full speed, 
he would jump, up, and, standing erect on his 
saddle, hurl a javelin at some object with great 



force, and then resume his seat. Next, in the 
midst of a furious gallop, resting one hand on 
his saddle-bow, he would alight from his horse, 
touching the ground with his right foot, the left 
remaining in its stirrup ; and this he performed 
several times, alternately with the feat of turn- 
ing right round in his saddle, with as much 
facility as though his horse had been standing 
still. He showed us the way in which the 
Turks use the bow on horseback, both in attack 
and in retreat. By and by, withdrawing both 
feet from the stirrups, and planting them firmly 
against his steed's left haunch, while his head 
and shoulder reclined on the animal's neck, he 
would in this position ride round and round the 
circus at full speed. Resuming his seat, he 
received from the attendant a large ball, which, 
notwithstanding the pace at which his horse 
was galloping, he threw up into the air, and 
caught again, over and over again, with the 
utmost facility and certainty. The last feat he 
showed us, on horseback, was standing upright 
on his saddle, and running at a glove with a 
lance, which he directed with such accuracy 
and force as to hit his mark just in the centre, 
and to carry it off. Then dismounting, he con- 
cluded by exhibiting several extraordinary feats 
of strength, such, among others, as bending a 
bar of iron round his neck. 

On the 10th of October, after dinner, the 
French ambassador 4 sent a lacquey to tell me 
that, if I liked, he would come and fetch me in 
his coach, to see the palace of Cardinal Orsino, 
who died this summer at Naples, leaving all his 
vast property to a niece of his, and she being 
quite a child, the executors had thought best to 
sell the furniture. Among the articles here that 
more especially attracted my attention, was a 
taffeta counterpane, covered with swans' fea- 
thers. At Sienna they have quantities of swans' 
skins on sale, with the feathers entire, and pre- 
pared in some particular way for use ; and they 
only ask a crown and a half a-piece for these. 
They are about the size of a sheep's skin, and 
one of them is sufficient to make a counterpane 
of. There was also an ostrich egg, carved and 
painted very exquisitely ; and a square jewel- 
box, in which there were three or four articles 
of jewellery, but the interior of the box was so 
ingeniously arranged with crystal plates that, 
when opened, it seemed much wider and deeper 
than it really was, and it appeared quite full of 
precious stones, so extraordinary was the effect 
produced by the reflection of the crystal. 

Thursday, 12th of October, the Cardinal de 
Sens took me in his coach to see the church of 
St. John and St. Paul, of which he is titular 
and superior, as he is also of the order of 
monks, who make a business of distilling the 
perfumes I spoke of, some time back. This 
church stands on Mount Celius, a situation ap- 
parently selected for its affording such facilities 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



651 



for the construction of the numerous subterra- 
nean buildings which are attached to the edifice. 
This is said to be the site of the Forum of Hos- 
tilius. The gardens and vineyards belonging 
to this society are very beautiful, and command 
an extensive prospect, which embraces the whole 
of ancient Rome. The church, from the steep 
and rugged nature of the spot on which it stands, 
is almost inaccessible on every side. The same 
day, I sent off a well-filled box to Milan. The 
vetturini generally take twenty days to get 
there. The box weighed 150 pounds, and they 
charged me two bajocchi a pound for the car- 
riage, about two French sous. There were 
several articles of value in it, more especially a 
magnificent chaplet of Agnus Dei, the hand- 
somest there was to be had in Rome. It had 
been made expressly for the empress's ambas- 
sador, and had been blessed by the pope. 

Sunday, 15th of October, I quitted Rome 
shortly after sunrise, leaving my brother behind 
me, to whom I gave forty-three gold crowns, 
which he reckoned would be enough to pay all 
his expenses for the five months he was to re- 
main there, to perfect himself in the practice of 
arms. 1 He had previously hired a pretty suite 
of rooms, for twenty Julios a month. Messrs. 
d'Estissac, de Monbaron, de Chase, Morens, 
and one or two other gentlemen, accompanied 
me the first stage, and several more of my 
friends would also have accompanied me so far, 
and had hired horses for the purpose, but I 
started earlier than I had at first proposed, in 
order to save these gentlemen, at least, the 
trouble which their kindness to me would have 
occasioned them. Among these were Messrs. 
du Bellay, d'Ambres, d'Allegre, &c. I got by 
bed-time to 

Ronciglione, thirty miles. I had hired the 
horses to take me as far as Lucca, and I 
was to pay twenty Julios each for them, the 
owner contracting to provide their keep all the 
way. 

On the Monday morning, the weather was 
astonishingly cold ; indeed, as it seemed to me 
at the time, more so than I had ever felt it 
before, yet the vintage was not near over in 
that part of the country. I dined at Viterbo, 
where I got out my furs and winter clothing. 
Thence I went on through 

San Lorenzo, twenty-nine miles, to San Chi- 
rico, thirty-two miles, where I slept. All these 
roads had been mended a month or two before, 
by order of the Duke of Tuscany, who has 
therein done a great public service, for which 
may God reward him; the roads, which pre- 
viously were of the very worst description, are 
now as level and commodious as the streets of a 
town. It was quite astonishing to see the num- 
ber of people who were flocking to Rome. As 
a matter of course, the hire of horses on the 



> It was probably in the course of this five months that 
the Siour de Matiecoulon look part in the duel of which 
mention has been made. 



way to the Eternal City was preposterous, while 
those who were coming away from it could get 
conveyance for next to nothing. Near Sienna 
there is a double bridge, that is to say, a bridge, 
which, passing over one river, serves as the 
channel for another river. You see the same 
sort of thing in several other places. In the 
evening we reached 

Sienna, twenty miles. During the night, 
I had a severe attack of cholic, which tor- 
mented me for two hours : it seemed to me that 
a stone was descending. Early on the Thurs- 
day morning, I sent for William Felix, a Jewish 
physician, who entered at great length upon 
ins views of what regimen I ought to pursue 
for my malady. I left Sienna immediately 
afterwards, and, on my way, was plagued with 
the cholic for three or four hours; at the end 
of which time 1 felt that a stone had fallen. I 
got to supper at 

Ponte Alee, twenty-eight miles, where I 
passed a stone, somewhat larger than a grain of ^ 
millet, and some gravel, without any pain or 
difficulty. I left this place, Friday morning, 
and on the way dismounted at 

Altopascio, sixteen miles, where I stopped for 
an hour, to feed the horses. Here, without any 
great pain, I passed a quantity of gravel, and a 
longish stone, part of it hard and part soft, and 
somewhat larger than a grain of wheat. We 
saw a number of peasants on the road, some of 
whom were picking the vine leaves, to store 
away as fodder for their cattle in the winter, 
while others were collecting fern, to mix with 
their cheese. We arrived in the evening at 

Lucca, eight miles, and within an hour, seve- 
ral gentlemen and others, whom I had made 
acquaintance with when I was here before, 
came to see me. 

Saturday, 21st of October, early in the morn- 
ing, I voided another stone, which stopped for 
a short while in the passage, but then came out 
without pain or difficulty. It was nearly round, 
hard, rough, white inside and red out, and much 
larger than a grain of wheat; I still passed a 
great deal of gravel. It is manifest, from this, 
that nature often relieves herself, for all that 
had thus passed from me, did so as by a per- 
fectly natural operation. God be praised, that 
I got rid of these stones with so little pain and 
inconvenience ! 

As soon as I had eaten a bunch of grapes 
(for when travelling I take little or nothing in 
the morning), I left Lucca, without waiting for 
several gentlemen who had volunteered over 
night to accompany me. The road was exceed- 
ingly good. On my right was a succession of 
low hills, covered with olive plantations, and 
on my left the marshes, with the sea in the 
distance. 

No great way from Lucca I saw a machine, 
which the government has most negligently 
allowed to go to ruin, very much to the injury 
of the surrounding country. This machine, 
which was made for the purpose of draining the 



652 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



marshes, and rendering them cultivable, was 
constructed in the following manner: a deep 
and extensive ditch was dug, to receive the 
drainings from the marshes, and at the head of 
this were placed three wheels, turned by a 
stream which descended from a neighbouring 
height. These wheels, by means of spouts, like 
those of a mill-hopper, drew up the water from 
the ditch into a raised canal, walled in with 
brick, which carried it down to the sea. By 
means of this construction, the marshes were 
gradually draining, but the works are now at 
a stand-still. 

I passed through Pietra Santa, a town be- 
longing to the Duke of Florence, where there 
seem to be more houses than inhabitants. The 
reason of this, as I was told, is that the air is 
so bad that hardly any one can exist there, and 
the few who do manage to live are a poor 
sickly set. The next place we reached was 

Massa di Carrara, twenty-two miles, a small 
town belonging to the Prince di Massa, a mem- 
ber of the Cibo family. The place consists of a 
fine castle, standing on the summit of a hill, 
half way down which are the castle-walls, and 
below these, encompassing the hill, the town 
itself, which is again surrounded with a wall. 
The place is well situated, and has a number of 
good houses, tastefully painted on the outside. 
I was obliged to put up with new wine here, 
for there is no such thing as old wine to be got. 
They have a way of clearing their wine with 
the shavings of some particular wood and the 
white of eggs, so as to give it the colour of age, 
but it also communicates a flavour which is by 
no means natural or pleasant. 

Sunday, 22d of October, I proceeded on my 
way, along an excellent level, straight road, the 
Tuscan sea lying on my right, at about a gun- 
shot off. We saw some inconsiderable ruins 
on our way, half way between the road and 
the sea, which, according to the notion of the 
people here, are the remains of a large town of 
antiquity, called Luna. 

Afterwards, we passed through Sarrezana, a 
town belonging to the Seigneury of Genoa. 
Over the gate are the arms of the republic, a 
mounted St. George. There is a garrison of 
Swiss mercenaries here. This town formerly 
belonged to the Duke of Florence ; and, were 
it not that the Prince of Massa separates the 
two places, there is no doubt that Pietra Santa 
and Sarrezana, the frontier towns of Florence 
and Genoa, would be continually at blows. 

As we were leaving Sarrezana, where, by the 
way, we had to pay four julios a horse for one 
post, — they were firing off salvos of artillery in 
honour of Don Giovanni di Medicis, natural 
brother of the Duke of Florence, who was 
passing through the town, on his return from 
Genoa, where he had been, on the part of his 
brother, to pay his respects to the empress, 1 who 



had received similar visits from many other 
Italian grandees. The prince, whose magnifi- 
cence on this occasion excited the most admi- 
ration, was the Duke of Ferrara, who escorted 
the empress to Padua, with four hundred car- 
riages. He had requested permission from the 
seigneury of Venice to pass through their terri- 
tories with six hundred horsemen, but, although 
they gave him leave to pass, they said he must 
not have so many horsemen with him ; and he, 
on his part, not being willing to have fewer 
attendants, put all his people into coaches, so 
that the number of horses, only, was less. I met 
Don Giovanni on my way. He is a young 
man, very well made, and was accompanied by 
twenty men, handsomely dressed themselves, 
but mounted on hired horses ; which, however, 
in Italy is considered no discredit, even to 
princes. 

The road to Genoa lies on the left, shortly 
after you leave Sarrezana; and, in going to 
Milan, it makes very little difference whether 
you pass through Genoa, or take the direct 
Milan road ; the distance, in fact, is as near as 
possible the same ; I had a great fancy to see 
Genoa and the empress, but I gave up the idea 
for the following reasons : there are two roads 
to Genoa on this route; one, at three days' 
journey from Sarrezana, is forty miles in length, 
and a very bad and very hilly road, along rocks 
and precipices, and with only a few lonely, 
poverty-stricken, and unfrequented inns; the 
other route is from Lerice, three miles from 
Sarrezana, where you embark, and in twelve 
hours reach Genoa. Now the weakness of my 
stomach is such that I can never remain on the 
water for any length of time, and I was afraid 
that, even when I got to Genoa, I should have 
a difficulty in procuring lodgings, owing to the 
concourse of strangers who were then visiting 
the place ; moreover, I had heard that the road 
from Genoa to Milan was infested with rob- 
bers, and my main object, after all, being to get 
back to France as soon as possible, I made up 
my mind not to go to Genoa, but to make the 
best of my way to Milan by the direct road, 
which runs to the right, towards the moun- 
tains. We proceeded along the valley of the 
Magra, the river so named lying on our left. 
Thus, passing now through part of the territo- 
ries of Genoa, then through an isolated district 
belonging to Florence, and anon through the 
states of the Malaspina family, but everywhere 
finding an excellent road, with the exception 
of a few miles here and there, we got by bed- 
time to 

Ponte-Mola, thirty miles. This is a long 
town, very full of ancient buildings and ruins, 
which are in no way remarkable. The people 
here say the town was formerly called Appua: 
it formerly belonged to the Fieschi family, but 
it is now a dependency of the state of Milan. 
The first course at dinner was cheese, such as 
they make round Milan and Placenza, which 
was followed by stoned olives, seasoned, in the 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



653 



Genoese fashion, with oil and vinegar, like a 
salad. The town stands close at the foot of the 
mountains. After dinner, they take round a 
bason of water, which they place on a stool for 
you to wash your hands in, and every guest 
washes in the same water. 

I left this place, Monday morning, the 23d, 
and, on quitting my inn, at once commenced 
the ascent of the Apennines, which, however, 
notwithstanding the height of these mountains, 
is neither a difficult nor dangerous undertaking. 
We were all day ascending and descending 
mountains of various altitude, but almost with- 
out exception, wild and barren ; and at night- 
fall reached 

Fornoua, in the territory of Count San Se- 
condo, thirty miles, and highly delighted I was 
to find myself clear of the rascally mountaineers, 
who make pitiless havoc with the pockets of all 
the unhappy travellers who get into their hands, 
by their charges for eating and horse-hire. At 
dinner here, they gave me some excellent 
ragouts d la moutarde, dressed in different 
ways; one of them was made with quinces. 
There is a terrible scarcity of horses for hire all 
about this part of the country ; and as to the 
people, every soul you meet seems to think it 
almost a point of duty to cheat and deceive the 
strangers who journey among them. Else- 
where, you pay two julios a post for each horse ; 
here, they exacted from me three, four, and 
even five a post, so that the hire alone of my 
horse cost me more than a crown a day; and, 
besides this, they sometimes charged me two 
posts when there was only one. 

When at Fornoua, I was only two posts from 
Parma, and from Parma to Placenza the dis- 
tance is only the same as that from Fornoua 
to the latter place, so that my going to Parma 
would merely have taken me two posts out of 
my way; but I determined not even to make 
this slight detour, for I was anxious to get home 
without delay. Fornoua is a very small place, 
consisting of but six or seven houses, standing 
in a valley along the banks of the Taro, for 
such, I believe, is the name of the river that 
waters this valley. Tuesday morning, we pro- 
ceeded along the same valley for a considerable 
way, and got by dinner-time to 

Borgo-San-Doni, 1 twelve miles, a small town, 
which the Duke of Parma is surrounding with 
fine flanked walls. Here I found on the table, 
mustard, mixed with honey and orange pulp, 
cut into small bits, like quince marmalade. 

Thence, leaving Cremona on the right, at 
about the same distance as Placenza, we pro- 
ceeded along a fine road, through a country 
which, on either side, as far as the eye can 
reach, exhibits not one single hill, not the 
slightest inequality of surface ; from horizon 
to horizon all is a level and fertile plain. We 
changed horses at every post ; and I went the 



i Tioit'o San-Donnino. 
i Philip II., who retained it till 1585. 
55* 



two last stages full gallop, to try how my 
strength stood in this respect, and I was not 
at all fatigued with the exertion ; the water 
I passed all this time was quite natural and 
healthy. 

Near Placenza, there are two high columns, 
one on each side of the road, about forty paces 
from one another. On the bases of these 
columns are Latin inscriptions, forbidding all 
persons to raise any sort of building, or to plant 
any sort of tree, in the space between them. 
I did not understand whether this prohibition 
was intended merely to preserve the width of 
the road, or to leave the prospect open from 
these columns to the town, wnich is about half 
a mile off. We got early in the evening to 

Placenza, twenty miles, a very large place. 
As I had plenty of time before supper, I walked 
about the town for nearly three hours. The 
streets are unpaved and muddy, and the houses 
small. In the square, the chief ornament of 
the town, is the hall of justice, with the prisons; 
the citizens assemble in this square for their 
promenades. The shops in the streets are ver/ 
poor. 

I went over the castle, which is in the por- 
sessionof King Philip, 2 who has a garrison here 
of three hundred Spanish soldiers, very ill pai-J, 
as they told me. They sound the diane here, 
night and morning, for an hour, with the in- 
struments which we call hautbois, and the 
people here fifes. There are a great many 
people living in the castle, and it is furnished 
with some fine pieces of artillery. The Duke 
of Parma, 3 who was in the town at this time, 
never enters the castle ; he resides in the cita- 
del, a fortress in another part of the town. In 
short, I saw nothing here worth any particular 
observation, except the new church of St. Au- 
gustin, which King Philip is building, in place 
of the old church that he made use of in the 
construction of the castle, applying also part 
of the revenues of the establishment for the 
same purpose. The church, which promises to 
be a fine building, is not yet finished ; but the 
conventual-house, where the brotherhood, to the 
number of seventy, reside, and the double clois- 
ters, are entirely completed, and appeared to 
me the handsomest and most commodious struc- 
ture for the use of a religious society that I ever 
beheld. The galleries, the dormitories, and 
every part of it, is admirably adapted for its 
particular purpose. They place the salt here 
in lumps on the table, without any salt-cellar, 
and the cheese in like manner is served up 
without a dish. 

The Duke of Parma had come here to await 
the arrival of the eldest son of the arch-duke 
of Austria, the young prince' whom I saw at 
Insprug, and it was said he was going to Rome 
to be crowned King of the Romans. Here also 
they mix water with their wine at table, and 



> Ottavio Farnese 



654 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



use a latten spoon for the purpose. The cheese 
here is the same that is universal throughout the 
Placentine. Placenza is exactly half-way be- 
tween Rome and Lyons. In order to go direct 
to Milan, I should have proceeded straight to 

Marignan, thirty miles, whence Milan is dis- 
tant only ten miles: but I determined to extend 
my journey another ten miles in order to see 
Pavia. Accordingly, on Wednesday, 25th of 
October, I started very early in the morning, 
and rode on along an excellent road. On my 
' . ay, I voided a small soft stone, and a good 
deal of gravel. We passed through a small 
town, belonging to Count Santafiore, and some 
time after, crossed the Po, on a flying-bridge, 
consisting of two barges fixed together, with a 
small cabin on the deck, which is propelled 
across the stream by the means of a long rope. 
Near this place, the Tesino mingles its waters 
with those of the Po. Early in the afternoon 
we reached 

Pavia, thirty miles ; and I immediately pro- 
ceeded to examine the principal objects of 
interest in the town ; such as the bridge over 
the Tesino, the cathedral church, and the 
churches of the Carmelites, of St. Thomas, and 
of St. Augustin. In the last-named edifice, is 
the splendid monument of the sainted bishop, 
made of white marble, and adorned with several 
fine statues of the same material. In one of 
the squares in this town there is a brick column, 
with a statue surmounting it, apparently a copy 
of the equestrian statue of Antoninus Pius, 1 in 
front of the Capitol at Rome. If this be the 
case, the copy is smaller than the original, and 
in no way to be compared with it ; and a fur- 
ther doubt arises from the circumstance that 
the statue at Pavia has stirrups and a saddle 
with saddle-bows before and behind, while the 
statue at Rome has neither stirrups nor saddle. 
This induces me to concur in the opinion of the 
learned, who regard stirrups and saddles, at all 
events such stirrups and saddles as these, as a 
modern invention. Perhaps, after all, this may 
really be a copy from the statue at Rome, the 
stirrups and saddle only being supplied by the 
modern sculptor, whose self-sufficiency and ig- 
norance induced him to suppose that the want 
of them was a defect in his original. I also 
saw the edifice, which, under the Cardinal 
Borromeo's direction, had been begun for the 
use of the students. 

Pavia is a large town, tolerably handsome, 
thickly populated, and abounding in artisans of 
every description. There are few fine houses, 
and even that which was assigned to the em- 
press, during her stay here a little while back, 
is but an indifferent affair. Wherever the arms 
of France remain against houses or elsewhere, 
the lilies have been effaced. In short, I saw no- 
thing that particularly struck me here. Horses 



i Marcus Aurelius. By some authorities, the statue at 
Pavia is supposed to represent Lucius Verus. The face is 
larger than that of the Roman figure. 

2 February 24th, 1525 



in this part of the country can be hired for two 
julios a post. The best inn that I came across 
between this and Rome, was the post-house at 
Placenza, which, indeed, as far as I can remem- 
ber, is the best I had seen in Italy, since I left 
Verona. However this may be, certain it is, 
that the very worst inn that I had to endure 
throughout my whole journey was the Falcon at 
Pavia. Both here and at Milan, you pay sepa- 
rately for fire-wood. The beds have no mattrass. 
I left Pavia, Thursday, 26th October, and 
went out of my way, about half a mile on the 
right, to see the plain on which the army of 
King Francis I. was defeated by Charles V., 2 as 
well as to pay a brief visit to the Chartreuse, 
which, with good reason, is regarded as a splen- 
did edifice. The facade is all of marble, elabo- 
rately sculptured. One of the altars in the 
church has an ivory front, on which are carved, 
in relief, representations of the Old and New 
Testament. Another object of interest is the 
tomb, in marble, of Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, 
founder of this establishment. I next viewed 
the choir, the decorations of the high altar, and 
-the cloisters, which are extraordinarily lofty, 
and very beautiful. The conventual house is a 
vast building; indeed, when you consider its 
extent, its variety, the infinite number of attend- 
ants, workmen, and artisans, of horses and car- 
riages that it contains, it seems more like the 
court of an exalted prince, than a monastery. 
New works and decorations are being constantly 
added at an immense expense, the amount of 
which is taken from the revenues of the estab- 
lishment itself. The Chartreuse stands in the 
centre of some beautiful meadow land. Thence 



Milan, twenty miles, the most populous town 
in Italy, of large extent, and carrying on a 
very considerable trade. It is something like 
Paris, and in many respects looks more like a 
French than like an Italian town. You do not 
see here the fine palaces that give so great an 
effect to Rome, Naples, Genoa, and Florence; 
but it makes up for this defect by its extent ; 
and the concourse of foreigners, which is quite 
as considerable as at Venice. Friday, 27th 
October, I went to see the out-works of the 
castle, and examined them thoroughly. This 
fortress is one of the largest and best fortified 
that I ever saw. The garrison consists of at 
least seven hundred Spaniards, who are well 
supplied with artillery. They are adding fresh 
works to every part of it. I stopped at Milan 
the whole of this day, in consequence of the 
rain, which fell heavily and without intermis- 
sion. Up to this time, the weather, the roads, 
every thing had favoured us. Saturday morn- 
ing, 28th October, 1 left Milan, and travelled 
along so excellent a road, that though the rain 
continued to pour, and the roads were all 
covered with water, there was no mud; one 
reason for this, however, was that the country 
is sandy. I got by dinner-time to 

Buffalora, eighteen miles, where we crossed 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



055 



the Naviglio, over a bridge. The channel of 
this stream is narrow, but deep enough to 
transport barks of a considerable size to Milan. 
A little further on, we crossed the Tesino, in a 
boat, and by bed-time reached 

Novarre, eighteen miles, a small and by no 
means agreeable town, standing in the midst of 
a plain. The place is completely environed 
by vineyards and groves of fruit and other 
trees, for the land here is exceedingly fertile. 
We left this place in the morning, and stopped 
to bait our horses at 

Verceil, ten miles, a town in Piedmont, be- 
longing to the Duke of Savoy; ' this place also 
stands in a plain, along the banks of the Lesia, 
which river we crossed in a boat. The duke 
has built a fortress here, a strong and handsome 
one, as far as I could judge from the out- 
works: its construction, which was executed 
suddenly and promptly, has given great offence 
to his neighbours the Spaniards. After leaving 
this place, we passed through two other towns, 
St. Germain and St. Jacques, and continuing 
along the same fertile plain, which, in the 
article of trees, appears to abound chiefly in 
walnut-trees (olive-trees they have none in 
this part of the country, and the only oil used 
is that from walnuts), we got by bed-time to 

Livorno, twenty miles, a small village, with 
tolerable houses. We left this place early on 
Monday morning, and dining at 

Chivas, ten miles, proceeded on, and, after 
crossing several rivers and small streams, some- 
times in a boat, sometimes fording them, we 
arrived at 

Turin, ten miles, which we might easily have 
reached by the ordinary dinner-time, but we 
were somewhat later. This is a small town, 
standing on very marshy ground, and neither 
well built, nor very pleasant, I should imagine, 
as a residence, though it is traversed by a 
stream, which carries off the dirt and filth. I 
here hired horses for six days, to carry us on to 
Lyons, at five crowns and a half each horse, 
the owner undertaking to keep them all the 
time. French is commonly spoken here, and 
every body appears to hold our people in great 
esteem and affection. The vernacular, even, 
has very little of Italian about it, except the 
pronunciation; in itself it seems made up, for 
the most part, of French Words. We left 
Turin, Tuesday, 31st October, and by dinner- 
time reached 

St. Ambroise, two posts. Thence, along a 
narrow valley, hemmed in by considerable hills, 
we went on to sleep at 

Snza, two posts, a considerable town, with a 
castle. Here I was attacked, in the night, with 
a terrible pain in the right knee, which did not 
leave me for several days, but, on the contrary, 
got worse and worse. The inns here are better 
than in the other parts of Italy that I have 
visited; the bread is not good, but the wine is 



1 Cliarlus Emmanuel. 



excellent, and there is plenty of every thing. 
Throughout Savoy, the landlords are exceed- 
ingly civil and well-behaved. On All-Saints' 
day, after hearing mass, 1 went on to 

Novalese, one post, where I hired eight men, 
to carry me to the top of Mont Cenis, and down 
the other side, in the sort of litter that they use 
here for this purpose. 

[Montaigne continues his Journal, from this 
point, in French.] 

Here French is the tongue spoken ; so here 
I will quit the foreign language 1 have so far 
employed, and which conies as easy to me as 
it goes incorrectly from me ; for, having been 
almost entirely in the company of my own 
countrymen ever since I left France, my oppor- 
tunities for making any progress in Italian have 
been but very inadequate. I crossed Mont 
Cenis, partly on horseback, and partly in a 
litter carried by four men, who, when they 
were fatigued, were relieved by four other men, 
all of whom I engaged at Novalese, as 1 have 
just mentioned. The ascent occupies two hours, 
and, being rugged and stony, is very difficult 
for horses, who are not accustomed to such tra- 
velling, but is easy enough for pedestrians ; and 
there is no danger to be apprehended, except 
falling on your knees now and then, for the road 
winding up the middle of the mountain, there 
are no precipices at the side to tumble over. 
On reaching the summit, you see before you a 
plain, extending about two leagues from the 
foot "of the mountain, diversified with a few 
houses, some pieces of water, and the post- 
house; there are no trees, and at this season 
there was no grass, for the whole space was 
thickly covered with snow. The descent is 
about a league, and I was carried down it in 
my litter. At the bottom, I dismissed my eight 
porters, giving them two crowns for their 
trouble. The regular price for being merely 
carried down, however, is only a tester; and 
sometimes there are amusing scenes enough, 
when people get frightened. I then mounted 
my horse, which had been led for me, and we 
then rode on to dinner at 

Lanebourg, 2 two posts, a village at the foot 
of the mountain with which commences Savoy. 
We slept at a small village two leagues further 
on. All about this part of the country, they 
have got plenty of trout, and excellent wines, 
old and new. Next day, we rode on, along a 
hilly and rugged road, to 

St. Michel, five leagues, a village, in which 
is the post-house. After dining here, we pro- 
ceeded on our route ; but it was very late, and 
we were all wet through before we reached 

La Chambre, five leagues, a small village, 
which gives his title to the Marquis de Ja 
Chambre. Next day, Friday, 3d November, 
we went on to dine at 



Lannlabourg. 



656 



:ONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



Aiguebelle, four leagues, a walled town, 
whence we proceeded to our sleeping-place, 

Mont Mellian, four leagues, a town and 
fortress, the latter of which occupies the summit 
of an isolated rock, rising in the centre of a 
small plain, surrounded by high mountains. 
The town itself stands at the foot of this rock, 
upon the banks of the river Isne, which then 
runs on to Grenoble, seven leagues hence. 1 
began now to appreciate the excellence of the 
Italian oil ; for that which I got in this part of 
the country disagreed amazingly with my sto- 
mach, whereas in Italy I never had the slightest 
after-taste of the oil. We dined at 

Chamberi, two leagues, the capital of Savoy, 
a small but handsome town, with an excellent 
trade. It is surrounded by mountains, but its 
immediate site is a tolerably large plain. Pass- 
ing on, we crossed Mont du Chat, a high, rug- 
ged, and rocky mountain, the passage of which, 
however, is neither difficult nor dangerous. At 
its foot there is an extensive lake, 1 on the banks 
of which stands a town called Bordeau, where 
they make swords, which are held in consider- 
able estimation. We slept at 

Hyene, 2 four leagues, a small town. Sun- 
day morning, we crossed the Rosne, which lay 
on our right. The rocks here abut very closely 
on the road, and in one particular place almost 
block up the passage altogether. On a rock, 
commanding this defile, the Duke of Savoy has 
constructed a small fort, very nearly resembling 
that built by the Venetians at Chiusa, in the 
Tyrol, of which I spoke in the proper place. 
Proceeding along this narrow pass, we went 
on without stopping to 

St. Rambert, seven leagues, a small town, 
standing in the valley, where it becomes some- 
what wider. Most of the towns in Savoy have 
a stream running through them, and the space 
between this stream and the houses, on each side, 
is nearly all covered in with pent-houses, so that 
you can walk about in all weathers, but there 
is this inconvenience, that the shops are the 
darker for it. In the course of the evening, 
M. Francesco Cenami, a Lyons banker, who 
had come here to avoid the plague, sent his 
respects, and a servant to me with some wine, 
coupled with some very handsome compliments. 
I left the place on the Monday morning, and 
having now entirely got clear of the mountains, 
entered upon our French low country. Passing 
the river Ain in a boat, near the bridge of 
Chesai, I rode on without stopping to 

Morestel, six leagues, a small but much fre- 
quented town, belonging to the Duke of Savoy, 
and the last of his dependencies in this direc- 
tion. Tuesday, after dinner, I took post-horses, 
and went on to sleep at 

Lyons, two posts, three leagues. I was very 
much pleased with this town. Friday, I bought 



i The Lake of Bourget. 



of Joseph de la Sone, three stout horses for two 
hundred crowns. I had previously purchased 
of Malesieu a riding nag, for fifty crowns, and 
another horse for thirty-three. Saturday, St. 
Martin's day, I had in the morning a terrible 
stomach-ache, which kept me in bed till after 
mid-day. I took no dinner, and ate very little 
at supper. Sunday, 12th November, the Sieur 
Alberto Grachinotti, a Florentine, who had 
already shown me a great deal of attention, 
invited me to dinner, and offered to lend me 
any money I might want; yet he never saw 
me before I came here. Wednesday, 15th 
November, 1581, I left Lyons after dinner, 
and by a hilly road reached 

Bordeliere, five leagues, a village consisting 
of two houses, in one of which we slept. 
Thursday morning, we resumed our journey, 
favoured by an excellent road, and, near the 
small town of Fur, 8 crossed the river Loire in 
a boat, and went on without stopping to 

L'Hospital, eight leagues, a small walled 
town. Leaving this place next morning, we 
proceeded along a hilly road, with the pleasant 
accompaniment of the snow falling heavily, 
and a bitter cold wind driving full in our faces, 
and at last made our way to 

Tiers, six leagues, a small, well-built, and 
populous town, seated on the river Allier, and 
enjoying a considerable trade. Its principal 
manufacture is paper, but it is also noted for its 
knives and playing cards. It stands at an equal 
centrical distance from Lyons, St. Flour, Mou- 
lins, and Puy. The nearer I approached home, 
the longer did the way seem ; each successive 
mile appeared more tedious than its predecessor. 
This town belongs to M. de Montpansier. I 
went to Palmier's, to see the process of paper- 
making, which seemed to require as many 
workmen, and as much labour, as any other 
manufacture. The common cards are sold at 
one sol the pack, and the finer sort at two 
caroluses. i Saturday, we rode on through the 
rich plain of La Limaigne, and passing in a 
boat, first the Doare and then the Allier, we 
came to 

Pont du Chateau, four leagues, where we 
slept. The plague has committed sad havoc 
here, and I was told some fearful instances of 
its ravages. The house of the Seigneur the 
Viscount de Canillac was burned as they were 
endeavouring to purify it with enormous fires 
in every room. This seigneur sent one of 
his people to me in the evening, with offers of 
service, and to request that I would write to 
M. de Foix in favour of his son, whom he was 
about to send to Rome. Sunday, 19th Novem- 
ber, I went on to dinner at 

Clermont, two leagues, where I stopped all 
day, to give my young horses a rest. Monday, 
the 20th, I started early in the morning, and 



2 Feura. 

4 The Carolus was a coin marked with a K. (Karolus 
VIII.) and was worth about 3Jd. 



MONTAIGNE'S JOURNEY INTO ITALY. 



657 



on my road, at the top of the Pui de Doume, 
passed a largish stone, long and flat, which had 
stuck in the passage all the morning. I felt it 
the day before. It was neither hard nor soft. 
I stopped at Pougibaut for the purpose of pay- 
ing my respects to Madame de la Fayette, with 
whom I stayed half an hour. Her house is not 
so handsome as it is celebrated ; its situation is 
by no means good; the garden is small and 
square, and the walks are raised four or five 
feet above the beds ; the sides of the walks are 
paved with stone. The garden is filled chiefly 
with fruit-trees. The snow was falling so thick, 
and the wind was blowing so cold, that I could 
not judge very well what sort of country I was 
travelling through. I went on to sleep at 

Pont-a-mur, seven leagues, a small village ; 
where I heard that Monsieur and Madame de 
Lude were staying at a place two leagues off. 
The next night I slept at 

Pont - Sarrant, another small village, six 
leagues. All the inns on this line of road, till 
you get to Limoges, are miserable places; the 
only article they have at all passable is wine. 
Their customers, however, for the most part, are 
nothing but muleteers and messengers to and 
from Lyons. My head had got out of sorts 
again ; and truly, if storms and winds and rain 
be bad for it, it had enough to disorder it on this 
confounded route, where the winter is said to 
be harder than in any other part of France. 
Wednesday, 22d November, a most detestable 
morning, I resumed my journey, and passed, in 
the course of the day, through Fuletin, 1 a small 



well-built town, environed by hills, and which 
seems half depopulated by the plague, that 
recently visited it. I slept at 

Chastein, five leagues, a miserable village, 
where I could get no old wine, and had to put 
up with some new stuff, that was not even puri- 
fied. Thursday, 23d, the state of my head being 
in no degree improved by the bad wine and the 
bad weather, I went on to sleep at 

Saublac, five leagues, a small village belong- 
ing to M. de Lausun. Next day, I slept at 

Limoges, six leagues, where I stayed all 
Saturday. T bought a mule here for ninety 
sun-crowns of the man whose horses I had ridden 
from Lyons, and who had accompanied us on 
this same mule. He charged me five crowns 
more for the keep of the animal from Lyons, 
therein cheating me out of four livres, for the 
cost of the horses for that distance only came to 
three crowns and two-thirds. Sunday, 26th 
November, I left Limoges, after dinner, and 
went on to sleep at 

Cars, five leagues; there was no one but 
Madame de Cars at home. Monday, I slept 
at 

Tivie, six leagues. Tuesday, I slept at 

Perigus, 2 five leagues. Wednesday, at 

Mauriac, five leagues; and Thursday, St. 
Andrew's day, the 80th of November, I once 
more reached my own bed at 

Montaigne, seven leagues, which I had left 
22d June, 1580, on my way to La Fere. Thus 
my journey occupied seventeen months and 
eight days. 



46 



END OF THE DIARY. 



LETTEKS 



MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE. 



[The following letter, as well as several of those that 
follow, may be found in a volume published by Montaigne 
himself, about nine years before the first edition of the 
Essays. It is a small octavo, now very scarce, " imprime 
avec privilege, a Paris, Chez Frederic Morel (l'ancien), Rue 
St. Jean-de Bauvais, au Franc-Meurier, 1571," (other title- 
pages have " 1572.") It consists of 131 pages, and is enti- 
tled " La Mesnagerie de Xenophon ; les regies de Mariage, 
de Plutarque; Lettre de Consolation de Plutarque a sa 
Femme ; le tout traduit de Grec en Francois par feu M. 
Estienne de la Boe'tie, conseiller du roy en sa court de par- 
lement a Bordeaux ; ensemble quelques vers Latins et Fran- 
cois de son invention : item, uu discours sur la mort du dit 
Seigneur de la Boe'tie, par M. de Montaigne." The Vers 
Francois, however, did not appear till 1572, when they were 
published by Morel, in an octavo booklet of 19 pages. The 
unsold copies of the translations above enumerated were 
sent forth in 1600, "chez Claude Morel, rue St. Jacques, a 
la Fontaine," with the addition of La Mesnagerie (Econo- 
mics) d'Jristotle, also translated by La Boe'tie. and the 
Vers Francois.'] 

I. 

Michael de Montaigne to his Father. 

* * As to his last words, if a good account 
of them is to be expected from any hand, it is 
undoubtedly from mine ; not only because, all the 
time of his sickness, he was fond of conversing 
with nobody so much as with me, but also be- 
cause, such was the singular and brotherly love 
we bore to one another, that I had a most certain 
knowledge of his designs, opinions, and will, all 
his life-time, as much no doubt as it was possi- 
ble for any one man to know of another. And 
because I knew them to be sublime, virtuous, 
full" of resolution, and, all things considered, 
most wonderful, I foresaw that, if his distemper 
would give him strength to express himself, 
nothing would come from his lips but what was 
great, and very worthy of imitation; therefore I 
gave the utmost attention to it. It is true, mon- 
seigneur, that as my memory is very short, and 
moreover bewildered by the trouble of my mind 
for so heavy and important a loss, it is impossi- 
ble but I should have forgotten many things 
which I could wish were known; but as for 
those which I recollect, I will send you them 
with the strictest regard to truth that is possible. 
For in order to represent him thus cruelly stopped 
in his worthy progress ; to show you that invin- 
cible courage in a body broken down and demo- 
lished by the furious efforts of pain and death, 
would, I confess, require a much better style 



than mine ; because, though when he talked of 
grave and important subjects, he spoke of them 
in such a manner that it was difficult to write 
them down so well, yet it seemed at this time as 
if there was an emulation betwixt his thoughts 
and his words, which should do him the last 
service. For sure I am that I never observed 
him to have so many and such fine imaginations, 
and those uttered with so much eloquence as his 
were, all the time of his illness. For the rest, 
monseigneur, if you find that I have chosen to 
bring into my narrative his most trivial and 
common topics, you must know that I did so on 
purpose ; for these having been delivered by 
him at that time, and in the height of so great 
an affliction, are a singular evidence of a mind 
quite at ease, tranquil, and assured. 

On Monday, the 9th of August, 1563, on my 
return from the Palais, I sent to invite him to 
dine with me. He returned me for answer, with 
thanks, that he was a little out of order, and 
that I should do him a pleasure if I would spend 
an hour with him before he set out for Medoc. 
Soon after I had dined, I went on to him. He 
was laid down on the bed with his clothes on, 
and I found his countenance already altered. 
He told me that he had a looseness on him, at- 
tended with the gripes, ever since the day before 
when he played with M. d'Escars, and wore 
only a doublet under a silk garment; and that 
often, when he caught a cold, it was attended 
with such fits. I thought it proper that he should 
undertake the journey he had intended, but ad- 
vised him to go no further that evening than to 
Germignian, which is but two leagues out of 
town. 1 I did this, the rather because the place 
where he lay was close to some houses that 
were infected with the plague, of which he was 
somewhat afraid, since he returned from Peri- 
gord and the Agenois, where it raged in all 
parts ; besides, I had formerly myself found 
benefit, in such a distemper as his was, from 
riding on horseback. Accordingly he set out, 
accompanied by Mademoiselle de la Boe'tie, his 
wife, and his uncle, M. de Bouillhonnas. 



; Taillant and 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



659 



Early the next morning, came one of his do- 
mestics to me, from Mademoiselle de la Boetie, 
to acquaint me that he had been seLzed that 
night with a violent dysentery. She seat for a 
doctor and an apothecary, and desired me to 
come to him, which, after dinner, I did. 

He was overjoyed to see me; and when I was 
taking leave of him in order to return home, 
with a promise to visit him again next day, he 
desired me, with more affection and importunity 
than ever he had begged any thing in his life, 
to be with him as much as possible. This 
touched me a little. Yet I was going away, 
when Mademoiselle de la Boetie, who had 
already a foreboding of I know not what cala- 
mity, entreated me, with tears in her eyes, that 
I would not stir from him that night. Accord- 
ingly, she prevailed on me to stay, at which he 
was very much cheered. Next day, I returned 
home, and on Thursday I went to see him again. 
His distemper was worse, and his flux of blood, 
with the gripings, which weakened him very 
much, increased every hour. 

On the Friday, I left him again; and on 
Saturday I found him very low. He then told 
me that his distemper was of the contagious 
kind, and, moreover, that it was disagreeable 
and melancholic ; that he very well knew my 
temperament, and desired me to visit him but 
now and then, yet as often as I could. After 
this, I did not leave him. Till the Sunday, he 
had said nothing to me of what he thought of his 
being, and we discoursed only about the particu- 
lar circumstances of his malady, and what the 
ancient physicians said of it ; we had very little 
talk about public affairs, which I found, from the 
very first day, he had an aversion to. But on 
the Sunday he fainted away: and, when he 
came to himself, he said that all things appeared 
to him in a confusion, and that he had seen 
nothing but a thick cloud and an obscure mist, 
in which every thing was confounded and dis- 
ordered ; but that, nevertheless, all this fit had 
given him no displeasure. "Death," said I then 
to him, "has nothing worse than this, my bro- 
ther." — "Nay, nothing so bad," replied he. 

From this time, having had no manner of 
sleep since the first attack of his distemper, and 
growing still worse, notwithstanding all reme- 
dies, so that certain draughts were now taken 
by him which are never ordered but in cases of 
the last extremity, lie began to despair altogether 
of his recovery, and communicated his thoughts 
to me. That same day, because he was in good 
order, I said to him, " that considering the extra- 
ordinary affection which I bore him, it would 
ill become me if I did not take care that, as all 
his actions in health had been prudent and well 
weighed, he should continue to act with the 
same prudence in his sickness; and if it were 
God's will that he should be worse, I should be 
very sorry that, for want of advice, he should 
leave any of his domestic affairs unsettled, not 
only by reason of the damage which his rela- 
tions might suffer from it, but for the sake of his 
reputation;" which he took very kindly at my 



hands ; and, after having solved some difficul- 
ties which kept him in suspense on the subject, 
he desired me to call his uncle and his wife, by 
themselves, that he might give them to under- 
stand what he had resolved on as to his will. 
I told him that would alarm them. " No, no," 
said he, "I will comfort them, and give them 
much better hopes of my recovery than I enter- 
tain myself." And then he asked me whether 
the fainting fits which he had had, did not a 
little surprise us? "That's of no moment, my 
brother," said I, " these are fits which are com- 
mon to such distempers." " True, brother," re- 
plied he, " it is of no importance ; even though 
what you are most afraid of should be the con- 
sequence." "To you," said I, "it would be a 
happy turn ; but the damage would be to me, 
who should thereby lose the company of so 
great, so wise, and sure a friend, whose equal, 
I am certain, I should never find." "It is very 
possible, my brother," he rejoined, " that you 
never may; and I assure you that what makes 
me somewhat solicitous for my recovery, and 
not to hasten to that passage to which I am 
gone already half way, is the consideration of 
the loss you will sustain, as well as that poor 
man and poor woman there (alluding to his 
uncle and his wife), whom I love entirely, and 
who, I am sure, will have much difficulty to 
bear the loss of me, which indeed will be a 
very great one, both to them and you. I am 
also concerned for the regret it will be received 
with by many people who have, during my life, 
had a love and value for me, and whose con- 
versation, truly, if I could help it, I own I 
should be glad not to lose as yet. And if I go 
off the stage of this world, I entreat you, bro- 
ther, as you know them, to give them a testi- 
mony of the friendship I retained for them, to 
the last breath of my life. And moreover, bro- 
ther, I was not born perhaps to so little purpose, 
but I might have had it in my power to serve 
the public. Be this as it will, I am ready to 
depart when it shall please God, being very sure 
that I shall enjoy the ease you have foretold to 
me. And as to you, my friend, I know you to 
be so wise, how much soever it 'affects you, that 
you will nevertheless conform patiently and 
willingly to whatever it shall please his divine 
Majesty to order concerning me. And I beseech 
you to take care that the mourning for my de- 
parture may not drive that good man and good 
woman beyond the bounds of reason." He 
then asked me how they behaved already; I 
told him very well, considering the importance 
of the case. "I suppose so," said he, "now 
that they have still some hopes ; but should I 
once deprive them of any hopes, you will be 
milch perplexed to keep them in temper." In 
pursuance of this regard for them, as long as he 
lived, he always concealed from them the cer- 
tain persuasion ho hud of his death, and earn- 
estly begged me to behave in the same manner. 
When he saw them near him, he affected to 
look brisk and gay, and fed them with flatter- 
ing hopes. 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



I then left him to go and call them. They 
composed their countenances the best they could 
for a while ; and after we were seated round 
his bed, we four being by ourselves, he spoke 
as follows, with a settled countenance, as it 
were gay : 

" My uncle and my wife, I assure you upon 
my faith, that no fresh attack of my distemper, 
or misapprehension that I have of my recovery, 
has put it into my head to call you, in order to 
apprize you of my intention ; for, God be praised, 
I am very well and full of hopes ; but having 
long been convinced, both by experience and 
study, of the little security that is to be placed 
in the stability and constancy of human affairs, 
and even in that life whereof we are so fond, 
which is nevertheless but smoke and a mere 
nothing; and considering also, that because I 
am sick I am so much the nearer advanced to 
the danger of death, I am resolved to put my 
domestic affairs in order before I die, after hav- 
ing first taken your advice." 

And then, addressing his discourse to' his 
uncle : " My good uncle," said he, " were I at 
this hour to give you an account of the great 
obligations I have to you, I should not know 
where to end. It is enough for me that hitherto, 
wheresoever I have been, and with whomso- 
ever 1 have talked, I have always said, that 
whatever a wise, good, and most bountiful father 
could do for his son, all this have you done for 
me ; both for the care that was necessary to give 
me good learning, and when you were pleased 
to push me on into public employments; so that 
the whole course of my life has been full of 
great and praiseworthy offices of your friend- 
ship towards me : in short, whatever I have I 
hold from you, and acknowledge that I am 
obliged for to you, who have been to me a father 
indeed ; so that, as the son of the family, I have 
no power to dispose of anything, unless you are 
pleased to give me leave." He then was silent, 
and stayed till sighs and sobs gave his uncle 
leisure to answer him, "That whatever he 
thought fit would be always acceptable to him." 
Then, having purposed to make him his heir, he 
desired him to accept of what was his. 

Then turning his discourse to his wife : " My 
likeness," said he (for so he often called her, on 
account of some ancient affinity betwixt them), 
" as I have been joined to you by the tie of mar- 
riage, which is one of the most respectable and 
inviolable obligations that God has laid upon us 
here below for keeping up human society, I have 
loved, cherished, and esteemed you as far as I 
was able, and am fully assured that you have 
returned me a reciprocal affection, which I can- 
not sufficiently acknowledge. I desire you to 
take that share of my goods which I give you, 
and to content yourself therewith, though I 
know indeed that it is very little, compared with 
your deserts." 

Then addressing himself to me: "My bro- 
ther," said he, "whom I love so dearly, and 
whom I chose out of such a multitude, in order 
to revive that virtuous and sincere friendship 



with you, the exercise of which has, by the 
vices of the age, been so long unknown to us, 
that there are only some old traces left of it in 
the memory of antiquity, I beseech you, as a 
token of my affection for you, to accept of my 
library and books; a present very small, but 
given with a good heart, and which is fitting for 
you, considering you a lover of learning. It will 
be jivrindoavvov tui sodalis.'" ' 

Then addressing himself to all three of us in 
general, he blessed God that in a case of such 
extremity he was accompanied by all those that 
were the dearest to him in the world ; and said, 
he thought it a very goodly sight to see four 
persons assembled together so well agreed, and 
united in friendship, not doubting, he said, that 
we all loved one another unanimously, each one 
for the sake of the others. And, after having 
recommended us to one another, he proceeded 
thus : " Having now settled my temporal affairs, 
I must also think of my spiritual. I am a Chris- 
tian; I am a Catholic; such I have lived, and 
such I am determined to die. Send for a priest 
to come to me, for I am not willing to be de- 
ficient in this last duty of a Christian." 

Here he ended his discourse, which he had 
carried on with such a steady countenance, such 
a strength of language and voice, that whereas 
when I entered his chamber I found him weak, 
slow in the utterance of his words, his pulse 
very low, as with a lingering fever, tending to 
death, his countenance pale and wan, he seemed 
now, as by a miracle, to have resumed fresh 
vigour, with a more ruddy complexion and a 
stronger pulse, so that I made him feel mine, in 
order to compare them together. At that in- 
stant my heart was so sunk that I could scarce 
answer him a word; but, two or three hours 
after, in order to keep up his noble courage, and 
also because I wished, from the tender concern 
I had all my life long for his honour and glory, 
that there should be more witnesses of so many 
strong proofs of his magnanimity, by having a 
larger company in his chamber, I said to him, 
that I blushed for shame to think that my 
courage failed me in the hearing of what he, 
who was so great a sufferer, had the courage to 
say, that hitherto I had thought that God scarce 
ever gave us so great an advantage over human 
accidents, and could hardly believe what I had 
read of it in some histories ; but that having now 
seen such a proof of it, I praised God that I had 
found it in a person by whom I was so much 
beloved, and who was to me so dear, and that 
this would serve me as an example to act the 
same part in my turn. 

He interrupted me by desiring I would do so, 
and demonstrate, by the effect, that the conver- 
sations we had had, in the time of our health, 
were not only words of mouth, but deeply en- 
graved on our hearts and souls, and ready to be 
put in execution upon the first occasion that 
offered, adding, that this was the true practical 
aim of our studies and of philosophy. Then 



' A remembrance of your friend." 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



661 



taking me by the hand, " My brother, my friend," 
said he, " I assure thee I have done many things, 
I think, in my life, with as much pain and diffi- 
culty as I do this. And when all is said, it is a 
long while ago since I was prepared for it, and 
that I had got all my lesson by heart. But is it 
not enough to have lived to my age? I was just 
entering into my thirty-third year. By God's 
grace, all my days hitherto have been healthy 
and happy ; but, through the inconstancy of 
human affairs, they could hardly continue so 
longer; it was now time to launch into serious 
affairs, and to expect to meet with a thousand 
unpleasant things, as particularly the incon- 
veniences of old age, of which I am by this 
means quit. And besides, it is probable that I 
have lived to this hour with more innocence, 
and less ill-nature, than I should have done if 
God had permitted me to live till my head had 
been filled with the care of getting wealth, and 
pushing my affairs. As for my part, I am cer- 
tain that I am going to God and the seat of the 
blessed."' And, because my countenance be- 
trayed some uneasiness at these words of his: 
"What! brother," said he, "would you possess 
me with fear ? If I had any terror upon me, 
whose business should it be to remove it, but 
yours?" 

The notary, who was sent for to receive his 
last will and testament, coming in the evening, 
I made him prepare the writings, and then 
■went to ask La Boetie whether he would not 
sign it: "Not sign it?" said he; "I will do it 
with my own hand ; but 1 wish, brother, that 
they had given me more time, for I find myself 
extremely weary, and so weak, that I am in a 
manner spent." I was going to change the dis- 
course : but he recovered himself on a sudden, 
and said to me, that he had not very long to 
live, and he desired of me to know whether the 
notary wrote a swift hand, for he should scarce 
make any pause in dictating. I called the 
notary to him, and he dictated to him his will 
on the spot, so fast that he had much ado to 
keep pace with him ; and having made an end, 
he desired me to read it to him, and said to rne : 
" See, what it is to take care of that fine thing, 
our riches. Sunt hac qua hominibus vocantur bona, 
"these are the things that men call good." After 
the will was signed, his chamber being full of 
people, he asked me if talking would do him 
any harm ; I said no, provided he spoke softly. 

Then he called Mademoiselle de Saint Quen- 
tin, his niece, to him, and spoke to her thus: 
"My dear niece, I think that ever since I have 
known thee, I have seen the rays of a very ex- 
cellent nature shine in thee ; but these last 
offices, which thou dost perform with so much 
affection and diligence in my present necessity, 
give me very great hopes of thee; and I am 
truly obliged to thee, and thank thee most affec- 
tionately. Now, in order to discharge my con- 
science, I advise thee, in the first place, to be 
ever devoted towards God ; for this is, no doubt, 
the principal part of your duty, and that without 
which no other action of ours can be either good 
56 



or seemly ; and when such devotion is sincere, 
it necessarily draws after it all other virtuous 
actions. Next to God, thou must love thy father 
and mother, thy mother, my sister, whom I es- 
teem one of the best and most sensible women 
in the world, and I entreat thee to regulate thy 
life by her example. Do not suffer thyself to be 
drawn aside by pleasures ; avoid as a pestilence 
those silly familiarities with which thou seest 
women sometimes indulge men ; for though 
there may be no harm in them at first, yet by 
little and little they corrupt the mind, and lead 
it to idle thoughtlessness, and thence to the 
abominable sink of vice. Believe me, the surest 
protection of a young woman's chastity is staid- 
ness. I intreat thee, and I expect, that thou 
wilt remember me, by frequently recalling to 
mind the friendship I have shown- you ; not to 
complain and grieve yourself for the loss of me, 
and, as far as is in my power, I forbid this to 
all my friends, since it would look as if they 
envied the happiness of which, by the favour 
of death, I shall soon see myself in possession. 
And assure yourself, my dear, that if God were 
now to indulge me with the choice, of returning 
to live, or of finishing the journey I have now 
begun, I should be at a loss which to choose. 
My dear niece, farewell I" 

He then called Mademoiselle dArsat, his 
step-daughter, and said to her: "Mydanghter, 
you have no great need of advice from me, as 
you have a mother whom I have found so pru- 
dent, so very conformable to my temper and 
inclinations, that she never once offended me ; 
you will be very well instructed by such a 
tutoress. And do not think it strange if I, who 
am not related to you by blood, have a care and 
anxiety for you ; for since you are the daughter 
of a person so near to me, it is impossible but 
I must be touched with whatever concerns you ; 
and therefore I have ever taken as much care 
of the affairs of M. dArsat, your father, as of my 
own, and perad venture it will not impede your 
advancement that you were my step-daughter. 
You have enough both of wealth and beauty ; 
you are a gentlewoman of a good family ; you 
have nothing more to do than to grace these 
gifts by cultivating your mind, which I desire 
you would not fail of doing. I do not forbid 
you vice, which is so detestable in women ; for 
I am not willing so much as to think you i-iin 
even entertain it in your mind, — nay, I believe 
that you abhor the very name of it. My dear 
daughter; farewell." 

Though the whole chamber was full of weep- 
hflg and wailing, it did not interrupt the thread 
of his discourses, which were pretty long. But 
after he had made an end, he ordered everyone 
to quit his room except his garrison, as he called 
his female attendants. And then calling to my 
brother de Beauregard, he said to him : " M. da 
Beauregard, I thank you very heartily for the 
trouble you take for me. I have something 
very much at heart, which I long to tell yen, 
and will therefore, with your leave, dis 
to you." And being encouraged by my brother, 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



he proceeded thus : " I swear to you, that of all 
who have set about the reformation of the 
church, I never thought there was any one man 
that entered upon it with better zeal, and a 
more entire, sincere, and single-minded affection, 
than you ; and I verily believe you were excited 
to it only by the vices of our prelates, who un- 
doubtedly stand in need of great amendment, 
and by certain imperfections, that have in a 
course of time crept into our church. I do not 
wish at this moment to dissuade you from it ; 
for I would not desire any body to do any thing 
whatsoever against his conscience ; but I would 
fain caution you, that in regard to the good repu- 
tation which your family has acquired by their 
perpetual agreement, a family than which not 
one in the world is dearer to me (good God ! 
where is such another family as this, which 
never did an action unbecoming an honest 
man !), in regard to the will of your father, that 
good father to whom you are so much obliged, 
and of your uncle ; you should avoid such extre- 
mities ; be not so sharp and so violent to your 
brothers ; be reconciled with them. Make no 
separate combination or party, but unite your- 
selves together. You see what ruin these dis- 
sensions have brought upon this kingdom, and I 
can assure you that they will be attended with 
still greater mischiefs ; and, as you are wise and 
good, beware of bringing these inconveniences 
into your family, for fear they should deprive it 
of the honour and happiness which it has en- 
joyed to this hour. Take what I say to you in 
good part, M. de Beauregard, and for a sure tes- 
timony of the friendship I bear you ; for with 
this view I hitherto reserved my mention of it 
to you; and perhaps the condition in which you 
now see me speaking it, will give my words the 
more weight and authority with you." My 
brother thanked him very much. 

On the Monday morning, he was so bad that 
he quitted all hopes of life, insomuch that when 
he saw me, he in a very piteous tone said: 
"Brother, have you no pity for the many tor- 
ments that I suffer? Don't you now see that 
all the relief you give me serves only to prolong 
my pain?" Soon after this, he fainted; so that 
we began to give him over for dead: at length, 
by the power of vinegar and wine, he was 
revived. But he did not live long after ; and 
hearing us lament around him, he said : " My 
God, who is it torments me thus? Why was I 
robbed of that profound and pleasant rest I had ? 
pray leave me to myself." And then hearing 
me, he said: "And you too, brother, are not 
willing that I should be cured. Oh, what ease 
do you deprive me of!" At last, being a little 
more come to himself, he asked for a little wine ; 
and, liking it well, said to me, it was the best 
liquor in the world. " No, surely," said I, to 
get him in another train, " water is the best." 
"Yes, without doubt," replied he, "iSwp apifrv." 1 
His extremities, even his face, were now become 



i " Water is the best thing." Pindar thus opens his first 
Olympic ode. 



as cold as ice, attended with a death-sweat, 
which ran down all his body, and he had scarce 
any sign of a pulse left. 

This morning he confessed to his priest, who 
had not, however, brought all the necessaries 
with him, and therefore could not celebrate 
mass. But on Tuesday morning M. de la Boe'tie 
sent for him to assist him, as he said, in the per- 
formance of the last duty of a Christian: he 
then heard mass and received the sacrament; 
and as the priest was taking leave of him, he 
said : " My spiritual father, I humbly beseech 
you, and those who are under your charge, to 
pray to God for me, that if it be ordered in the 
most sacred rolls of the decrees of God that I 
should now end my days, that he would take 
pity on my soul, and forgive me my sins, which 
are without number, as it is not possible for so 
vile and base a creature as I to have performed 
the commands of so high and mighty a Master ; 
or if it seemeth good to him that I should tarry 
longer in this world, beg of him to put a speedy 
period to the agonies which I suffer ; and that 
he would be so gracious to me as to guide my 
steps hereafter in the path of his holy will, and 
to make me better than I have been." 

Here he stopped a little to take breath, and 
seeing that the -priest was going away, he re- 
called him, and said to him : "I wish to declare 
this also in your presence ; I protest that, as I 
have been baptised, and have lived, so I am 
willing to die, in the faith and religion which 
Moses first planted in Egypt, which the patri- 
archs received afterwards in Judea, and which, 
in the progress of time, has been handed down 
to us in France." It seemed as if he would fain, 
have spoken a little more, if he had been able; 
but he concluded with desiring his uncle and 
me to pray to God for him : " For these are," he 
said, "the best offices that Christians can per- 
form for one another." In speaking, he hap- 
pened to uncover his shoulder, and desired his 
uncle to cover it again, though he bad a valet 
nearer to him, and then, looking at me, he said, 
Ingenui est, cui multwm dcbeas, ei plurimum velle 
debere;* "It is the quality of a noble mind to 
desire to be under still greater obligation to him 
whom we are much indebted to already." 

In the afternoon, M. de Belot came to visit 
him, and, taking him by the hand, he said : 
" My dear friend, I was but now about to pay 
my debt, but I have found a good creditor, who 
has remitted it me." A little after, starting sud- 
denly out of a doze, he said : "Well, well, come 
when it will, I wait for it with firmness and 
pleasure ;" words which he repeated two or 
three times in his illness. Afterwards, as they 
were forcing open his mouth to take a draught, 
he said, turning himself to M. de Belot, An 
vivere tanti est? " Is life worth all this ado?" 

In the evening, death began indeed to strike 
him with his arrows ; and as I was at supper, 
he sent for me, being nothing now but skin and 



' Cicero, Epist. Fam. ii. 6. 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



bone, or, as he called himself, Nan homo, sed 
species hominis ; and said to me with the utmost 
difficulty: " My brother and friend, God grant 
that I may see the imaginations I have just been 
entertained with, realised." After he had stop- 
ped a while, and laboured hard, with the deep- 
est sighs, for utterance, for then the tongue was 
beginning plainly to deny him its office : " What 
were they, brother?" "Great," said he, "very 
great." " It never happened before," I said, 
"that I had not the honour of being made ac- 
quainted with all your ideas ; will you not let 
me still enjoy that confidence?" " Yes, surely, 
brother," said he ; " but it is not in my power 
to discover them ; they are wonderful, infinite, 
and unspeakable." There he stopped, for he 
could proceed no farther ; though a little before 
he fain would have talked to his wife, and had 
said to her, with the most cheerful countenance 
he could put on, that he had a story to tell her. 
And he seemed to strive to speak, but his 
strength failing, he called for a little wine to 
raise it, but it signified nothing ; for he fainted 
away on a sudden, and for a good while lost his 
sight. 

Being now just on the confines of death, and 
hearing the lamentations of his wife, he called 
her, and spoke thus to her: "My image, you 
torment yourself before the time ; will you not 
have pity on me? Take courage. Truly, I 
am more in pain for what I see you suffer, than 
for what I feel myself; and with reason, because 
as for the evils which we feel of our own, it is 
not, properly speaking, we who feel them, but 
certain senses which God has planted in us ; but 
what we feel for others, we feel by judgment 
and the faculty of reasoning. But I am going." 
This he said because his spirits failed him. 
Now, being afraid that he had frightened his 
wife, he recovered himself, and said: "I am 
going to sleep : good night, my wife, leave me." 
This was the last farewell he took of her. 

After she was gone, "Brother," said he to me, 
"keep close by me, if you please;" and then, 
either feeling the darts of death come thicker 
and sharper, or else the force of some hot 
medicine which they had made him swallow, 
he spoke with a stronger and more audible voice, 
and turned himself about in bed with violence; 
so that all the company began to have some 
hopes, because hitherto his weakness alone had 
made us despair of him. Then, amongst other 
things, he begged me again and again, with the 
greatest affection, to make way for him, so that 
I was afraid his senses were gone. Even when 
I had gently remonstrated to him that he was 
overpowered by his distemper, and that these 
were not the words of a man in his right senses, 
he did not seem to be convinced, but repeated 
it still more strongly: "Brother, brother, what, 
won't you give me room?" insomuch that he 
forced me to convince him by reason, and to 
say to him, that since he breathed and talked, 
he had by consequence a place. "Yes, yes," 
said he, "I have; but it is not the one I want; 



and besides, say what you will, I have no longer 
a being." " God will give you a better very 
soon," said I. "Would to God, brother," said 
he, " I was there now ; I have longed to be gone 
these three days past." In this distressed state, 
he often called to me, in order to know whether 
I was near him. At length he inclined a little 
to rest, which confirmed us still more in our 
good hopes ; so that I went out of his chamber 
to congratulate thereupon with Mademoiselle 
de la Boe'tie ; but about an hour after, naming 
me once or twice, and then fetching a deep 
sigh, he gave up the ghost, about three o'clock 
on Wednesday morning, the 18th of August, 
1563, having lived thirty-two years, nine months, 
and seventeen days. 



II.' 

To Monseigneur, 

Monseigneur de Montaigne. 

Monseigneur, — In v obedience to your com- 
mands last year at your house of Montaigne, I 
have with my own hands put that great Spanish 
divine and philosopher, Raymond Sebond, into 
a French dress, and have, as much as lay in my 
power, stripped him of that rough mien and un- 
polished aspect, which he first appeared in to 
you; so that, in my opinion, he is now comely 
and genteel enough to appear in the best of com- 
pany. It is possible that some over-curious 
readers may perceive that he has got a little of 
the Gascon turn and feature ; but they may be 
the more ashamed of their own negligence, in 
suffering a person quite a novice and a learner, 
to get the start of them in this work. Now, 
Monseigneur, it is but reason it should be pub- 
lished to the world, and have the credit of your 
name, because what amendment and reforma- 
tion it has, is all owing to you. Yet I plainly 
perceive, that if you should please to settle ac- 
counts with him, you will be very much his 
debtor; since, in exchange for his excellent and 
most religious discourses, of his sublime, and, 
as it were, divine conceptions, it will appear 
that you have only brought him words and lan- 
guage, a merchandize so mean and common, 
that he who has the greatest stock of it is per- 
adventure the worse for it. 

Monseigneur, I pray God to grant you a very 
long and very happy life. Paris, this 18th of 
June, 1568. 

Your most humble and most obedient son, 
Michel de Montaigne. 



■ This letter occurs by way of dedication to Raymond 
I Seliond's Natural Theology , "translated into French by 
I Messire Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne, knight of the 
I king's order, and gentleman in ordinary of his chamber. 

Paris, Gabriel Urion, I5ti(>." Montaigne's father, however, 

dieil before the work was printed. There are other editions. 
| Paris, chez Michel Sonnins, J.W1 ; Rouen, chez Komain de 

Beauvais, lliOII; Toiimon, lti(),i; Rouen, chez Jean dc la 

Mere, 1641, Sec. See Essays, book ii. c. IS. 



664 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



III. 1 

To Monsieur de Lansac, 2 

Knight of the King's Order, Member of his Privy 

Council, Sitpcrinteiidant of his Finances, and' 

Captain of a Hundred Gentlemen of his Hoiose- 

hold. 

Sir, — I send you-Xenophon's Economics, trans- 
lated into French by the late Monsieur de la 
Boetie ; a present which I thought very proper 
for you, not only from its coming, in the first 
place, as you know, from the hand of a gentle- 
man of distinction, a very great man both in 
war and peace, but from having taken its second 
form from that person whom I know you loved 
and esteemed as long as he lived. This treatise 
will be a constant inducement to the continuance 
of your favourable opinion and good-will to his 
name and memory. And I will be bold to say, 
that you need not fear the making any addition 
to your regard for him : since, as you took a 
liking to him only from the public testimonies 
he gave of his character, it is incumbent on me 
to assure you, that he had so many degrees of 
ability beyond common fame, that you are very 
far from knowing him thoroughly. He did me 
the honour, which I rank with the greatest bles- 
sings of my fortune, to form so strict and close 
a connexion of friendship with me, that unless 
my sight at any time failed me, there was not a 
bias, motive, or spring in his soul, which I could 
not discern and judge of. Without offence to 
the truth, he was, take him altogether, so well 
nigh a miracle, that, lest my word should not be 
taken for any thing, if I once transgress the 
bounds of probability, I am forced, in speaking 
of him, to constrain and contract myself short 
of the extent of what I know of him. And 
for this time, sir, I shall barely content myself 
with entreating you, for the honour and vene- 
ration which you owe to the truth, to believe 
and testify that our Guyenne never saw his 
fellow amongst the gentlemen of the robe. In 
hopes, therefore, that you will render him that 
which is most justly due to him, and with a 
view to keep him fresh in your memory, I pre- 
sent you this book, which at the same time will 
satisfy you, on my part, that, had not my in- 
sufficiency laid me under an express prohibition 
to do it, I would have been as ready to present 
you with something of my own, as an acknow- 
ledgment of the obligations which I am under 
to you, and of that favour and friendship which 
you have for a long time shown to our family. 
But, sir, for want of better coin, I offer you in 



Louis tie St. Cclais, 



4 Henry ile Mesmes, Seigneur de Unis«y et «!■_■ Malassi/..\ 
privy councillor, chancellor of the kingdom of Navarre, &c, 
was born at Paris, in 1532, of a Uemese family, and dis- 
tinguished himself under Henry II., Charles IX., and 
Henry III., as a statesman. He was charged this same 



payment the sincerest tender of my humble 
service. 

Sir, I beg God to protect you, and am 
Your obedient servant, 

Michel de Montaigne. 



IV. 3 

To Monsieur be Mesmes, 4 
Seigneur de Roissy et de Malassize, one of the 
King's Privy Council. 
Sir. — It is one of the most remarkable follies 
that men are guilty of, to exert the force of their 
understandings to give a shock and an over- 
throw to opinions that are commonly received, 
and yield us satisfaction and content; for 
whereas every thing under heaven employs 
the means and instruments with which nature 
has furnished it, for the ornament and conveni- 
ence of its being, these men, that they may 
seem to be of a more gay and sprightly dispo- 
sition, not capable of admitting and entertaining 
any thing but what has been a thousand times 
touched and poised in the nicest balance of rea- 
son, shake their minds out of a calm and easy 
situation, for the sake of possessing them, after 
a long enquiry, with doubt, uneasiness, and ex- 
citement. It is not without reason that child- 
hood and simplicity have been so much com- 
mended by truth itself. For my part, I had 
rather be more at my ease, with less ability; 
more contentment, with less understanding. 
Therefore it is, sir, though some of the wits 
laugh at our concern for what may pass in the 
world after we are departed from it, — the soul, 
they say, when lodged elsewhere, having no 
longer any care for things below, — yet I think it 
is a great comfort to the frailty and short space 
of this life, to think that it is capable of being 
strengthened and prolonged by fame and repu- 
tation; and I most heartily give in to so plea- 
sant and favourable an opinion, which is innate 
in us, without a curious encmiry into the how 
or the wherefore. From this it is that, as I 
loved no mortal so well as M. de la Boetie, the 
greatest man of this age, in my opinion, I should 
think it a gross failure of my duty, if I wittingly 
suffered a character so rich and so worthy of 
commendation as his, to vanish and slip out of 
remembrance, and if I did not, upon that store, 
attempt to revive and raise him again to life. I 
believe that he is sensible of it in some mea- 
sure, and that these efforts of mine affect and 



matter, was lame, builcui, this peace was tailed la paix 
boiteusc ct, malassise, and such the massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew proved it to be in fearful reality. De Mesmes 
was ever a great patron of literature and of literary men, 
anil was himself an accomplished person. There are some 
memoirs of his published, and it is said of him that when 
he left college, he could recite Homer, without looking at 
the book, from beginning to end. He took a part in Lam- 
bin's work on Cicero, which is dedicated to hull. 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



please him ; in truth, he still lodges in my breast 
so entire and so vividly, that I cannot think him 
so deep under ground, nor so totally removed 
from our correspondence. Now, sir, because 
every fresh discovery which I make of his per- 
son and character is as a multiplication of this 
second life of his, and because his name is en- 
nobled and honoured from the place that re- 
ceives it, it is incumbent on me, not only to dif- 
fuse it to the utmost of my power, but also to 
recommend it to the care of persons of honour 
and virtue, in the number whereof you have so 
high a station, that, in order to allbrd you an 
opportunity of receiving this new guest, and 
giving him a good welcome, I determined to 
present you with this small work, not for any 
service that you can reap from it, being very 
sure that you have no need of an interpreter, to 
converse with Plutarch and his companions ; but 
it is possible that Madame de Roissy, when she 
sees the order of her household, and your good 
harmony represented to the life, will be well 
pleased to find that the excellence of her natural 
disposition has not only attained to, but even 
surmounted, what the wisest philosophers have 
been able to conceive of the duty and laws of 
marriage. And, at any rate, I shall ever esteem 
it an honour to be able to do any thing that may 
give you or yours a pleasure ; such is my obli- 
gation to serve you. 

Sir, I pray God to give you a long and happy 
life. — Montaigne, this 30th of April, 1570. 
Your humble servant, 

Michel de Montaigne. 



To Monsieur be l'Hospitai,, Chancellor of 
France. 

Monseigneur, — I have an opinion that such as 
you, to whom fortune and the reason of things 
have committed the administration of public 
affairs, are not more curious in any enquiry than 
how you may attain to the knowledge of the 
men in your offices ; for there is scarce any com- 
munity so barren, but it has men enough in it 
for the commodious discharge of all its func- 
tions, provided its departments and jurisdiction 
can be justly laid out; and when that point is 
once gained, there would be nothing wanting to 
the perfect composition of a state. Now, the 
more desirable this is, the more difficult it is. 
forasmuch as neither your eyes can see so far, 
as to select and choose in so great and so vari- 
ous a multitude, nor can they penetrate to the 
bottom of men's hearts, to discover their inten 



i Printed in the same 


colle 


rtion, before tile Pccmata of 


La Boetie, page loo. I 






;■ ; ai tins time ill 


ins estate ol De Vignay, 






1 1 lied hllllsoll' 








riliic cruelties con- 


Fjiiri iiu liv thy Court <>t C 






i st tin' Protestants 


and which all his coiltag 




ppO! 


i Id ii"t prei onl 


in resigning the Baals tn 




• lirulai't 


to I lathe 


rine de Medicis, he Bays 


•■ the affairs 


it this time are loo 



corrupt for me to take a part in them." It was very natural 

56* 



tions and their consciences, the chief points to 
be considered. So that there was never yet any 
polity, ever so well established, in which we 
have not often observed mistakes in this depart- 
ment, or that choice ; and in those, where ignor- 
ance and malice, dissimulation, bribery, intrigues, 
and violence carry the point, if any election is 
made meritoriously, it is undoubtedly to be 
ascribed to fortune, which, by the inconstancy 
of its various turns, happened this one time to 
fall into the train of reason. 

This consideration, sir, has often been my 
comfort, when I saw M. Stephen de la Boe'tie, 
one of the most proper and necessary men for 
the chief offices in France, live all his days un- 
employed and neglected by his own fire-side, to 
the great damage of the commonwealth; for, as 
to his own part, I must tell you, sir, that he so 
abounded in those possessions and treasures 
which defy fortune, that never was any man 
more satisfied or more contented. I know, in- 
deed, that he was advanced to certain local dig- 
nities which are thought highly of; and I know, 
moreover, that never was any man better 
qualified for them ; and that at thirty-two years 
of age, when he died, he had acquired more 
true reputation therein than any of his prede- 
cessors. But, surely, it is unreasonable to let a 
man who would make a good officer, remain a 
common soldier, and to employ those in the 
lower offices who would act well in the first. 
The truth is, that his abilities were not em- 
ployed to the best advantage, nor sufficiently 
exerted ; so that over and above his office, he 
had a surplus of great talents, that lay idle and 
unprofitable, which might have been of service 
to the public affairs, and an honour to himself. 

Now, sir, since he was so averse to push him- 
self forward, it being, unfortunately, the lot of 
virtue and ambition to lodge but seldom in one 
breast; and as he lived in times so stupid, or so 
full of envy, that he could not possibly have 
any assistance from another's testimony of him, 
I long prodigiously that at least his memory, 
which alone must henceforth lay claim to the 
offices of our friendship, may receive the reward 
of his merit, and that it may have a place in 
the commendations of persons of honour and 
virtue. For this reason, sir, I was desirous of 
bringing him to light, and presenting him to you 
by these few Latin verses that he has left be- 
hind him. 2 Quite contrary to the mason, who 
exhibits the gayest part of his edifice towards 
the street, and to the mercer, who makes a show 
and parade of the richest sample of his goods, 
the thing most to be prized in my friend, the 
very juice and marrow of his merit, went away 
with him, and we have nothing left of him but 



in itself to dedicate these Vrrf Latin) to !>■• l'Hospitai, 

one of the hest Latin poets of his time ; hut the particular 
circumstances under which the great chancellor was then 

placed, renders the dedication peculiarly honourable to 
Montaigne. 

- The*e vol so- are respect i vol \ :i . ti 1 1 1- — i ! to Montaieaie 
himsell'; to Holm, their mutual i'rieml ; to Jos. de la Clias 
saoue, Montaigne's l.ithoi inlaw : to Margaret 

La Uoelie's wile ; to the celebrated Jul. (,'xsar tfcaliger, &c 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



the bark and the leaves. The man who could 
display the well regulated movements of his 
soul, his piety, his virtue, his justice, the vivacity 
of his temper, the weight and solidity of his 
judgment, the sublimity of his conceptions, so 
far exalted above those of the vulgar, his learn- 
ing, the grace that accompanied all his actions, 
the tender love he had for his wretched coun- 
try, and his mortal and sworn hatred to every 
vice, but especially to that base traffic which is 
screened under the honourable name of justice, 
would certainly kindle a singular affection for 
him in the breasts of all good men, mixed with 
a wonderful regret for his loss. But, sir, this is 
so far out of my power, that be never had a 
thought of leaving any evidence to posterity of 
the fruit of his studies, and nothing remains 
thereof but what he wrote now and then to pass 
away the time. 

Be this as it will, I entreat you, sir, to receive 
him with a kindly countenance ; and as we 
often judge of the greater by the less, and as 
the very pastimes of great men give an honour- 
able idea to the clear-sighted of the source from 
which they spring, I hope you will, by this 
work of his, rise to the knowledge of himself, 
and by consequence love and embrace his name 
and memory. In so doing, sir, you will but 
render an equivalent to the settled opinion 
which he had of your virtue ; and also accom- 
plish what he exceedingly longed for whilst he 
lived ; for there was not a man in the world, in 
whose acquaintance and friendship he would 
have thought himself more happy than in yours. 
But if any one takes it ill that I make so bold 
with other people's matters, I must tell him, that 
never was any thing more exactly written or 
delivered in the schools of the philosophers, con- 
cerning the prerogatives and duties of sacred 
friendship, than what was the practice between 
this person and me. Besides, sir, this trivial 
present, like killing two birds with one stone, 
will serve, if you please, to show you the honour 
and veneration in which I hold your abilities, 
and singular great qualities ; for as to such as 
are external and fortuitous, it is not my way to 
bring them into the account. 

Sir, I pray God to grant you a very happy 
and long life. — Montaigne, this 30th of April, 
1570. 

Your obedient, humble servant, 

Michel de Mohtaione. 



VI. 

Advertisement to the Reader. 1 

Reader, — Thou art indebted to me for all thoi 
enjoyest of the late M. Stephen de la Boe'tie 
for I can assure thee, that as to him, there i: 



i Printed at the end of the letter to M. de Lansac, and 
serving as a preface to De la Boetie's translations. 



nothing of his that he ever regarded as worth 
showing thee, nor, indeed, as worth bearing his 
name in public. But I, who am not so difficult, 
and who, besides, am not willing that these 
works, the only things of his I found in his 
library, which he left me by his will, should be 
lost, present them to thee ; and, if I may trust 
my own poor judgment, I am inclined to hope 
that thou wilt find that some of the most emi- 
nent men of our time have made a clutter about 
things much less noticeable than these. I un- 
derstand, from those who knew him earlier (for 
our acquaintance did not begin till about six 
years before his death), that, some time ago, he 
wrote a number of Latin and French verses, 
under the name of Gironde, and I have heard 
recited some rich specimens of these ; among 
others, the gentleman who has just written the 
Antiquities of Bourges, 2 repeats some that per- 
fectly recal my friend ; but I know not what 
has become of these, or of his Greek poems. 
The fact is, that, as each sally came into his 
head, he put it down on the first piece of paper 
he came across, and took no further care to pre- 
serve it. Be assured that I have done all I 
could, and that, during the seven years he has 
been lost to us, I have been able to discover 
nothing further of his than what thou seest, ex- 
cept a Discourse upon Voluntary Servitude, and 
some Memoirs of our Troubles, arising out of 
the Edict of January, 1562; the which two 
pieces I hold to be of a quality too delicate and 
refined to be exposed to the gross and heavy air 
of so ill a season. God be with thee. Paris, 
this 10th of August, 1570. 



VII.s 

To M. de Foix, one of the King's Privy Council, 
and Ambassador from his Majesty to the Senate 
of Venice. 

Sir, — When about to recommend to you and 
to posterity the memory of the late Stephen de 
la Boe'tie, incited thereto as well by reason of his 
extreme worth as of the singular affection he 
bore me, it came into my head how great a 
wrong it is, attended with weighty consequences, 
and worthy of the restriction of the laws, to 
deprive, as is commonly done, virtue of glory, 
her faithful companion, to bestow it, without 
selection and without judgment, on the first 
comer, according to our particular interests ; see- 
ing that the two principal reins that guide us, 
and keep us in order, are punishment and re- 
ward, which only affect us, as men, by the 
medium of honour and shame, inasmuch as these 
go direct to the soul, and are only appreciable 
by those sentiments and feelings which are in- 
ternal and peculiarly our own, whereas beasts 



3 Printed before the Vers Francois of La Boe'tie, Paris, 
157:2. This collection, consisting o'l'onlv 111 paces, contains: 
an Epistle to his Wife; a translation from the 33d Canto 
ofAriosto; a chanson; and twenty-five sonnets, different 
from those already referred to, Essays, Book i. c. 28. 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



6«7 



are more or less capable of every other kind of 
reward and punishment. Besides, it is well to 
note, that the custom of praising virtue, even the 
virtue of those that are dead, though it touches 
not them, yet serves to incite the living to 
imitate them: just as the extreme punishment 
is employed by justice, rather as an example to 
others, than as an act of vengeance on the suf- 
ferer. Now praise and dispraise, answering one 
another witli such like consequence, it is diffi- 
cult to save one's-self : our laws forbid us to 
injure the reputation of a man, yet offer no im- 
pediment to our injuring real merit by bestowing 
reputation where no merit exists. This perni- 
cious license of distributing, at our fancy, praise 
where none is due, has formerly, in different 
places, been confined to particular classes; and, 
perad venture, it is this circumstance that ere- 
while brought poetry under the disfavour of the 
sages. But, at all events, it is not to be denied 
that it is a vice which greatly smacks of lying, 
and lying is a vice which ever unbeseems a 
well-descended mind, whatever pretext it as- 
sumes. 

As to the person of whom I now speak to 
you, sir, there is no danger that I shall go beyond 
the limits of truth in commending him ; his 
misfortune, on the contrary, is, that though he 
has furnished me, as much as man could do, 
with just and manifest occasions for praising 
him, I am far from possessing the capacity to do 
this as it ought to be done. Yet I am the only 
person to whom he disclosed himself in his real 
lustre, and who can answer for a million of 
graces, perfections, and virtues, that lay, thanks 
to the ingratitude of his fortune, fallow in bis 
soul. It being in the nature of things, I know 
not why, that truth, however fair and acceptable 
in herself, hardly obtains credit with us unless 
infused and insinuated into us by dint of persua- 
sion, I, finding myself ill provided with power 
to persuade, or authority to give warrant to my 
simple testimony, or eloquence to enrich and set 
it forth, had well nigh made up my mind to 
abandon the attempt altogether, not having any 
remains of his which worthily represent to the 
world his genius and his knowledge ; the truth 
is, sir, that having been surprised by fate in the 
flower of his age, and in the enjoyment of full 
and vigorous health, he had never, as yet, thought 
of sending forth such works as might show pos- 
terity what he really was; and indeed, perad- 
venture, even had the notion come across him, 
he was not a man to trouble himself much 
about the matter. But I have at last arrived at 
the conclusion, that it was more excusable in 
him to have buried with him so many rare 
favours of heaven, than it would be in me to 
permit the knowledge of what he has done to 
pass into oblivion. And, therefore, having so 
sedulously collected all I could find, complete in 
itself, amongst his loose papers, scattered here 
and there, the playthings of his studies and of 
the wind, it seemed to me best to distribute and 
divide these into as many separate portions as I 
could, in order the more effectually to recommend 



his memory to the greater number of people, 
selecting the most notable and worthy persons 
of my acquaintance, and whose testimony might 
do the author the greatest honour, such, sir, as 
yourself, who may have had some knowledge 
of him in his life-time, but too slight to enable 
you to appreciate his full value. Posterity may 
believe me or no, as it pleases ; but I swear to 
it, upon my conscience, that, all things considered, 
he was, as I saw and knew him, a man whose 
like I never met with, and whom I can hardly, 
by the utmost stretch of my imagination, con- 
ceive a superior to. 

I entreat you, sir, most humbly, not only to 
become the general protector of his name, but 
also to assume the especial patronage of these 
ten or twelve French poems, which place them- 
selves, almost of mere pity, under the shelter of 
your favour ; for I will not conceal from you, 
that their publication was delayed after the rest 
of his writings, by reason that yonder 1 they 
were not considered sufficiently polished to ap- 
pear in print. You will see, sir, how far this is 
the case ; and as it would appear that the resuU 
of the judgment in this matter affects the interest 
of all this part of the country, whence, as 't is 
thought, nothing can proceed, that's writ in the 
vernacular, that does not necessarily smack of 
the barbarous and uncouth, it is especially your 
part, who to the dignity of representing the first 
family in Guienne, which you derive from your 
ancestors, have yourself added that of being the 
most eminent amongst us in all manner of capa- 
city, — it is for you, I say, not only by your own 
example, but by the authority of your testimony 
in this matter, to show that such is not always 
the case; and that, though doing is more natural 
to the Gascons than saying, yet that they can 
sometimes manifest a power of the tongue as 
well as of the arm, of mind as well as of courage. 
For my part, sir, it is not my trade to judge of 
such matters; but I have heard competent per- 
sons say, that not only these verses are present- 
able, but that, regard being had to the beauty 
and richness of the invention, they are, for the 
subject, as fleshy, full, and marrowy, as any that 
have hitherto appeared in our language. Every 
workman naturally feels himself more apt in 
some particular part of his art, and those are the 
most fortunate who have got hold of the noblest ; 
for all the parts, equally necessary to the erection 
of an edifice, are not equally valuable. Refine- 
ment of language, softness, and polish, perad- 
venture, are less to be found here than elsewhere ; 
but in graceful imaginings, flashes and sallies 
of genius, I think none other surpasses him ; 
and 'tis, moreover, to be considered that he made 
of these things neither an occupation nor a study, 
and, indeed, scarcely put pen to paper once a 



' That is to say, at Paris, where Boetie'8 posthumous 
works were then printing, ami which Montaigne had pro- 
hably left for a short time, in order to visit I'en^onl, and 
make the collection of his friends writings as complete U 
possible. The present letter, of the 1st Sep. 1570, it will be 
seen, is dated from Montaigne, v, hile the Advertisement to 
the Reader, of (he HHli August, and the Letter to his Wife 
of the Mill Sept., are both addressed from Paris. 



MONTAIGNE'S LETTERS. 



year, as is manifestly proved by the little there 
is that remains to us of his productions, which 
yet is all, as far as I know, that he ever wrote. 
For you see, sir, rough and dry, all of his that 
has reached my hands, without selection or 
omission, even some pieces of his mere boyhood. 
In short, it would seem as though he had merely 
written them to show that he was capable of all 
things ; for, as to the rest, a thousand and a 
thousand times, in his common conversation, he 
has said things far more worthy to be known, 
and far more admirable. 

This, sir, is what reason and affection, meet- 
ing together by a rare conjunction, command me 
to say to you respecting this great and good 
man; and if the liberty I have taken in address- 
ing myself to you, and in occupying your atten- 
tion so long about him, offends you, you must, 
jf you please, call to mind that the principal 
effect of greatness and eminence is to expose 
you to be troubled with the concerns of other 
people. Sir, I entreat you to accept my humble 
affection to your service : may God grant you a 
long and happy life. — Montaigne, this 1st of 
September, 1570. 

Your humble servant, 

Michel be Montaigne. 



VIII. 1 

To Mademoiselle de Montaigne, my Wife. 

My wife, — You know very well that, accord- 
ing to the fashion of gentlemen now-a-days, you 
are not to expect to be still courted and caressed; 
for they say that a man of parts may indeed 
take a wife, but that he is a fool if he marry her. 
Let them say as they list ; for my own part, I 
keep to the plain fashion of the old time, of 
which I now wear the beard ; and, in truth, 
novelty has cost so dear to this poor state (and 
yet I know not whether it may not still cost 
more), that in all cases and places I wash my 
hands of it. Let you and I, wife, live after the 
old French way. Now, you may remember 
how that dear brother and inviolable companion 
of mine, the late M. de la Boe'tie, on his death- 
bed, gave me his papers and books, which have 
been since my most favourite furniture. I neither 
desire nor deserve that they should be applied 
solely to my own use ; for this reason I have 
resolved to let my friends partake of them. 
And, because I think I have none more intimate 
than yourself, I send you his French translation 
of Plutarch's Letter of Consolation to his Wife ; 
being very sorry that fortune has rendered this 
so suitable a present for you, and that though 
you have had no child but one daughter, after 
long expectation, after we had been married 
four years, you were forced to part with her in 
the second year of her age. But I leave it to 
Plutarch to console you, and to admonish you of 



your duty in this case, desiring that you would 
for my sake give him credit : for he will discover 
my intentions to you, and what may be urged 
upon this head, much better than I can. Where- 
upon my wife, I earnestly recommend myself to 
your favour, and pray God to have you in his 
keeping. — Paris, this 10th September, 1570. 
Your dear husband, 

Michel be Montaigne. 



To Mons. Dupiiat, 2 Privy Counsellor to the King 
in his Court and Parliament of Paris. 

Sir, — The affair of the prisoner Sieur de 
Verres, which I am well acquainted with, is 
entitled, when you come to pass sentence upon 
him, to the exercise of your natural gentleness 
of disposition, if your sense of public duty will 
permit you to display it in this case. He did a 
thing which was not only excusable according 
to the laws of Avar received among us, but 
necessary, and, under the circumstances, praise- 
worthy; and I am sure that, had not his duty 
commanded him, he would not have done it. 
There is no other action of his life which has 
subjected him to reproach. I entreat you, sir, to 
give his case your consideration ; you will find 
the facts of the matter to be of the character I 
have represented ; the proceeding of those who 
have sought to damage him, on account of the 
act, is far more culpable than the act itself. If 
it will serve him, I would also state to you, that 
he is a man brought up in my house, is related 
to many notable families, has ever conducted 
himself honourably and worthily, and is a dear 
friend of mine, in preserving him, you will 
confer an extreme obligation upon me. I entreat 
you to take him under your care. Sir, I kiss 
your hands ; may God grant you a long and 
happy life. From Castera, this 23d April. 
Your affectionate servant, 

Michel be Montaigne. 



To Mademoiselle Paulmier. 3 

Mademoiselle, — My friends all know that, 
from the time I first became acquainted with 
you, I destined one of my books for you ; for I 
felt you would do them honour. But the kind- 
ness of Mons. de Paulmier deprives me of the 
means of giving it you, he having since obliged 
me far more than my book is worth. You will 
therefore accept it, if you please, as being by 
right yours, before I owed you and him so much; 
and I pray you to have it in favour, either for 
love of him or for love of me. As for the debt 
I owe Monsieur Paulmier, I will keep it entire, 
and endeavour to pay it off by some more valu- 
able service. 



i Printed before De l;i Iloe'iie's translation of l'lulairh's treaty or Fleix, in 1580, which was probably the occasion 
Letter of Consolation to his Wife. on which the present letter was addressed to him. 

a One of the fourteen judges sent into Guierme, after the 



3 Wife of Julien de Paulmier, born 1554, died 1599. 



INDEX 

TO THE AUTHORS 

QUOTED IN THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE. 



ACOIUS, Lucius, 536. 

jEIinu, Clsiwl. Hi-.', 225, '24-1, 320, I J.",, 131. 
j-Esup, 381, 383. 
Ambrose, St., 189. 

Aluminous Marrellinus, 47, 151, 212, 
221, 338, 339, 3U1. 

Apion, 244. 

Apostles, Arts of Hie, 263, 332. 

Appian.78, 1-23, 310,' 346. 
Apuleius, 271,293. 

Ariosto, 37. 105,211,254,317. 

Aristotle, 32, 70, 101, 107, 170, 135,199, 
202. 203, 204, 210,246,255, 283, 203, 
296, 316, 325, 323, 356, 360, 37 1, 399, 
404, 417, 474, 505, 521, 540, 542. 

Arrian, 46, 103, 238, 216, 267, 427, 543. 

Ateius Capito, 347. 

Allianasius, St., 120. 

AtlieiKfiis. 253, 349,539. 

Attins, 378. 

Augustin, St., 33, 61, 63, 103, 130, 139, 
140, 146, 175, 230,232,255,207,268, 
271, 272, 276, 28!, 203, 296, 299, 336, 
423, 427, 468, 502, 504, 505, 544. 

Augustus, 943. 

Aulus Gellius, 40, 46, 49, 107, 158, 177, 
178, 185, 244, 258, 270, 331, 358, 427, 
504, 536, 540, 541. 

Aurolius Victor, 151, 328. 



Bellay, William du, 37, 43, 45, 47, 50, 

146, 159. 
Martin du, 33, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 

47, 48, 50, 124. 

Joachim du, 79. 

Bernard, St., 278. 

Beza, 437. 

Hi 'Ill,-, 120, 180,250,254,259,279, 

895, 316, 387. 
Bodi n,217. 
Boerius. 421. 
Buetie, 42, 139,252, 521. 
Bovelles. 35. 
Braniome, 32, 146, 349, 407. 



IVsar, 57. 103, 161, 162, 161, 170, 204, 
207, 236, 343, 365, 367, 368. 

Callimarluis, -223. 

Calpurnius, 445,446. 

Cauierarius, 84. 

Oarion. 351. 

Costiglione, 162, :125. 

Catullus, 30, 55, 105, 100, 121, 127,214, 
290,336,310,314, 119, 122, 125.120,128, 
433, 431, 136, 137, 141,593, 518, 430. 

Codrenus, 350. 

Celsus, 370,382. 



Chalcondylas, 351. 

Ohesne, Andrew du, 155. 

Chrvsostom, St., 175. 

Cicero, 29, 3 1 , 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 43, 44, 
50, 62, 53. 3.',, 57, 58, 00, 68, 73, 80. 81, 
83, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 97, 98, 99, 102, 
103, 106, J07, 112, 124, 125, 131, 1.32, 



17, 13 



150, 



191, 210, 211, 216, 219, 220, -222, 223, 
224, 225, 228, 231, 233, 217 -|-, 210, 
250, 251, 252, 253,251 255, 25G ■-', 
258, 259, 200, 201,21.2. 203. -Jul. 265, 
267, 269, 270, 271, 215, 274, 2", 270, 
278, 279, 2.-0, 283, 2-1. 2.-7, 2-8, -j,-0, 
290, 291, 292, 293, 295, 206, 298, 300, 
301, 302, 301, 310, 315, 316, 317, 320, 
323. 330, 332, 333,315, 547, 356,358, 
361, 374, 376, 378, 3HI. 3-2, 391, 393, 
395, 396, 3118, 402, 401, 406, 409, 410, 
411, 414, 415, 417, 423, 437, 41.3, 444, 
445, 446, 450, 453, 455, 460, 461, 164, 
406, 467, 469, 471, 47.3, 474, 473, 480, 
482, 433, 484, 488, ,|<i.|, 497, 490, 500, 
502, 503, 501, 505, 500, 507, 510, 513, 
514, 516, 519, 524, 525, 53-1, 536, 538, 
540, 541, 542, 543, 544. 

Claudian, 53, 117, 212. 224, 280, 345, 
347, 350, 359, 432, -157, 509. 

Cleirrent of Alexandria, 88, 337. 

Coleuuceio, 364. 

Comines, 77. 124, 409, 401. 

Cromer, 394, 395, 421. 

Cureus, 351. 

D. 

Dampmartin, 74, 75. 

Dante, 88,638. 

Democritus, 250. 

Demosthenes, 179, 443. 

Diodorus Siculus. 23, -29, 34, 47, 51, 72, 

118, 138, 142, 152, 157, 191,210,225, 

323, 370. 395, 452, 512. 
Diogenes l.nerliu*. 31 5- (0.03,07,30. 

81,85.87. 92, '.6, u- ii. il'.l. 103, 105, 

107, 108, 117, 123, l!i. i:n, 139, 112, 

143, 153. i . II ; I : ■ \; \. i-i, 185, 



317, 57-', 




, 413,417,419, 


421, 431, 




,. 110, III, 112, 


456, 459, 




). 184,485,488, 


494, 496, 




,519,521,522, 


521, 527, 




), 537, 539, 540, 


542, 543. 







Dio Cassius, 381, 423. 



Kcclesinstes, 52, 128, 254, 387. 

Keinliard, 443. 

K.nnius, 36, 50, 81, 248, 252, 264,415, 

483. 
Epictetus, 136,250. 



Euripides, 81, 175, 253, 269. 
Eusebius, 250.273,422. 
Eutropius, 338, 394. 



r'nlihrius, Bibl. Lai., 99. 

Faur, G.du,468. 

Floras, 30. 

l''rois„art, 27, 36, 103, 146, 156, 195, 344, 



Galen, 278, 279, 285. 

Callus, Cornelius, 182, 352, 41. 

133, 529, 531. 
Genesis, 250. 
Gregory of Tours, 394. 
Guevara, 162, 407, 485. 
Guicciardini, 31, 32, 36, 46, 121. 



H. 

Ilerodian, 271. 

Herodotus, 29, 32, 35, 38, 
61, 68, 69, 70, 73, 116, 
148, 153, 160, 163, 166, 
223, 225, 230, 2.36, 267, 
295, 299, 314, 379, 387, 
426, 427, 434, 435, 451, 

Hesiml. 193, 274. 

Homer, 112, 157, 250,289, 
440. 451. 

Horace, 39, 43, 48, 53, 54, 
95, 97, 98, 102, 104, 105, 
126, 129, 131, 132, 134, 
166, 172, 176, 177, 179, 
184, 137. 199, 204, 214, 
230, 241, 243, 249, 253, 
273, 276, 281, 290, 296, 
316, 317, 318, 321, 322, 
332, 334, 336, 347, 352, 
405, 415, 422, 424, 432, 
440, 446, 452. -158, 464, 
470, 471, 477, 483,489, 
499, 510, 511, 513,526, 
540, 541, 544, 545. 



40, 45, 51, 55, 
125, 128, 137. 
183, 190, 209, 
269, 273, 293, 
396, 411, 422, 
536, 537. 

315, 387, 426, 

55, 56, 57, 92, 
109,110,11), 
147, 148, 149, 
180, 181, 182, 
220, 221, 223, 
254, 270, 272, 
311,312,313, 
324, 326, 327. 
368, 374. 399, 
436, 438, 439, 
466, 467, 469, 
491,492, 494, 
530, 535, 530, 



I. 

Isocrates, 71,73, 443, 470. 
Jerome, St., 424. 440. 
Joinville, 142, -227. 270. 355. 

Joseph, IS. 182. 1-5. 1-3,272,351. 

Justin. 160, 182. 

.hnen.,1, 81, 82, 03, 117, 123, 1 17, 156, 

167, 168, 173, 182, 103. I'M. 222,225. 

237. 239, 212, 240, -395. 293. 315, 319 

320. 32-1, 33-3, 314, 347. .•157,381,405. 

418. 420, 427. 439.445,457,468,484, 

485, 487, 528, 536. 



Lactantius, 235, 278. 2-1. 3.35. 
Lampridius, 120, 310, 443. 

m 



670 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Leo (Johannes), 432. 

Livy, 31, 33, 35, 37, 48, 50, 72, 77, 101, 
113, 124, 141, 142. 146, 160, 161, 162, 
163, J68, 169, 191, 194, 252, 206,267, 
273, 292, 304, 317, 318, 342, 343, 345, 
349, 350, 391, 396, 403, 429, 430, 443, 
458, 462, 469, 495, 502, 504, 509, 511, 
512, 519, 525, 541. 

Lur.an, 34, 35, 39, 43, 77, 99, 126, 127, 123, 
139, 140, 157, 101, 162, 170, 187, 195, 
271, 309, 310, 320, 367, 308, 375, 400, 
429, 470, 475, 506, 515, 523, 524, 543. 

Luciari, 61, 108, 156. 

Lucilius, 493. 

Lucretius, 32, 51, 53, 55, 56. 58, 59, 60, 
66. 70, 102, 123, 128, 129, 137, 139, 148, 
149, 151, 105, 170, 182, 185, 187, 188, 
194, 195, 197, 222, 226, 228, 231, 232, 
233, 234, 235, 241, 243, 247, 248, 250, 
253, 254, 255, 250, 257, 260, 204, 265, 
206, 267, 268, 278, 2-0, 281. 282. 2.-3, 
285, 289, 292, 293, 301, 302, 303, 305, 
306, 307, 309, 312, 325, 333, 339, 374, 
390, 411, 412, 417, 428, 429, 441, 446, 
464, 465, 481. 

Luke, St., 223, 306, 

M. 

Macrobius. 51, 206, 278, 357, 452. 

Manilius, 58, 126, 159, 230, 231, 345, 
374, 519. 

Marguerite de Valois, 176, 222, 440. 

Marot, 189, 336. 

Martial, 163, 164, 165, 166, 172, 187, 
200, 210, 214, 21(1. 299, 312, 325, 331, 
336, 346, 347, 371, 377, 386, 414, 416, 
421, 427, 434, 436, 440, 458, 485, 526, 
530. 



Menander, 122. 
Monstrelet, 162, 349. 
Montiuc, 188. 

N. 

Nepos, 125, 151, 210, 310, 376, 391, 411, 

465, 482, 541. 
Nicephorus Callistus, 209. 
Nicetus Achominates, 175. 
Nonius Marcellus, 255. 
Nymphodorus, 69. 

o. 

Oppian, 242. 

Origen, 284. 

Osorius, 136, 175. 

Ovid, 30, 50. 01, 64, 72, 124, 165, 194, 
197, 198, 224, 242. 20.5, 273, 274. 2-7. 
295, 304, 312, 313, 314, 318, 323, 3-10, 
347, 357, 374, 390, 410. 415, -iJI. 425, 
429, 433, 435, 437, 440, 458, 40], 475, 
477, 489. 491, 508, 509, 515, 530, 531, 
532, 535. 



Paul, St., 110, 191, 228, 230, 231, 250, 

254, 256, 205, 208, 271, 283, 317, 484. 
Pausanias, 376, 452. 
Pentadius, 188. 
Persius, 82, 92, 94. 95, 129, 132, 133, 

148, 106, 176, 205, 318, 319, 333. 330 

411, 480, 501. 
Peter, St., 230. 

Petrarch, 127, 157, 217, 286, 331. 
Petrejus, 163. 

J'etrouiuH, 230, 414, 464, 494, 530. 
PhCBdrus, 521. 
Philostratus, 232. 
Pindar, 70, 337. 
Planudes, 506, 544. 
Plato, 33, 39, 45, 71, 73, 82, 84, 91, 111, 

113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 140, 144, 149, 



152, 160, 168, 176, 184, 186, 187, 208, 
209, 229, 230, 232, 247, 248, 255, 259, 
26], 262, 269, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 
281, 283, 284, 286, 291, 293, 294, 295, 
297, 301, 307, 308, 3)8, 320, 325, 340, 

381, 405, 407, 414, 423, 431, 432, 441, 
442, 440, 452, 4 4, 456, 457, 467, 469, 
478, 485, 486, 487, 491, 500, 509, 514, 
516, 520, 521, 524, 525, 520, 533, 530, 
538, 540, 542. 

Plautus, 148, 172, 421, 458, 470. 

Plinv the Elder, 29, 30, 31. 54, 61, 66, 
122, 124, 153, 186, 192, 198, 232, 233, 
239, 240, 245, 246, 266, 209, 270, 276, 
286, 305, 330. 343. 346, 374, 379, 380, 

382, 383, 389, 432, 488. 

Younger, 128, 133, 371. 

Plutarch, 28, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 48, 51, 

52, 55, 56, 70, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78. 79, Ml, 
81, 84, 91, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 105, 107, 
109, 112, 113, 119, 122, 124, 127, 134, 
135, 137, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 

153, 154, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163, 165, 
167, 108, 169, 170, 171, 175, 177, 178, 
179, 183, 185, 180, 188, 189, 190. )93, 
194, 211, 212, 219, 223, 225, 233, 234, 
230, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 
244, 245, 246, 248, 250, 251, 20(1 20,1, 
202, 200. 207, 209, 271, 272, 274, 278, 
279, 281, 285, 286, 289, 292, 295, 298, 
299, 304, 305, 307, 3)0, 311, 312, 319, 
321, 32.5. 337, 342, 344, 345, 347, 349, 
350, 352, 354, 357, 3.58, 303. 374, 37.5, 
370, 379, 380, 389. 391, 392, 393, 394, 
390, 397, 399, 401, 404, 400, 409, 412, 
413, 416, 417, 419, 421. 42.5, 427, 128, 
430, 432, 433, 438, 440, 443, 448, 450, 
451, 452, 454, 4.57, 4.58. 4.59, 400, 463, 
464, 468, 473, 470, 477, 478, 48], 484, 
487, 492, 494, 496, 500, 501, 509, 515, 
519, 522, 524, 527, 528, 529, 531, 533, 
534, 537, 538, 539, 541. 

Polilian, 374. 

Polybius, 36. 

Porcius Latro, 157. 

Propertius, 48, 55, 90, 92, 112, 115. 132, 

213, 247, 313, 327, 328, 353, 373, 397, 

413, 425, 484, 423. 
Prudentius, 185, 344. 
Psalm-. 2.59, 29.5, 32.5,500. 
Publius Syrus, 143, 178, 194. 



auintilian, 29, 66, 96, 99. 130, 152, 168, 

170, 227, 318, 402, 413, 429, 471, 492, 

513, 520, 531. 
animus Curtius, 29, 37, 50, 77, 125, 163, 

195, 354, 379, 462, 471, 483, 493, 495, 

503, 544. 



R. 



Rahelais, 79. 
Ronsard, 263. 
Rufinus, 189. 
Rutilius, 314. 



Paint rjflais, 437. 

Sallust, 131. 143. 260, 316. 

Salvianus Masiiliensis, 337. 

Saxo Grammaticus, 478. 

Seneca, the Philosopher, 30, 3], 51, 
55, 57, 58, 59, 75, 80, 81, 82, 83, 88, 
92, 90, 98. 99, 115, 118, 128, 129, 1 
133, 135, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144, I 
148, 150, 164, 105, 109, 178, 179, 1 
182, le5, 180. 188, 189, 194, 195, 2 
216, 219, 224. 232, 247, 2.50, 2.54, 2 
269, 279, 283, 284, 298, 300, 307, 3 
311, 312, 317, 318, 320, 330, 340, 3 
352, 358, 359, 300, 373, 393, 398, 4 
408, 411, 414, 410, 429, 435, 433, 4 



455, 466, 483, 487, 488, 591, 492, 4'. 

494, 496, 503, 506, 507, 508. 509, 5 

513, 520, 527, 528, 529, 531, 535, 5: 

542, 543, 544. 
Seneca,- the Rhetorician, 42, 60, 21 

262, 309. 
, Tragedies of, 34, 58, 74, 1. 

186, 187, 253, 327. 
Sextus Empiricus, 68, 69, 71, 155, V 

237, 240, 257, 258, 269, 276, 278, 21 

296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 302, 305, 3' 

516. 
Sidonius Apollinaris. 166, 416, 488. 
Silius Italicus, 50, 124. 
Sophocles, 253. 
Soranus, 263. 

Spartian, 112, 154, 341, 452. 
Statins, 345, 493. 

Stoboeus, 66, 82, 99, 120, 130, 278, 52 
Strabo, 24, 387, 393, 422. 
Suetonius, 35, 63. 99, 153, 160, 161, 1 

186, 200, 217, 223, 309, 310, 347, » 

364, 365, 412, 440, 462, 505, 513, 5; 

539. 
Syramachus, 419. 



Tacitus, 32, 50, 112, 146, 186, 189, 190, 
191, 210, 255, 310, 313, 321, 324, 345, 
346, 301, 370, 372, 389, 390, 393, 394, 
297, 407, 410, 420, 429, 40], 402. 482. 
519. 

Tasso, 146, 196, 197, 204, 233, 349, 418, 
505. 

Terence, 72, 109, 130, 147, 149, ]68, 
185, 203, 206, 214, 313, 327, 330, 331, 
390, 429, 432, 438, 456, 469, 473, 474, 
476, 517. 

Tertullian, 47.54,271,489. 

Theodoret, 339. 

Thomas Aquinas, 111. 

Thucydides, 72, 432. 

Tibullus, 130, 141, 149, 181, 236, 232, 
353, 434. 

Trebellius Pollio, 112, 375, 486. 

Ttetzes, 323. 



Valerius Maximus, 29, 31, 53. 54, 70, 
128, 141, 103, 168, 192, 194, 211, 314, 
347, 349, 361, 365, 394, 410, 411, 422, 
434. 470, 473 474, 509. 

Varro, 255, 265, 274, 275, 427. 

Veirofius, 299, 325. 

Velleius Paterculus, 374. 

Virgil, 30, 35, 38, 46, 49, 56, 58, 64, 92, 
101, 109, 114, ]15, J27, 129, 134, 150. 
161, 102, 105, 182, 18.5, 187, 188, ]94, 
197, 211, 215, 221, 224, 233, 242, 243, 
245, 205, 207, 273, 278, 280, 284, 291, 
305, 309, 313, 319, 325, 349, 352, 359, 
300, 20,7, 371, 37.5, 378, 380, 411, 418, 
422, 423, 425. 420. -123, 433, 436, 458, 
405. 400, 408, 474, 475, 470, 484, 487, 
491, '!96, 497, 499, 501, 506, 508, 509, 
512, 513, 518, 524,525,535,543. 

Vopiscus, 338, 420, 443, 445. 

w. 

Wisdom, Book of, 120, 232, 261. 



Xenophon, 33, 37, 09, 84, 108, 125, 131, 
145, 149, 157, 159, 100, ]01, 102, 249, 
271, 290, 310, 341, 343,404,434,445, 
400, 475, 486, 497. 524, 526. 

Xiphilin, 211, 310, 381,421. 



z. 

Zonaras, 50, 211, 341, 350,; 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX 



PRINCIPAL MATTERS 



CONTAINED IN 



THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE. 



A. 

ABRA, daughter of St. Hilary. The manner of her 
death Page 121 

Absence, the advantages of, in marriage and friendship 477 

Abundance. Its inconveniences 132 

Ahydeans. The complete and voluntary destruction 
of this people 191 

Abyssinians. Mules considered an honourable equi- 
page amongst this nation 162 

Academicians ((Ac sect of). Their opinions on the sub- 
ject of truth, commented on 288 

Achaians. Their good faith in war 36 

Action. Actions must be judged of by the intention, 
180. The precautions we should take before we pass 
our judgment upon actions , 221 

Actors. Montaigne's opinion respecting them, 101. 
The effect which the impersonation of tragedy pro- 
duces upon some of them 413 

Adrian, the Roman emperor. The precaution he took 
before he gave the order for his slave to kill him, 310. 
The request he was incessantly making, during his 
last illness ; and an observation upon this subject, 
381. Anecdote of him and the philosopher Favorinus 452 

Adultery. The condition on which it was permitted 
in the East Indies 427 

Advocate. The advantages that advocates ought pecu- 
liarly to possess 42 

-■Eginetians. The politic cruelty of the Athenians to- 
wards them 347 

jElius Verus, the Roman emperor. His reply to his 
wife, when she reproached him for Ins conjugal infi- 
delities 112 

./Eneas. Singular praise of him by Homer 45 

.•Eschvlus. The death of this poet, 54. A reproach 
that was made him 106 

jEsop. Montaigne's opinion of this fabulist, 213. An 
anecdote respecting him 506 

Aff. 'elation, unbecoming a courtier 99 

Affection. Reflections upon the love of parents for 
their children, and upon that of children fur their 
parents, 902. Proofs of the- weakness of what is 



■JO' I 



Mention ofOsar's waragai 



A IV; 



Agesilaus, kiiur of Sparta. What it was that gave this 
prince the advantage in his war againsl the Boeo- 
tians, :W, A saying of his, 51. Another saying of his, 
84. His advice to Xenophon, ih. What he said to 
a person who saw him romping with Ins children. 
III!!. Mis custom as to dress, 121. The ill success 
that attended a plan he chose to follow in a battle 
with the liceotians, 154. His war dress. 158. A 
question he put to certain Thasians, 'J7I. A custom 
of his commended, 3!l!l. A saying of his about love, 
438. His generous conduit towards an old enemy ; 
and an observation upon this subject 



Agis. king of Sparta. His war-dress, 158. A saying 

of his, 186. His reply to an Abderan ambassador. . 233 
Agricola, Cneius Julius. Restrained in his too violent 

appetite for learning 507 

Agrigentines. The refusal they experienced at the 
hands of Empedocles, 80. A remark of that philoso- 
pher as to the manners of this people, 179. Their 

respect for certain animals 225 

Albigenses. The sacrifice made by fifty of these re- 
formers in assertion of their religion 138 

Albucilla. The death of this Roman 310 

Albuquerque, viceroy of India. An expedient of his in 

a tempest 128 

Alcibiados. The astonishing flexibility of his consti- 
tution, 96. His manner nf speaking, 3-21. Anecdote 
of him, 374. Opinion of his character, 376. Instance 
of his subtle policy, 412. His reason for excluding 

music from feasts 540 

Alcimus. The enormous weight of his armour 212 

jAJcmeon. The opinion of this philosopher as to the 

'''Divinity, 263. His opinion as to human seed 285 

Alexander the Great. Cruelty of this prince towards 
Betis and towards the Thebans, 29. His noble reply 
to Polypercon,37. The age at which he died, 54. His 
magnanimous conduct towards his physician Philip, 
77. The reproach his father made him, 134. What 
he said to the flatterers, who called him son of Jupiter, 
148. His profound sleep on the morning of the famous 
battle of Arbela, 152. His war-dress, 158. His skill 
in horsemanship nnd details respecting Bucephalus, 
160. Mention of his battles against the Date, 163. 
The suitable manner in which he rewarded useless 
ingenuity, 170. The odour which exhaled from his 
perspiration, 171. Opinion as to his valour, 180. The 
desperate resolution come to by the inhabitants of a 
town in India, that he was besieging, 191. Opinion 
as to his conduct towards Philotis, 195. Mention of 
his temerity, 211. The barbarous sacrifice he offered 
to Thetis, and observation upon this subject, 267. 
Mention of a custom of his. 321. The plan he had 
to for preventing himself from tailing asleep, 
338. His favourite reading, 366. iMon t a igue's opinion 
of this great prince, 374/ The enormous apes that 
Alexander saw in India. 431. The extraordinary 
compliment paid him by Tbalestns, quern of the 
Amazons. 435. His father's letter In him. 445. His 
just reprimand of the at lih-te ( 'ri-~,.n. 151. His recep- 
tion of the offer nt" citizenship made him hy the Co- 
rinthians, 491. His r '.lines, ,,i I,,, i , tie is victories, 

500. Philotas' je>t up..,, the . I. Hi. at nf Alexander 544 

Alexander, tyrant of Thebes. His reason for disliking 

the representation of tragedies 347 

Alexander VI., pros. The manner of his death 121 

Alexanilridas. The repruach he made a long-winded 

orator 91 

Alexia. The desperate resolution tak-n by llicCasrons, 
who were besieged in this tow u bv L'asar. ] 17. Fur- 
(671) 



672 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



ther mention of this siege, and of two remarkable 
circumstances connected with it 3fi8 

Almanacks. Montaigne's opinion as to their predictions 

Alphonzo XL, king of Lean and Castile. Instance of 
extravagant absurdity on the part of this prince, 35. 
A saying of his as to the condition of kings, 150. 
His regulations for the Knights of the Scarf 162 

Alva, the Duke of. His conduct towards Counts Eg- 
mont and Horn, 38. Montaigne's opinion of him. . 335 

Alviano.Bartholomewd'. Anecdote respecting the.death 
of this general, in connexion with Theodore Trivulcio 32 

Amadis de Gaul. Montaigne's opinion of this romance 213 

Amafanius. Mention of his peculiar manner 323 

Amasis, king of Egypt. The sudden incapacity that 
befel him, and how it was cured 62 

Amazons. Their treatment of their male children. .. 515 

Ambassadors. The story of an ambassador sent by 
Francis 1. to the court of Milan. 41. The blundering 
answer made by an ambassador of Julius II. to the 
King of England, ib. What is the duty of ambassa- 
dors, in reference to informing their masters of the 
state of their affairs, 40. The discretion that must 
necessarily be vested in them in the performance of 
their functions, ib. The answer Cleomenes save the 
ambassadors of Samos, 08. The manner in which the 
Mexican ambassadors gave Cortez an idea of the 
greatness of their master, 113. The offering which 
other ambassadors from a Mexican king presented 
to the same general, ib. The inappropriate praises 
that certain ambassadors bestowed on King Philip, 
and Demosthenes' remark on the occasion, 134. The 
reply of Archileouida to the Thracian ambassadors, 
146. The ceremony which the Duke of Muscovy 
was obliged to go through, in honour of the Tarta- 
rian ambassadors, 163 The manner in which Jose- 
phus pumped an ambassador 182 

Ambition. Those who pursue the paths of ambition 
had need of a good memory 37 

Americans, the South. Reflections upon their cha- 
racter and manners, when newly discovered 115, 446 

Amestris, queen of Persia. The horrible sacrifice offered 
up by this princess 267 

Amurath I. Instance of the fierce vengeance of this 
sultan 394 

II. His barbarous sacrifice to the soul of his 

father 113 

III. The mistaken policy of this prince 343 

Amyot, James, commended for not frenchifying classi- 
cal names, 155. Montaigne's high opinion of him as 
a translator 192 

Anacharsis. His opinion of a truly beneficial form of 
government, 151. His astonishment at one of the 
Greek custonis 184 

Anacreon. The death of this poet 54 

Anaxagoras. The opinion of this philosopher as to the 
moon, 232; as to the Divinity, 263; as to the colour 
of snow, 269; as to the sun 374 

Anaxarchus. His firm endurance of the tortures that 
were inflicted on him 185 

Anaxirnander. Opinion of this philosopher as to the 
Divinity 263 

Anaximines. Opinion of this philosopher as to the 
Divinity ib. 

Ancients. Their great deeds sought to be depreciated 
by the moderns 125 

Andreosso, son of Charles, king of Hungary. His tra- 
gical death 436 

Androdus. History of this slave and his lion 244 

Andron. An extraordinary faculty of this Argian. .. 527 

Andronicus Comnena, the Greek emperor. Anecdote 
of him in reference to one Lapodius 175 

Anger. Various modes of averting it, 27. Reflections 
upon this passion 356 

Animals. The effects of the imagination upon them, 
64. Various reflections upon them, 224. A compa- 
rison between man and the brute creation, ib. The 
sort of communication that exists among different - 
animals, 232. Observations upon the loves of animals 407 
Antigenides. A skilful plan adopted by this mu- 
sician 430 

Antigonus, king of Asia. The siege of Nora by this 
prince, 36. Reflections upon the tears he shed on 
seeing the head of his enemy Pyrrhus, 127. His 
reply to the flattery of Hermodorus, 148. Anecdote 
of a soldier of his, whom he had caused to he cured 
of a long-seated malady, 179. His perfidy and cru- 
elty towards Eumenes, and towards the Argyraspi- 
dians, 391. His reply to a young suitor, 410. Anec- 
dote of him and a cynic 506 

Antinous and Theodotus. Their brave death 180 

Antiochus Sotcr, king of Syria. The effect produced 
on him by the beauty of Stratonice 61 



Antiochus the Great, king of Syria. The reply of 
Hannibal to this prince, respecting the army he had 
raised against the Romans 158 

Epiphanes, king of Syria. His cruelty to- 
wards a child, 185. His cruelty towards the Jews, 
189. The haughty manner in which he was treated 
by the consul Popilius J 345 

Antiochus, the philosopher. His contradictory opinions 472 

Antipater. The answer of the Lacedemonians to this 
general, when he demanded fifty children as hos- 
tages, 84. Another reply of the same to the same, 
in reference to his violent menaces, 186. Another 
anecdote respecting the same parties 393 

Antisthenes, the philosopher. A saving of his as to the 
frequenting bad company. 120. Another saying of his, 
as to what we should most seek to furnish ourselves 
withal, ib. A saying of his as to virtue, 130. His 
unfavourable opinion of Ismenias, 131. A saying of 
his as to pleasure, 185. A remarkable reply of his, 
221. Another reply of his to a priest of Orpheus, 228. 
One of his maxims, 254. The remedy against illness 
that Diogenes suggested to him, 377. Observation 
upon one of his principles, 402 His opinion as to 
the virtue of men and women, 441. His criticism 
upon the manner in which the Athenians selected 
their generals, 4501 His esteem for Socrates 524 

Antisthenes (another). His directions to his children 454 

Antony, Mark, the Triumvir. His reproach id' Augus- 
tus, 153. His deleat hv Augustus. 210. His devotion 
to pleasure, 365. His indifference to his wife's infi- 
delity, 425. The singular equipage in which he 
paraded through Rome 443 

Antony, a general under Domitian. A remarkable 
circumstance attending Ins defeat in Germany 103 

Apelles. The visit he received from Megabyses 457 

Apollodorus, tyrant of Polidma. The terrible effects of 
conscience upon him 194 

Apollodorus, the grammarian. His opinion of Chry- 
sippus' works 85 

Apollonius of Tyantea. His pretending to understand 
the language of animals 232 

Aracus. The manner in which the Lacedemonians 
gave him the title of admiral 74 

Arcadians. Their universal remedy 380 

Arcesilaus, the philosopher. His method of teaching, 
87. The laudable use he made of his wealth, 131. 
The manner of his death, 184. Observation upon a 
saying of his, 219. His firm endurance of pain, 251. 
His opinion as to good and evil, 296. His reply to 
Enionez, 440. His delicate generosity to Ctesihius. 488 

Archelaus, king of Maeedon. Instance of his wisdom 
and moderation 417 

Archelaus, the philosopher. His opinion as to the first 
formation of men and animals 285 

Archer. Anecdote of an archer condemned to death. . 330 

Archias, tyrant of Thebes. His assassination 103 

Archidamus, king of Sparta. The reproach he cast 
upon a person named l'eriander, 48. The answer 
that Thucydides made him 168 

Archileonida. The reply of this Lacedemonian to 
those who were extolling her son Brasidas 146 

Archimides. His opinion of the engines he con- 
structed for the defence of his country, 80. His 
opinion as to the sun 274 

Architect. The bad faith of an architect of the king 
of Egypt, 38. Anecdote of two Athenian architects, 
08. An observation upon their technical terms 160 

Archytas. Instance of the moderation of this general 358 

Areopagus. The reason why this tribunal heanfeauses 
by night, 289. A singular decision pronounced by it 504 

Aretheus. His acceptance of the remarkable will of 
Eudamidas, and rigorous punctuality in observing it 108 

Aretin, Peter. Montaigne's opinion as to the right of 
this poet to the title of divine 169 

Argeuterius. The innovations of this physician 383 

Argians. The perfidy of King Cleomenes towards them, 
37. What colour was worn by their women for 
mourning, 166. The terms on which they challenged 
the Lacedemonians 319 

Argincusian isles. The famous battle that was fought 
near these islands 34 

Argippians. The manners of this people 314 

Ariosto. Montaigne's opinion of this poet 214 

Ariovistus. The generous treatment he received from 
Ctesar 369 

Aristides. Montaigne's commendation of him 133 

Aristippus. A joke of his respecting sophistical subtle- 
ties, 08. A remarkable observation of his, 105. His 
opinion as to pnin, 130. The sort of death he desired, 
220. The discrepancy between what lie said and what 
he did, 221. A saying of his as to fine clothes, 298. 
His reply to Diogenes, ib. An anecdote of him. ... 435 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



673 



Aristodemus, Icing of Messcne. His reason for killing 
himself 413 

Aristodemus, the Lacedemonian. The strict justice 
his companions meted out to him 125 

Aristo, father of Plato. Anecdote of him 272 

Aristo, of Chios. A wise observation of his as to the 
effect which philosophers produce, 83. His delinition 
of rhetoric, 168. His opinion as to the Divinity, 264. 
His opinion as to the justice of laws, 297. A saying 
of his, llli. Another 484 

Aristophanes, the grammarian. His mistake in find- 
ing fault with Epicurus' style 09 

Aristotle. Montaigne's opinion as to the frequent quo- 
tations made use of in the works of this philosopher, 
25!). The obscurity of his style. ib. Chrysippus' 
opinion of his writings, 260. His authority in the 
schools, 276. His opinion of glory, :)16. A remark- 
able saying of his, 348. Observation on his manner 
of describing man, 430. Mis rejoinder on being re- 
proached with too much indulgence for a wicked 
person 51!) 

Arius. The death of this heresiarch 120 

Army. The want of discipline in the French armies 
in Montaigne's time, and reflections on the subject. 508 

Armenia. The difficulties encountered by the ten thou- 
sand Greeks amidst the mountains of this country.. 125 

Armorial bearings. Their uncertainty, 156. Descrip- 
tion of those of Montaigne ib. 

Arms. Whether soldiers should wear rich arms, 157. 
What are the most effectual, 161. The French 
nobility reproached for not always wearing them, 
210. The inconveniences of defensive armour 211 

Arras. The obstinacy of the inhabitants of this town 
at the time it was taken by Louis XI 137 

Arria, wife of Fetus. Iler brave death 371 

Arsac (le Sioiird'). Montaigne's brother. The incur- 
sion of the sea on Ins domains 114 

Arts. The influence of chance on the discoveries and 
success of the arts, 76. The inferiority of the pro- 
ductions of, as compared with these of nature 115 

Artabanes. The reproach be cast upon Xerxes 128 

Artaxerxes Mnemon, king of Persia. The battle be- 
tween this prince and his brother Cyrus, 150. One 
of the reasons why Cyrus objected to'him, 182. The 
ameliorations which this prime introduced into the 

Artibius, the Persian general. What it was that occa- 
sioned his death, in an encounter with Ouesilus 160 

Aruntius, Lucius. His reason for killing himself.... 189 

Asrlepiades His innovations in physic 383 

Asiatics. The suniptuousiiess of their armies 157 

Asinijis Pollio. An anecdote of this consul, 348. A 
saying of bis in reference to some verses composed 

against him by Augustus 452 

Assassins. The manners and religious belief of this 

Assigni, le Seigneur d'. His i in prudence ,. 30 

Assyrians, a custom among this people 102 

Astapa, a town of Spain. The fearful voluntary death 

of the inhabit ants of this town 191 

Ataraxy. Definition of this term, and observations 

on the subject i 257 

Atheism. Reflections on this subject -J.'.l 

Athens. A saving of Isoerates about this city 420 

the Duke of. The inconsiderate conduct of 

this prince at Florence 78 

Athenians. Their horr injustice towards the con- 

ti norm's at the Aiu ijan Isles .n Phe restrictions 

they imposed upon rhetoric, le- Then decree as 10 
the mules, which Ind b - . - 1 1 employed in the construc- 
tion of one of I heir temples. J.'.". \ decree ol theirs 

for the purification of the island of Dei. is, 438, An 
inscription with which they honoured the entry of 

Pornpey into their city 544 

Atlantes, A reference to tins people 536 

Atlantis. Details as to this island 113 

Atoms. Objections against the atomic system of the 

Epicureans 279 

Attains. The manner in which he outraged the young 

I'ausanias 182 

Attious, Titus-Pompnnius. His death 310 

Anbigny, M. d'. The taking of Capua by this leader. :I7 

Aulilius. His death 54 

Augustus. Anecdote of this e ror, 35. His noble 



oudu 
his w 



if l.ivia, 
e of bat- 



Aurai, the battle of, men tinned 127 

Authors. The wholesale way in which modem authors 
plunder the ancients, 85. Should confine themselves 
to what they know, 114. The reason why Mon- 
taigne did not always name those he quoted, 212. 

List of those he liked best 213 

Avarice. The ill edicts of this vice in fathers 204 

Avaricum. The siege of this town by Caisar 368 



Babylonians. A law of theirs in reference to the sick 

Bajazet I., emperor of the Turks. Extremities to 
which his army was reduced in Russia, and the 
occasion of his being taken prisoner, 163. Instance 
of the severity of this prince, 195. His reason for 
fighting Tamerlane 

Bajazet II., emperor of the Turks. An error of this 
prince, and of his son 

Balbus. A maxim of this philosopher as to the universe 

Barbarian. In what sense the American Indians were 
barbarians 

Barbarism, with all people, means that which is not 
in use in their own country 

Baroeo and Baraliplon. Reference to these scholastic 



Bathory (Stephen), king of Poland. A custom of this 
prince 

Baths. Their general use among most nations, and 
the refinements the ancients introduced into them, 
164. Further reference to baths, and more particu- 
larly those of mineral waters 

Battle. Observations as to the best mode of com- 
mencing one 

Bayard. The manner of his death 

Beauty. The opinions of different nations as to beauty, 
247. Its advantages. 324. The subject renewed . . . 

Beauvais (the bishop of). His conduct at the battle of 



The distinction h" male between diil'Teui sorts of 
rewards, 2011. His rule as to drinking at meals .. I 



Bouvines. 

Bebius, Judge. His sudden death 

Bedouins. Reference to one of their religious opinions, 
320. Their belief in fatality 

Bees. Their excellent poli ty , 233. Singular assistance 
rendered by bees to the inhabitants of Tamly 

Beggars. Observation upon their condition 

Bellay, William du. Criticism upon his Memoirs 

. Joachim du. Mention of this poet, 98. 

Opinion of his works 

.Martin du. His severity towards the governor 

of Bony. 47. A story he tells of some ambassadors, 
48. Criticism on his Memoirs 

Belief. What it should be in matters of religion. .103, 

Bembo. Mention of this poet 

Bessus. The manner in which he became self-convicted 
of parricide 

Beza. Mention of this poet 

Bias. Savings of his 128, 347. 399, 

Bion. Sayings of his, 35, 144, 440. His frank avowal 
of his mean origin 

Blindness. Observations upon this subject 301, 

Blosius (Cains). His zealous friendship 

Boccaccio. Mention of him 

Body. The body should be strengthened 

Jlnetie, Stephen de la. deference to bis brave death, 
52. Observation on bis Servitude. Volontaire and on 
his other works, 101. Description of the noble 
friendship that subsisted between him and Mon- 
taigne, ib. Reference to another work of Ins, 109. 
His patriotism, 110. Montaigne's bitter regret for 
In-: hiss, 109,207. Eulogiuin upon him 

ISogez. Conduct id" Ibis governor at the siege of Eiona 

Boiocalus. His reply to the Romans 

Boleslaus. The treason that he was made the victim 
of, 39-1. His singular compact with his wife on their 
wedding-night < 

Books. Books, immortal children. 809. What books 
are proper to translate, ! 
lai derived from them 

Borgia (Cesar), ilakc of Valentinois. His attempt to 
peis. m Cardinal ( 'orneto 121 

Borromeo, Cardinal His extreme austerity 142 

Burgundians, Observation in reference to them 885 

lloutieres (M. de). Instance of imprudence on his part 193 

Brazil. The longevity of its natives 251 

Brothers. Reflections upon the discords too common 

Brutus (f.urias../unius). A question as to the motives 
of this consul in condemning his sons 185 

Bratus(JM r arcuf-J r uniu.<). The despair of the Xnnloians 

w I besieged In him and ulis Tvanon on in ! IUh 

ject, 137. The answer he got from Statilius, 167. 
38 



674 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



The effect of his suicide, 188. Mention of a lost 
book, written by hi m, 215. A saying of his as to the 
eloquence of Cicero, 216. Eulogiuni upon his con- 
duct in the midst of danger i 

Brutus (Decius- Junius- Minus). The use he made of 



I"'- 



Mo 



tut 



r, 100. Mention 
of the representation of his Latin tragedies at the 
College oi'Uui.-, mo, 11)1 Criticism on his poetry. .. 335 
Bund i Pierre). A present he made .Montaigne's father 225 
Business, should not bo postponed, l'J2. The love some 
men have for it 491 

c. 

Ctesar (Julius). The subjects to which he applied him- 
self most in his commentaries, 48. A saying of his, 
57. His reply to an old soldier, ib. His manner of 
repressing mutiny, 77. His conduct in reference to 
the conspiracies funned against him, 78. His man- 
ner of marching at the head of his troops, 124. Re- 
flections on his expression of horror at seeing the 
head of Poinpey, 127. Why he wrote his Commenta- 
ries, 134. His prodigality, 143. His reproach to 
Pompey's soldiers after the battle of Oricuin, 157. 
His war-dress, 158. His good horsemanship, 160. 
His plan for depriving his cavalry of all hope of 
escape, 161. Explanation of a nickname that was 
given him, 166. His eloquence, 108. The impru- 
dence that cost him his life, 193. Criticism on his 
Commentaries. 216, 366. Observation as to his cle- 
mency, 223. What death he most desired, 310. A 
custom of his, 321. The rapidity of his journeys, 343. 
His excessive power. 345. His directions to his sol- 
diers on the eve of the battle of Pharsalia, 349. His 
gallantry, 363. His ambition, 364. His clemency, 
365. His military talents, 366. His indifference to 
his wife's infidelity, 425. His contempt of physical 
pain 529 

Caius Julius. His sudden death 54 

Calanus. The manner of his death 354 

Calicut. Mention of the manners of this country, 419, 
The reception its emperors gave Soliman's ambas- 
sadors 474 

Caligula. A singular exhibition of filial regard of his, 
35. His cruelty 309 

Callisth ;nes. An instance of unbendingness in him, 
disapproved of 96 

Calvisius Sabinus. His plan for keeping up conversa- 

Cainbyses. His motive for killing his brother 413 

Cameleon. Observation upon this insect 240 

Canacre. The treason exercised against him, and the 

punishment of the traitors 394 

Canius (Julius). His calm death 195 

Canna?. A si n gu I nr circn instance attending the battle of 512 

Cannibals. See Indians. 

Cantharides. A comparison drawn from the nature of 

these insects 194 

Capilapi. Mention of this poet 86 

Cappari. Zeno's use of this oath 431 

Caracalla. His manner of man-bin? before his troops 211 
Carneades. The excessive avidity of t litis philosopher 
for learning, t'5. His opinion as to truth, 257. Dis- 
cussion between him and Chrysippus, 301. An 
opinion of his on glory, 310. Saying of his, 315, 

Anecdote of him 530 

Carnevalet. His admirable horsemanship 164 

Caro (Jinnilml). Commendation of his letters 136 

Carthaginians. Their rules as to drinking, 184. Their 

horrible sacrifices 267 

Casilinum. Mention of the siege of 37 

Cassius (Cains). The ,. fleet of his suicide 188 

(Sevi-ms). The character of his eloquence, 

42. His exclamation at seeing his books burn 210 

Castalio. Reference to this learned man 123 

Cat. The terrible effect produced upon a young lady, 
who was told she had eaten a cat, 64. An attractive 

virtue atl rthuted to this animal 65 

Catapult. Observation upon ill is engine of war 162 

Catena. Mention of the punishment of this robber. . 223 
Oato i he Elder. The firmness with which he bore the 
death of his son, 142. His economy and simplicity, 
169. A reproach that he incurred, 182. An insulting 
demand he made Scipio, 194. His opinion as to 
servants. 2()(i. A comparison of him with Cato of 
rjtica, 351. A saving of his as to fools and wise men 452 
Cato of Utica, or the Yovnger. Disapproval of his oh- 
stinacy in not altering defective laws, 74. A remark 
of his upon Cicero, 98. Vindication of his death, 126. 
The commendation of him by five Latin poets, ib. He 



ought to be taken for a model, 133. His profound 
sleep just before he killed himself, 153. His reply to 
those who tried to dissuade him from suicide, 177. 
His firmness of principle, IT'.i. Comparison between 
his death and that of llcgulus, 1*7. His noble death, 

220. His indifference to Ins wife's infidelity 425 

Catullus. Mention of his poetry 214 

Caunians. A singular religious custom of this people 273 
Cause. Plato's opinion as to first causes, 255. Pytha- 

goras's opinion on the same subject 263 

Cecina. His plan for communicating villi his family 343 

Celius. Instance of the impatience of this orator 358 

Cemeteries. The reason why they were situated in 

thickly frequented places — 

Cento. Observations on this species of poetry 86 

Ceremony. Montaigne's objection to it, 46. Reflec- 
tions upon the subject 321 

Cestius. The treatment he experienced at the hands 

of the younger Cicero 216 

Chabrias. The manner in which he lost the fruits of 

a victory he had obtained 34 

Chance. Its influence in the success of various arts 

and sciences 76 

Character. The difficulty of determining the charac- 
ters of men '. 179 

Charillus. His moderation, 358. His indulgence to- 
wards wicked persons 519 

Charinus. The innovations of this physician 383 

Charixenes. His acceptance of the remarkable will of 

Eudamidas 108 

Charles V. of France. A saying of Edward III. about 

him, 341. Who was his favourite author 366 

Charles VIII. of France. Cause of the facility of his 
Italian conquests, 84. What saved him at the battle 

of Fornoua 160 

Charles IX. of France. Mention of a comparison be-' 

tween his government and that of Nero 360 

Charles V. of Germany. His contempt for the French 
army, 48. His challenge of Francis I., 49. Com- 
mendation of his abdication 204 

Charondas. His mode of punishing cowardice, 47. 
The measure he took for preventing inconsiderate 
changes in his laws, 72. His punishment of persons 

who kept bad company 128 

Chasan. The manner of his death 180 

Chase. Montaigne's opinion of this diversion 222 

Chastity. Commendation of this virtue 71 

Chatel. The death of this bishop 191 

Chelonis, wife of Cleoinbrotus, king of Sparta. Her 
admirable conduct towards her father and husband. 537 

Cheerfulness, a sign of wisdom 93 

Chess. Montaigne's opinion of this game 167 

Children. What vices should be most carefully checked 
in them, 40. The earliest tendencies to vice should 
be repressed in them, 67. The system upon which 
the children among the Lacedemonians and Persians 
were brought up, 83. Observations upon I he manner 
in which children should he educated, 87 ct scq. 
The harm that is done children by being brought up 
in their parents' lap, 89. Further remarks upon 
their early conduct, ib. ct scij. Anecdote of a Lace- 
demonian bov, 186. Description of a monstious 
child. 356. Reflections on the resemblance of children 

to their fathers 376 

Chilo. A saying of his 307 

China. A custom of this country mentioned 522 

Chiron. His refusal of immortality 511 

Chrates. A curious anecdote about him 425 

Chremonides. Anecdote of Zeno in reference to this 

young man 407 

Christians. Who are the completest Christians 171 

Chrysippus of So/os. Opinion of this philosopher as to 
incest. 71. His manner of filling his books, 85. His 
opinion as to the use of dead bodies, 117. His obser- 
vation as to does, 237. His opinion upon Dion, 250. 
His opinion upon Plato and Aristotle, 200. His 
opinion as to the Divinity, 264. His singular proof 
that the soul is placed in the h»nrt,27U. His opinion 
as to glory, 315. Anecdote of bis servant-maid .... 539 
Cicero (Ma reus Tullius). I lis opinion as to Hie employ- 
ment of leisure and retirement. 131. His excessive 
desire to be praised by historians, 133. His wonder- 
ful eloquence. 135. Remarkable ancr Into ofhim,?6. 
Criticism on his works and character, 215. His pas- 
sion for glory, 316. Ahabitofhis 321 

1 (M. T.) Ib" vr.imger. Srt Cestius. 

Cimher. A saving of Ins as to ! be pint against Ctrsar 182 
Ciiiion. the Athenian general. The honour he paid to 

his race-mares 225 

Cippus ijVarcus}. Fabulous anecdote of him 6] 

Civility! Observations on this subject 4ft 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



675 



Claudius I., Emperor of Rome. A singular edict of Ilia 63 
Cleanthcs. A saying of his. I-.5. An observation of Ins 
. upon ants, 240. His opinion as to the divinity, 201. 
His opinion as to the soul, 278. As to the universe, 

398. His death 311 

Cleaichus. the Lurah monian general. His tactics in 

the hattle between Arlaxerxcs and Cyrus 164 

Clenbis and liitou. Tin: death of these brothers 295 

Clcouibrutiis of Sparta. Hcc ( helonis. 
of Jtmbracea. The reason why this phi- 
losopher killed himself 191 

Clcomenes. 1st King of Sparta. His treachery towards 
the people of Aran-, ::?. His reply to the Sainian 
ambassadors, ! 8. \nccdutc of bun and an orator, 

357. A saying of his about Homer 374 

II.- — ." Circumstances attending bis suicide 188 

Olimacides. The service to which the women so called 

were put 236 

Clitomachus. His opinion as to truth 257 

Clistheues. His reason for refusing bis daughter to 

Hippoclides 209 

Clodia LaHa. The injustice done to this vestal 421 

Clodomir. The mischance that befel him in conse- 
quence of his excessive fury 157 

Clothes. Observations upon tbeir various use 123, 125 

Clovis I., King of France. A miracle attending the 

siege of Angouleme by this prince 122 

Clysters. Anecdote of an operation with this remedy 64 
Coaches. The sort of equipage used by the early kings 

of France 443 

Colleges. Montaigne's objections to them 1U0 

Comedies. The way in which they wc-re made up in 

Montaigne's time 214 

Command. Reflections upon the disposition of men to 

free themselves from it 49 

Comines. Criticism upon his Memoirs 218 

Coinmorientes. Reference to this society 481 

Condemned persons. Ancient laws as to the disposi- 
tion of their property 191 

Conjugal love must be kept under restraint, as to em- 
braces 11], 112 

Conquerors. Whether they should pursue their vic- 
tory to extremities 157 

Conrad III., Emperor of Germany. His reason for 

pardoning Guelpb, Duke of Bavaria 23 

Conscience. The laws of are derived from custom, 70. 

Its irresistible power 193 

Conspiracy. Remarks as to the means of preventing 
them, 76. A singular mode of averting them, sug- 
gested to Uionysius the Elder 78 

Constancy, or firmness, in what it consists 45 

Constantius II., Emperor of Rome. His excessive 

haughtiness 321 

Consular place, where it was among the Romans 193 

Contracts. Observation of Montaigne in reference to 

them 520 

Conversation. The advantages of 91, 452 

Cook. A curious specimen of a cook that entered 

Montaigne's service 168 

Cordus (Cremituus). The death of this historian 210 

Corras. A decision of his in a very difficult case 503 

Corybantes. Their religious fury 267 

Cossitius (Lucius). His curious metamorphosis 61 

Cossus. Observation upon the drunkenness of this 

Prator , 182 

Cotta (Caius-rfurelius). The reproach cast upon him 
by Velleiiis, 258. The absurd argument imputed to 

him 279 

Cotys II., King of Thrace. The remarkable precaution 

of this prince to avoid occasions of anger 496 

III., . The double treachery exhibited in 

his story 393 

Courage. Extreme courage sometimes produces the 

same effects as extreme fear 171 

Countrymen. Instances of the firmness with which 
certain peasants endured the infliction of torture, 

361. Curious story of a thievish peasant 400 

Cowardice. Reflections upon this infirmity, and its 

punishment in different countries and periods 47 

CranatlS, King of Athens. The invention attributed 

to him 539 

Crantor. His opinion as to the insensibility recom- 
mended by Epicurus, 253 ; and as to the endurance 

of evils 531 

Crassus (Publius Licinius). His severity towards an 

engineer 58 

(Jigclastus). His sour austerity 410 

(Alarcus Licinius). Anecdote of a fish lie brought 

up, 239. His honesty 316 

Crates. A sa> ing of his as to philosophy, 80. His re- 
medy for love, 254. The singular meana he employed 



for inducing Metrocles to change his sect, 299. His 

hist disposal of bis money 465 

Creator. Proof of the existence of one 229 

Cretans. Their manner of cursing a person. 70. The 
extremity to which they vv ere reduced in time of siege 163 

Crinas. His innovations in medicine 883 

Cripples. Observations upon them 505 

Critolaus. Reference to the scalea of this philosopher 540 
Crocodile. A curious particular respecting this animal 245 
Croesus, King of Lydia. The story of \u> qiimn 
Ion, when led to execution, 51. Anecdote respecting 
his son. til. The extraordinary food his horses de- 
voured near Sardis, 103. His cruelty towards a 

favourite of his brother 351 

Cross. The use of the cross in America before the dis- 
covery of that country by the Europeans 294 

Crueltv. Montaigne's distaste for this vice, 222. Its 

frequent concurrence with cowardice 347 

Ctesiphon. A strange proceeding of his 531 

Curio. His singular want of memory 471 

Curiosity. Superstitions which have arisen from this 
v ice, 43. The evils it occasions, 104. Montaigne's 

aversion to it 193 

Cusco. The ancient splendour of this town, 447 ; and 

of its road 449 

Custom. Its power, 60. Its effect on the senses, G7 ; 
and on opinions and manners, ib. Account of a 
number of extraordinary customs, 08. The prejudice 
of people in favour of the customs of their own 
country, 70. The resemblance and variance between 

the customs of different people i*. 

Cyneas. The excellent advice he gave Pyrrhus 151 

Cyrenaics, The opinion of this sect on perceptibility, 

300. Their maxim about justice 522 

Cyrus the Elder. The dying charge he left his children, 
33. An absurd proceeding of his. 35. The account 
he gave Astyages of a lesson he had received, 84. 
His treatment of his horses, 102. The means he 
employed for procuring speedy information, 343. 
His liberality, and anecdote of Croesus in connection 
with the subject, 444. His conduct towards Panthea 497 

the Younger. One of his reasons for preferring 

himself to his brother — 



Dahre. The peculiar manner of fighting among this 
people 

Dainindas. A remarkable sayingof this Lacedaemonian 

Damocritus. His suicide 

Dandamys. His opinion as to submission to the laws 

Dance. Observation upon the most difficult dances . . 

Darius I., King of Persia. His extreme animosity 
against the Athenians, 40. His proposition to the 
Indians and Greeks 

Daurat, or Dorat. Opinion of this poet 

Deaf people. Montaigne's opinion as to why persons 
born deaf do not speak 

Death. Whether it discharges us from our obligations. 
33. Various reflections upon death, and .Montaigne's 
view of it as regarded himself, 52, et scq. Other 
reflections on the subject. 137. Various accounts of 
individuals, and whole cities, who sought death to 
avoid a miserable life 

Deceit in warfare condemned 

Decius Mus. His devotion to his country 

Defeats. Mention of some defeats more glorious than 
victories 

Deformity. Observations upon it 

Deification. Reflections upon this ancient ceremony 

Deiotarus, King of Galalia. The complaisance of his 
wife Stratonice, 118. CVsar's conduct towards him 

Delphi. Reply of this oracle to those who feared the 
temple would be pillaged, 73. The famous inscrip- 
tion upon the temple 

Deluge, Plato's mention of one 

Demades. A decision of his on a man who charged too 
much for a funeral 

Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Maccdon. The enor- 
mous weight of his armour 

, Ike Grammarian. His observation to a party 

of philosophers 

, Me Cynic philosopher. A saying of his as to 

reputation 

DemocritUS, of Jibdera. A saying of his. 133. His con- 
stant cheerfulness. 107. ilis opinion as to gods, 
beasts, and men, 170: as to truth, 257. Anecdote of 
bun. 261, His opinion as to the Divinity. 203; as to 

the plurality of worlds, 369; as to h an seed, 385 ; 

as to natural objects, 300. Extravagance attributed 
to him 



676 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Demophon, Alexander's maitre i'holel. A peculiarity 

of his constitution 96 

Demosthenes, the Athenian general. His defeat in 

Sicily, and death 310 

, the orator. A saying of his 17!) 

Deuisot. Observation upon him 156 

Dependence on princes, undesirable 'JO 

Devotion, a singular instance of, mentioned by Mar- 
garet de Valois 176 

Diagoras. A bitter reply of his concerning votive 

offerings, 44. His avowed atheism 264 

Dialectics. Abuse of the subtleties of this art 94 

Diana. The tortures inflicted on boj s before the altar 

of this goddess 267 

Dicearchus. Mention of a work of his, 57. A reproach 

he made Plato 298 

Dioclesian. His abdication of the empire 151 

Diodorus, the Dialectician. What caused his death... 31 
Diogenes Apolloniates. His opinion as to the divinity 263 

, the Cynic. His jeers against grammarians, 

musicians, and orators, 81. Two remarkable replies 
of his, 97. His way of asking his friends for money, 
108. His contempt for mankind, 167. His reply to 
Speusippus, 187. His reply to a priest, 228. A saying 
of his upon servitude, 236. Anecdote of him, 298. 
His opinion as to glory, 315. A saying of his to 
Demosthenes, 359. The remedy he suggested to 
Antisthenes, 377. His jest upon a wrestler turned 
physician, 381. What wine he liked best, 465. A 
quip passed upon him, 496. A box of the ear he gave 539 

Laertius. Montaigne's opinion of him 216 

Diomedes, the Grammarian. The immense number of 

his works 463 

Diomcdon. His noble conduct under an unjust sen- 
tence 34 

Dion. His hatred of mistrust 77 

Dionysius the Elder. His cruelty to Phyton, 23. His 
death, 30. His ambition to bo thought a good poet, 48. 
The war-machine he invented, 16-2. The importance 
he attached to his poetry, 323. His conduct to Phi- 

loxenus and Plato, of whom he was jealous 452 

the Younger. His conduct to a Syraeusan 

who had concealed treasure 144 

ofHeraclea. The effect of pain upon him. 251 

Dioscorides. Account of the people of this island. .. . 175 

Diversion. Reflections upon this subject 409 

Divination. The origin of this art, 44. Why its abuse 

should be punished 116 

Divines. A doubt whether they ought to write history 65 
Diviners. Their punishment among the Scythians 

when they prophesied false 116 

Divinity and Philosophy have a finger in every pie.. . Ill 
Divorce. The influence that facility of divorce has 

upon marriage 313 

Dogmatists. Observations upon this sect 257 

Dogs. Their attachment to their masters, 64. Anecdote 
of Xantippus' dog, 2-25. Mention of a nation that 
had a dog for a king, 232. Various anecdotes of 

dogs, 241, 244. Noble conduct of an Indian dog 246 

Domitius (Lucius). His suicide 311 

Donations. The reason why legislators have forbidden 

donations between man and wife 107 

Dordogne. The swelling of this river in Montaigne's 

time 114 

Dowry. The inconvenience of having a large dowry 

with a wife 207 

Dean of St. Hilary. Singular proceeding of his 205 

Dragon. Mention of one of these fabulous monsters. 212 

Dreams. Reflections on dreams 536 

Dreux. Details of the battle of Dreux 153 

Drinking— the best pleasure an old man is capable of 

enjoying 184 

Drugs used to season meat 172 

Druids. Their doctrine as to the soul 224 

Drunkenness; a brutish, stupid vice, 172. Observa- 
tions on the subject, ib. et seq. 
Drusus (Marcus-Livius). A fine saying of this tribune 399 
Duels. Wise reflections on the subject of them 348 

E. 

Ears. Theophrastus' opinion respecting them 304 

Education. Commendation of that of the ancient 

Persians and Lacedemonians, 83. Reflections on the 

subject at length, 86 et seq. 
Edward 1st of England. His singular dying commands 

to his son 32 

III. . His delicate motive for not 

assisting bis son at the battle of Crecy 146 

Prince of Wales; what it was induced him to 

pardon the Limosins 27 



Egmont. See Alva. 

Egypt. A law of this country as to physicians, 382. 

The oath taken bv the judges there 393 

Egyptians. Two customs of theirs at their fasts, 55, 56. 
A remark upon their skulls, J24. Their curious man- 
ner of sacrificing to the deity, 223. Their belief in 
the metempsychosis, 224. Explanation as to their 
worship, 225. Their respect for certain animals, ib. 
The siience they maintained as to the origin of their 
gods, 265. The doctrine of their priests as to the dura- 
tion of the world, 293. Their tendency to theft, 361. 
A custom of their women at the feasts of Bacchus. . 422 
Elephant. In some countries this animal was reserved 
as the exclusive equipage of princes, 163. Dexterity 
of one of King Porn,' elephants, 237. Elephants 
trained as actors, 238. Others trained to war, 239. 
The extraordinary attachment of an elephant, 242. 

Anecdote of another elephant 246 

Eloquence. What sort of eloquence respectively befits 
the preacher and the advocate, 42. Disapproval of an 
ambitious sort of eloquence, 99. Instances of persons 
who have attained rank antl power by their eloquence, 
168. The period when must it flourished at Rome. . ib. 
Emerepes. His severity towards the musician Phrynis 72 
Emmanuel, king of Portugal. His cruelty to the Jews 138 

Empedocles. His opinion as to the Divinity 262 

Enghien, Francis, count d'. His attempt at suicide 

during the battle of Cerisolles 188 

Ensign. The singular effects of fear upon an ensign at 

the siege of Rome, 50. The story of another ensign ib. 
Epaminondas. His brave deportment before his judges, 
28. A saying of his, 52. Anecdote of him, 112. 

Montaigne's opinion of him ". 375 

Epicharsis. His firm endurance of torture 361 

Epicharnius. His opinion as to the judgment, 88. A 

singular notion of his 307 

Epicurus. His direction as to the future, 31. Epicurus 
and Seneca compared with Cicero and Pliny, 135. 
His affectation of contending successfully against 
pain, 185. His source of consolation in the anguish 
of a painful death, 210. The incorrectness of the 
explanations given of several of his principles, 219. 
Contrast between his theory and his practice, 222. 
His reason forrejecting quotations from his writings, 
259. His reason for being rather obscure, 260. His 
opinion as to the Divinity, 264 ; and as to a plurality 
of worlds, 21)9. The reproach he cast upon the Stoics, 
270. His opinion as to human seel, 285, and as to 
laws, 286. A singular idea of his, 293. Reflections 
on one of his principles, 315. His letter to Herma- 
chus, ib. His will, ib. His advice as to grief, 409. 
A maxim of his, 442. His frugal mode of living.... 494 
Epicureans. The opinion of this sect as to truth, 257. 
Their system of atoms, 279. Their objection to the 

metamorphosis 284 

Epimenides. The long sleep he had, 153. His peculiar 

divining faculty, 356. What he lived upon 543 

Equicola. Mention of this author 430 

Eros, Cicero's slave. The circumstance that procured 

him his liberty 135 

Erostratus. His mistaken ambition 318 

Essenians. The strange aversion of this people for 

propagation 432 

Estissac, Madame d'. Eulogium of her maternal 

affection 202 

Estree (the Seigneur d'). Curious anecdote about him 

and the Sieur de Liques 121 

Ethiopians. A consideration of theirs in the choice of 

a king 325 

Eudamidas. His remarkable will, 108. A saying of his 357 
Eudemonidas. A saying of his in reference to Xeno- 

crates 352 

Eudoxus. Reflections upon a wish of his 362 

Eumenes. The noble conduct of this general at the 

siege of Nora 36 

Evil. Whatit is, and how it concerns us 137 

Experience. Detailed Reflections on this subject 519 

Eyes. The language of the eyes 233 

F. 

Fabius-Maximus Rullianus. A stratagem of this 
consul against the Samnites 163 

Cimctator. The patience with which 

he endured vulgar slander and abuse 318 

Face. The movements of the face discover our secret 
thoughts, 63. Observations upon different kinds of 
faces 5P7 

Fashions. The fashion of the time should be con 
formed to 71 

Fatality. Reflections on this subject 354 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



677 



Father. Observation upon the use of this appellation 205 
Fathers. What should be the conduct of fathers, when 

grown old, to their children 205 

Fatua. Iler extreme modesty 427 

Faux(Guydu). Commendation of him 409 

Faustina. Reflection on the medals struck in honour 

of I his bad woman 271 

Favorinus. liis reason for giving way to Augustus, 

452. Opinion of his upon feasts 536 

Fear. Various reflections upon the effects of this 

malady 49,50 

Feet. A curious instance of the feet doing the ofhee 

of the hands 67 

Fencing. Observations on this art 349 

Feraulez, His contempt for riches 145 

Ferdinand V. A wise precaution of Ins: concerning the 

colonies about to be established in the Indies 520 

Ficinus. Men lion of this author 430 

Fimbria. Death of this Roman 310 

Fioraventi. The innovations of this physician 383 

Firmus. A peculiar equipage used by him 443 

Fish. The honour in which it was held by the Roman 

gastronomes, and Montaigne's own preference for it 165 
Flamiuius (Titus Quintus). What the Greeks said of 

his army, 113. His unseasonable devotion 352 

Flora. Her mode of making 1'ompey feel her love, 312. 

Her distinguished taste as to her lovers 407 

Florentines. Their honourable conduct in war, 36. 

Singular enthusiasm of two Florentine monks 355 

Foix (Gaston, de). What occasioned his death 157 

(Paul de). Commendation of him 479 

(Francis), riaise of his writings 87 

Folly. Reflections upon folly ." 460 

Fortune. Striking instance of the vicissitudes of for- 



by the rule i 



sin: plays 



on the effects of fortune, 123 

favours are a good 

Fox. The use the Thracians made of this an 
Francis I. of Fr 



hat way her 

. 149 
. 236 
The manner in which he non- 



Fran 



i, 41. His interview with 
His reasons for awaiting 
nage 



Pope Clement ' 
Charles V. in hit 
of literature, 225. A curious anecdote of hin 

Franks. Their invasion of Gaul 343 

Frauget (the Sieur de). The manner in which his 

cowardice was punished , 48 

French. The former manner of fighting among the 
French, 161. The excessive instability of the fashions 
among them, 164. A custom of the French women 
in Montaigne's lime, ib. The absurd use of Roman 
titles among them, 109. Their manner of drinking, 
183. Their high estimation of valour, 201. Their 

eternal lying. 337. Their quarrelsomeness 259 

Friendship. Description of that between La Boe'tie 
and Montaigne, ami reflect inns on the subject. . 104 el seq. 

Froissart. Criticisms upon him 217 

Fulk. Count of Anion. His pious mission to Jerusalem 142 
Fulvius Flaccus (Quintus). A stratagem he employed 
against the Celtiberiaus, 163. His cruelty to the 



Future. Reflccli: 



The death of this favourite of 



G. 



191 



Geese. The care the Romans took of these birds, 225. 
The extraordinary amour of a goose 

Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse. Hi- disl ourable conduct. 

Generals. Whether they should make themselves con- 
spicuous in battle 

Generation. In what light Socrates regarded it, 64. 
Observations oji the subject 241, 

Genoa. Mention of the siege of 

Gentleman. The independent condition of country- 
men in France in Montaigne's time 

Gerard. Mention of this assassin 

Germain, Mary. The singular story of this person . . 

Germanicus. A curious circumstance that happened 



in one of his 

Germans. Thei 

indifference a 



posses-ion w hen drunk, 182. Their 
he quality of their wine, 183. Their 
g after their meals, 184. Observa- 



Galbn (Pub/ins Sulpicius). The remark his army drew 

from King Philip 113 

, a Roman knight. His complaisance to Maecenas 427 

, (Serviut Sitlpicius) emperorof Rome. His sin- 

Eular taste in lii-- amours. 1 10. An honourable anec- 
dote of him 113. \ saving of his remarked upon . . 463 

Ottilia ./.-,„. - exile 112 

Gallus. Cornelius: iii, pr.iiur 1 1 e lingular rleath ... 54 

(Corn, ',:,.,. ii,. /.,..'. i Ibsei vat ion on his style . 4:',0 

(Vihius), the orator. The way in which he be- 
came mad 60 

Games. Observation upon the games of children, 67. 
An ingenious game played by Montaigne's family, 
170. Montaigne's reason lor leaving oil' games of 
chance 496 

Gauls. A custom of thei rs, 209. Their al.-l inoinv from 
women, up to a certain age 204. A custom of theirs 
as to their male children -.'(17. Theii cumbersome 
armour, 211. Their opinion a- to the soul 224 

Gascons. Their s|< ill in In. r '. ■• I..' Their ad- 
diction to then, -.mi::. M.iuinn of their idiom 324 

Gaza. Reference, to his Greek Grammar 93 

57* 



Gervais (St.) and St. Protais. Miracles attributed to 

their reliques 103 

Geta, the Roman emperor. His singular mode of dis- 
tributing the dishes at a feast 154 

Geta:. Their belief of their immortality 21,7 

Gipsy- women. The ease with which they lay in 141 

Giraldus. His miserable end 123 

Gladiators. Observations upon their combats 344 

Glory. Its incompatibility with tranquillity, 133. The 

futility of the passion for glory 145 

Goat. The use of this animal in suckling children, 209. 

Story of a goat that was afflicted with the stone ... 386 
God. The respect we should always have for his very 
name, 173. The reason why the term virtuous does 
not apply to him, 218. The imperfect idea we form 
of him, 255. What opinion Montaigne most inclined 
to, among those which give God a body, 263. The 
opinions of various philosophers and nations as to 

the nature of God ib. 

Gold. The use to which it was applied by the Mexicans 459 

Gonzaga fLudovico). His remarkable death 54 

Good. The idea of the Pythagoreans as to good and 
evil, 41. The influence of opinion both on the one 
and the other, 136. The infinite variety of opinions 

as to man's sovereign good 296 

Goodness. The distinction between goodness and virtue 221 
Goths. The reason why they preserved the libraries 

in Greece 84 

Goumay (Mademoiselle de). Eulogium of her 335 

Gout. A .jest of a gentleman afflicted with this dis- 
order, 34. The way in which Servius the gramma- 
rian sought to remove his gout 186 

Oovea (Andrew ) Commendation of him 101 

Government. What is th ■ best government 468 

Gozo. Tragical circumstance in the siege of this island 189 
Gracchus (Til us Sempronius). The rapid journey he 

made 343 

(Tiberius). The smallnessof the sum allowed 

him for his expenses when on the public service. 169. 
A curious plan adopted by him when haranguing 

the people 304 

Grammarians. The jargon they use 169 

Gran ins- Pet renins. His magnanimous death 369 

Silvanus. Ilis reason for killing himself 190 

Great men. should not seek praise for common things, 
134. Ought to conceal their faults more carefully 

than others 150 

Observations on this subject 450 

Greeks. Their idea of panic terrors, 50. The oath they 

took in the Median war ". 137 

Gregory XIII., Pope. His laudable taste for improving 
the cities and roads of the papal states, 443. His 
alteialion of the calendar commented upon ... 494 & 501 

Grouchi (Nicholas ilr). Mention of this writer 100 

Guasto, the Marquis. The danger he was in before the 

city of Aries 45 

Guei ente (William) Mention of this writer 100 

Guesrliu. A remarkable circumstance attending his 

death 32 

Guevara (Antonio de), bishop of Modonedo. Opinion 

of this writer 162 

Ctncciardiiii. Ciiiirism on this historian 218 

Guide-fish A curious circumstance connected with it 245 
Guise (Francis, duke of). Instance of the clemency of 

this prince 74 

Gyges, king of l.ydia. His magic ring 318 

Gvsippus. tin- Lacedemonian general. Ilis wardress . . 158 
Gymnosophists. A barbarous custom of theirs 35* 

H. 

Halcyon. Account of this bird 246 

Hands. The various feelings they are capable of ex- 
pressing 233 



673 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Handkerchief. Jest of a French gentleman on the use 
of handkerchiefs 68 

Hannibal. A remarkable circumstance attending the 
first battle he won against the Romans, 50. The 
manner in which lie marched at the head of his sol- 
diers, 124. The manner in which he obtained an 
advantage over the Romans 124 

Happiness. Reflections on this subject 51 

Harmony, of the spheres; the opinion of some philoso- 
phers on this subject 66 

Head. The various feelings and wishes which its 
movements can express 233 

Health ; how great a blessing it is 248 

Hegesias. The answer he got from Diogenes, 97. A 
maxim of his, 167. His opinion as to our life and 
death, 187. A maxim of his 460 

Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca. The sacrifice he made 
in favour of his romance 209 

Heliognbalus, emperor of Rome. The singular place in 
which he was assassinated, 120. The elaborate pre- 
parations he made for killing himself, 310. The 
curious equipages in which, at different times, he 
rode through Rome 443 

Henry III. of France. A proof of devotion he received 
from the Great Chamberlain of Poland 141 

Henry IV. of England. The challenge he received from 
Louis I., duke of Orleans 249 

Henry VII. of England. The treacherous conduct of 
this prince 38 

Heracleon. The reply of this philosopher to the gram- 
marian Demetrius 93 

Heraclides. The uncertainty of his opinions as to the 
Divinity 264 

Heraclitus of Ephesus. His reply to the Ephesians, 80. 
His sorrowful humour, and Montaigne's opinion on 
the subject. 167. The surname his style procured 
him, 260. A singular notion of his as to natural ob- 
jects, 299. A quip upon his wrilings 521 

Heretics. A reason why they should not be subjected 
to csfpital punishments 47 

Herillus, of Chalcedonia. His opinion as to learning. 225 

Herophilus, of Chalcedonia. His opinion as to the 
cause of diseases 382 

Hesiod. The manner in which his murderers were dis- 
covered 244 

Hesperius. A miracle attributed to him 103 

Hiero I., king of Syracuse. The difficult question he 
put to Simonides, 340. A saying of his about Homer, 
374. The rare simplicity of his wife 427 

Hilary, St. Remark upon the miracles attributed to 
his reliques by Bouchet 103 

Himhercourt (le Sieur d'). An ingenious stratagem of 
his 409 

Hipparchia. The terms on which she was received 
among her husband, Crates', sect 239 

Hippiasof Elis: his care to learn the commonest things 474 

Hippocrates. The impulse he first gave physic 383 

Hippoinaclms. A saying of his as to wrestlers 406 

Historians. The qualities they should possess 114 

History. The importance, in reading histories, of 
knowing what was the profession of their author, 
48. What professions ought not to write history, 65. 
Montaigne's predilection for history, 85. What are 
the best histories 217 

Hoc. The quarrels that have sprung from the differ- 
ence of opinion as to this syllable 270 

Homer. The number of servants he kept, 169. The 
infinity of ideas he is supposed by some persons to 
have originated, 300. Criticism on his wrilings . .. 373 

Honour. The discrepancy between the laws of justice 
, and those of honour, 71. Reflections on this subject 145 

Honour, Woman of. Observation on this expression. 201 

Honorius, Pope. A curious circumstance related of him 103 

Horace. Mention of this poet, 213. Observation on 
his style 430 

Horses. Reflections upon the war-horses in use among 
different nations, 160. The inennvenienceof fighting 
on horseback, 161. The opinion that the American 
Indians had of the first horses tli-y saw, 163. Va- 
rious anecdotes connected with horses, 20!l ct. scq. 
The establishment of post-horses among the Persians 
and Romans 343 

Hortensius(tinintns). An act of dishonesty on his part 

Hospital (Michel de) Mention of him as a poet 

Hyperides. His answer to the Athenians 

Hyposphagma. The singular effect of this disease ... 



Ignatius, father and son. The remarkable death of 

these Romans 122 

Ignorance. Reflections on this subject 171 

Imagination. The various effects of, on all creatures, 
with some extraordinary examples, 60 ct seq. Fur- 
ther observations on this subject, '2K. Its influence 

on the language of writers 429 

Immortality. Various observations and opinions on 
the immortality of the soul, 260 et scq. 

Imposture. What is the true field of imposture 119 

Impotence. Observations on this subject; withacuri- 

ous story 61 

Incense. The origin of its use in churches 170 

Inconsistency of man. Reflections on this subject 69, 179 

Indathyrses. His reply to Darius 45 

Indians (South American). Details as to their character 

and manners when discovered, 114 ct seq. and 446. 
Inequality. The inequality t hit exists among men . . 147 

Inhumanity. Montaigne's opinion on this vice 224 

Invention the great test of poetry 98 

Iphicrates. The answer of this general to an orator . . 134 
Iphigenia. Remark upon a picture representing her 

sacrifice 30 

Isabelle, Queen of England. How she was aided by 

chance in her descent on England 122 

Ischolas. His gallant defence of a pass against the 

Arcadians 118 

Ismenias. The cause of the unfavourable opinion 

Antisthenes had of this person 134 

Isocrates. A saying of his about the city of Athens. . 443 
Italians. Their mode of taking the baths, 385. Obser- 
vations upon their mode of making love 433 

Italy. Observations upon the men and women of that 
country, and upon their marriages 435 

J. 

Jacob. The extreme complaisance of his wives 118 

James de Bourbon, King of Naples. The singularly 

mean equipage he had 408 

Jaropol. His perfidy and cruelty 394 

Jason of Pheres. The singular way in which he was 

cured of an imposthume 122 

Jealousy. Reflections on this malady 425 

Jews. Their cruel treatment by the Kings of Castile 
and Portugal, 138. Their religious zeal. ib. 

Joachim of Celico. His book of prophecies 44 

Johannes Secundus. Mention of this poet 213 

John I., King of Castile. A 'circumstance connected 

with his defeat at Juberoth 103 

of Austria. Mention of the great naval victory 

he gained over the Turks 120 

Joinville. Reference to his Memoirs 218 

Josephus. The good lortiine that induced him to resist 

the advice given him to kill himself 188 

Judgment. Observation on judgment and memory, 39. 
The effect of fear on the judgment, 49. The judg- 
ment is active in everything, 166. The uncertainty 

Judges. Observations upon the venality of their office 71 
Julian, the Emperor. The punishment he inflicted on 

cowards, 47. His reply to his courtiers, 151. Noble 

vindication of this great man 338 

Junia, wife of Scribonienus. The reproach made her 

by Arria ■. 371 

Jupiter. The reason why he is represented by the poets 

as disguising himself when engaged in amours 150 

Justice, the great ingredient in royal virtue 444 

Justus Lipsius. Mention of a work of this writer, 86. 

Commendation of him 296 

K 

Karenty. A singtilarcircumstance attached to this place 478 
Kings. Their actions should be canvassed after death, 

31. Reflections upon their character and condition, 

148 el seq. 
Kisses. Reflections upon them as a form of salutation 434 

Kitchen. Description of the Roman kitchens 165 

Knowledge, is of no avail without judgment, 82. To 

what use it should be applied 139 

L. 

Labienus. His singular suicide 209 

Lacedemonians. Their ceremony at the interment of 
their kings, 32. A stratagem they made use of at the 
battle of Plattpa, 45. A remark concerning-their ed- 
ucation, 83. Manner in which their women endured 
pain, 140. Their heretical prayer. 295. The reason 
why they sacrificed to the muses before a battle, 319. 
Their notification to Antipaler, 393. A singular 
custom of theirs 463 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



679 



Ladislaus, King of Naples. His romantic death 3C4 

Lahontan. A curious and instructive story about this 

place 386 

Language. Observations on the study of languages. . 9!) 

Laurentina. The story of this person 272 

Laws. The absurdity of requiring people to act upon 



17.7. I!e 



n ks 



upon the doli-cis of certain laws regarding I be age .'it 
which persons might hold ollices, 177. Observations 
upon the law of succession, 2U8. Ileference to the 
Salique law, ib. The necessity of laws, 287. The 
constant changes to which laws are subject, 296. 
Whether natural laws are unchangeable, 297. The 
multiplicity of laws 519 

Learning. Whether it is absolutely necessary, 83. It 
was hut little cultivated in France in Montaigne's 
time, ib. Its utility when of a sound character. .87, 195 

Legislators. The means employed by 



credit 



1711 



Lcljus Sapiens. His noble friendship for H'dpio 146 

Leo IV., Emperor of the East. His book of predic- 
tions 44 

, Bishoji of Rome, or Jlntipope. Mention of his 

death 120 

X., Pope. The occasion of his death 31 



430 






defeat at The 



King of Sparta. 

Leonora do Montaigne. Ileference to her 203, 

Lepers. The effectual cure that Tamerlane used to 

administer to them 

Lepidus. A remarkable circumstance connected with 

this family 

(Marcus Aurelius), Pontifez Maximus. His 

directions as to his funeral 

(Marcus /Emilius), father of the Triumvir 



.10.7 






us yEnnlius). The cause of his death. 54 
ary). Observations on those of Cicero 
14. Praise of those of Epicurus and 
Seneca, 135. Montaigne's account of himself as a 

letter-writer ib. 

Leva (Antonio dc). His extraordinary devotion to the 

glory of Charles V 146 

Liberality. Observations upon liberality in reference 
to kings 443 



Lil 



510 



ins Valeriana 

' thVsiege of. 
le cultivated 
Its true vain, 



Mon- 
to her 



lusterity of this monarch, 

the main principles he 
ite maxim of his 



this poet's dea 



on this subject, 64. 

363, 431 

Mon- 
213 



- \l in, hi of this poet '. 214 

1 i h Licinius). Reference to the mode by 

h ! I. icame a great leader, 81. His war-dress, 
lis eloquence, 168, A reply made him by one 
-■nlile r~ nil. His victory over Tigraues, 211. 

r reference to this victory 368 

C ■■.■'.■ The noble conduct of this consul 

- hi army 146 

Kef. i .ii'-e to the first success of his doctrines 220 

A custom said to he in use in this country... 209 
A custom of this people with reference to 

ealth 380 

His dissatisfaction with those who hail cured 

a |.li ;i ml delusion 253 

Hi, ii'ieichery towards the Orchomeuians. . 3-18 

The, bai».' he left respecting Ins funeral 33 

-.tie' vihninn orator. The public estimation 



Lycurgits, the Spartan legislator. His reason for bav- 
in- cemeteries plneed amidst the habitations of the 

living, 56. The sacrifices he made to ensure the 



173 



duration of his laws, 72. Commendation of his form 
of government, i-3. The plainness of dress he en- 
joined his soldiers, 15H. Opinion as to In - banishing 
letters from his polity, 354. His regulation as to 
the embraces of married people, .'112. Motive of his 
system of making the llelois drunk 344 

Lying. Liars should have good memories, 3!'. Il'thc 
tions upon this (hie table vice, in. The distinction 
of grammarians between an unt ruth and a lie ib. 

I .', ni ■ lis. The occasion of bis death 471 

Lyre. The plan adopted by a teacher of the lyre to 
form the ear and taste of bis pupils 453 

Lysander. A war-maxim of this genera), 36. An ex- 
pedient adopted in Ins favour by the l.aceda niouians, 
74. A saying of his 337 

Lysias. Mention of the speech he had prepared in 
favour of Socrates 514 

Lysiinaclius, I: "tag of Mace tlon. The reply he received 
from Theodorus, 137. Anecdote of his dog llyrcantls, 
241. The wise reply he received from Philippidcs . . 392 

M. 



i an 



Magpie at Rome 238 

Mahomet, the prophet. His law as to learning, 254. 
Opinion as to his paradise 265 

II., Emperor of the Turks. His two predomi- 
nant passions, 364. His letter to Pius II., 374. A 
horrible piece of cruelty in him 394 

Main tans. Their contempt for oratory, 168. Their 

religious fury 267 

Malady. Mention of three sorts of maladies which 
Pliny deemed unbearable, 188. The cause of many 
of our maladies, 2.71. Suggestions as to the treat- 
ment of them M 526 

Mamelukes. The excellence of their horses 160 

Maniertines. The cause of the pardon Pompey ac- 
corded them : 28 

Man. A variable animal, 28. His tendency to slip the 
collar of command. 49. What is the test of his 
happiness here below, 51. A miserable creature, 1 12. 
Where his real value lies, 147. His imperfection de- 
monstrated by the inconstancy of bis desires, 169. 
The inconsistency of his anions, 178. The difficulty 
of determining men's characters, ib. What is man's 
worst condition, 182. The absurd as.-umplion of 
man that the world was created for him alone, 231. 
His prepnsti rous presumption, 232. A comparison 
between .in n and animals 236 

Manlius, Cupiivltaas [Man as). His blind passion for 
fame 318 

, Torquatus ( Titus). A doubt as to his motives 

in condemning his son .'. 185 

Manners. The ml vantages of good manners 46 

Manuel, one of the Emperor Theophilus's officers. 
Remarkable anecdote of him 50 

Marcellinus. Account of the death of this Roman. .. 311 

Marcius (Lucius). A deceit practised by him on Persius 35 

Margaret de Valnis. Her opinion as to the most 
courteous mode of receiving visitors 46 

Maris, Bishop if Chalredoniu. His invectives against 
the Emperor Julian 338 

Marias (Cniiiij. The way in which he was daunted hv 
the desperate fury of the Marsians, 157. What he 
accustomed bis soldiers to, 21 1. The height he pre- 
ferred to have his soldiers, 325. A fancy of his in 
his old age 528 

the younger. His deep sleep on the eve of his 

last battle against Sylla 153 

Marriage. Plato's regulation as to marrying, 44. A 
reason fir prohibiting marriages between near rela- 
tions, 111. Reflections on the moderation and 
respect that married people should observe in their 
conjugalities, ib. Various opinions as to the age at 
which people ought to marry, 204. \ doubt as to 
the advantage of marriages being so firmly knit, 313. 
Further reflections on the subject of marriage 418 

Married people, newly. Advice to them on an inte- 
resting point 63 

Marseille's. The meaning of the custom of carrying a 
rusty sworil before the ancient magistracy of Mar- 
seilles, 72. Suicide formerly permitted, and the means 
for it provided, by tie government of Marseilles . . ■ 192 

Martial. Opinion as to this pout 314 

Martin (Capt. St.). Montaigne's brother. His death 
from a blow at tennis 54 

Martiiiella. The use of a bell so called among the 
ancient Florentines ... 36 



680 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Martyrs. Instances of extraordinary endurance of suf- 
fering in several martyrs 185 

Mary, ttuoen of Scots. Reference to her death 51 

Massilians. Their mode of riding 162 

Mattecoulon (le Sieur de), one of Montaigne's brothers. 

Mention of a duel in which he participated 349 

Maurice, Emperorofthe East. Anecdote of this prince 350 
Maximilian, Emperor of Germany. His singular mo- 
desty 33 

Means. The same effects are attained by a variety of 
means. 27. Reflections on ill means applied to attain 

good ends 243 

Medes. The cause of their defeat by Lucullus 211 

Medici, Lorenzo di, Duke of Urbino. The imminent 

danger he incurred at the siege of Mondolpho 45 

Megabyzes. His visit to Apelles 457 

Melampus. Mention of his pretending to know the 

language of brutes 232 

Melanthius. A remark of his upon one of Dionysius's 

tragedies 459 

Melissa, wife of Periander. A singular proof of her 

husband's affection for her 434 

Melissus of Samos. His theory as to motion 269 

Memnius (Caius). Ciesar's noble conduct towards this 

person 365 

Memory. The advantage of a bad memory, 39. Con- 
siderations on this subject 329 

Menades. Their religious fury 

Menander, the poet. A remarkable reply of his 

Menon. His taste in his amours 440 

Merveille, M. The ill luck that attended him at his 

embassy to the court of Milan 41 

Messalina (Valeria), wife of the Emperor Claudius. 
Her extraordinary lubricity, 420; and its ultimate 

punishment 429 

Metellus, Macedonicus. A saying of this consul 328 

Numidicus {Quintus Cccilins). His brave re- 
sistance to Saturninus. and his death 165 

Creticus (QuintusCecilius). The extremity to 

which he reduced the Cretans 163 

Celer (duintus Cecilius). His eloquence 168 

Metempsychosis. Reflections upon this system 266 

Metrocles. Anecdote of this philosopher, 299. His 

sleeping places 494 

Metrodorus of Chios. His doubt as to knowledge and 

ignorance 269 

of Stratonice. His rhodomontade in reference 

to fortune, 185. His moderate living 494 

Mexicans The first lesson they teach their children. 331 

Mexico. The luxurious habits of the ancient kings of 

this country as to their dress and tables, 125. The 

magnificence of the former city of Mexico, 447. The 

horrible cruelty of the Spaniards towards them, 448. 

The adorn I ion paid ibeir kings 459 

Michael. Order of St. Observations upon this order, 

200. Reference to Montaigne's obtaining it 295 

Midas. His ill-judged prayer, 295. His reason for 

killing himself 413 

Milan. The despair of the people of this city during 

the wars of Francis I 137 

Milesians. A singular mania that at one time took 

possession of the Milesian young women 188 

Miracles. Reflections upon miracles 102 

Mistrust, a sad condition 77 

Mithridates. A curious circumstance attending two 
battles gained by this prince, 124. The way in which 

his courtiers flattered him 452 

of Pergainus. The gift he received from 

Caesar 345 

Moderation, must he observed in all, even in good 
things, 111. Further observations on the subject . . . 

Modesty. Advantages of this quality 

Monsters. Observations on what are called monsters 

in the natural order 356 

Montaigne (Pierre Eyqnem, Seigneur de). Details of 
the care he took in the education of his son Michael, 
99. A useful project entertained by him, 1211. His 
habit of keeping a diary, ib. Description of him. ]83. 
His patronage of literature, 225. Account of his get- 
ting Raymond Sebond's work translated by his son 
Michael, 220. His taste for building, 465. His ex- 
cellent administr.nl ion of l he allahs nf llonle.-iux. 192. 



Montaigne (Michael Kj quern. Seigneur de), author of 
the Essays. His distaste for sadness, 28. His mo- 
desty, 33. His opinion as to the conduct of a relation 
of his in reference to his funeral arrangements, ib. 
His opinion as to funerals in general, ib. His desire 
as to his last moments, 38. His experience of idle- 
ness, ib. His principal motive in the composition of 






his Essays, 39. His bad memory, ib. His horror of 
lying, 41. His inability to do anything elaborately, 
42. His opinion as to divination and almanacs, 44. 
His opinion as to the Daemon of Socrates, and con- 
firmation of this opinion by his personal experience, 
ib. The effect produced on him by an unexpected 
gun-shot, 45. His dislike of ceremony, 40. His ad- 
vice on the subject of social civilities, ib. A wise 
custom of his when travelling, 48. The plan Re pur- 
sued when reading history, ib. The name he proposed 
to give virtue, 52. The idea he made himself most 
familiar with, 55. The extreme effect of imagination 
upon him, 60. The manner in which he cured a friend 
of his of a temporary inability in love, 62. His rea- 
sons for not writing history, 05. Mention of a cir- 
cumstance connected with his sleeping-room, 67. His 
abhorrence of all sons of cheating and trickery, even 
in sport, ib. His aversion for novelty, especially in 
politics, 72. His contempt and dislike for medicine, 
76. His advice to some superior military officers, 
who were afraid of being assassinated at a review, 78. 
His manner of composing his Essays, 80. His account 
of what he knew, e'5- His favourite authors, ib. His 
predilection for poetry and history, ib. His principle 
in making quotations, 80. His opinion as to his 
Essays, ib. His opinion concerning education, ib. et 
seq. The delicacy of his physical [tame, 89. His apti- 
tude for all sorts of diet, 90. Details on the manner 
in which he learned Latin and Greek, &c, 99 et seq. 
The precaution with which he was awakened. 100. 
His early character, ib. Observations on the college 
where he was brought up latterly, ib. His first taste 
in reading, 101. Conformity of his character in mature 
years with its early prognostications, ib. Mention of 
his taking part in Latin tragedies, ib. His opinion as 
to plays, id. Variation of his ideas as to religion, 103. 
Ingenious comparison in reference to his Essays, 104. 
Description of the friendship between him and La 
Boetie, ib. His regret at the loss of this dear friend, 
109. His conversation with a South American Indian 
that had come to France, 119. The colour of his 
clothes, 124. His respect for the great men of anti- 
quity, 126. His taste as to poetry, ib. His aversion 
to look after domestic affairs, 131. The sort of books 
he liked, 132. The kind of merit he wished people to 
find in his Essays, 134. His account of himself as a 
letter-writer, 135. His calmness under affliction, J42. 
His opinion as to whether it is desirable to have 
children, ib. His account of three conditions in which 
he had lived, 143 et seq. Description of his arms, 156. 
His fondness for horse exercise, ]C0. His opinion as 
to fighting on horseback. 161. His opinion as to the 
best sort of weapons to fight with, ib. His liking for 
fish, 165. The use he made of the judgment in com- 
posing his Essays, 166. The reason why there is no 
method in his work, ib. His contempt for the game 
of chess. 167. His opinion of mankind, ib. Hisopin- 
ion of his Essays, 171. His taste as to smells, 172. 
His submission to criticism, ib. His admiration of 
the Lord's prayer, 173. His opinion as to the dura- 
tion of life, 177. The effect of age upon him, after he 
had attained thirty years, 178. Explanation of the 
contradictions observable in his various accounts of 
himself, 180. His opinion of drunkenness, 183. His 
tendency towards carelessness. 193. His distaste for 
curiosity, ib. A si ngular circumstance that befel him, 
when travelling with his brother, the Sieur de la 
Brousse, ib. The death of a very promising page of 
his, ib. Account of an accident that happened to him, 
and threw him into a swoon. 196. What was the 
constant subject of Ins uk dilations. 1!IU. His reason 
for speaking of himself, ib. His opinion as to what 
are called natural affections, 202. His horror of 
stealing, 203. His aversion to severity in education, 
ib. The age at which he married, and reflection on the 
subject, 204. His opinion as to the conduct which 
parents, when grown old, should adopt towards their 
children, ib. His opinion as to the terms of familiarity 
on which parents and children should live, 205. Ob- 
servations of his as to the management of servants, 
206. Expression of regret at the loss of his friend La 
Boetie, 207. His opinion as to the best mode of dis- 
tributingone's property at one's death, ib. His reason 
for sometimes omitting to mention tin.' sources whence 
he quotes, 212. His favourite authors, 213. His opi- 
nion as to hisown virtue, 221. His horror of vice, ib. 
His aversion to cruelty, 222. His opinion as to capital 
punishments,™:!. I lis opinion of learning and learned 
men, 225. His reason for translating Sebond's Natural 
Theology.and opinion of that work, 226. His opinion 
as to the celestial bodies, 331. His opinion as to deaf 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



681 



: upon his mind 
in a mad-house, 
of God, 382, and 
His motto, 270. 
philosophers, 277. 
lo speak Italian, 
women go with 
linions, 290. The 
list the religious 



spe 



iScttcf/. Why he 
is affection for his 
s carrying a stick, 
i Hi.; management 
ct when angry, ib. 



ancestors, 330. His liahit ot'alwa 

3-16. His advice to his family as i 

of their anger, 3511. His own cond 

II is opinion of Homer, Alexander. 

373 elseq. His manner of composing liis Essays, 370. 

His subjection to the stone, 377. The good health 

enjoyed by most of his family, :!7'J. His opinion as to 

reputation, 388. His connection with Hie c t, 3110. 

Further reflections upon his writings, his character, 
and his conduct, 307 ct scq. What use lie more espe- 
cially derived from reading, 401. His taste as to con- 
versation. Hi., and friendship, ib. What sort of read- 
ing he thought proper for women, 405. His liking for 
tile conversation of women, 40U. His taste in love. and 
remarks on the subject, 407. His taste for reading, 
and account of his library, 408. His method of con- 
soling an afflicted person,40U. A remedy of hjs against 
grief, 112. His tendency towards gay thoughts in his 
oW age, 414. His opinion of those who should con- 
demn the freedom of his writings, 410. His justifi- 
cation of the liberty he took to say what he liked, ib. 
His own repugnance to marriage, and remarks on the 
subject, 410. Instance of his policy in regard to the 
education of his daughter, 4-!l. His opinion of the 
French language. 430. Why he chose to write at 
home, where he had none to help him, 431. His ten- 
dency to imitate, ib. What oath he used, ib. He 
generally produced his best thoughts on a sudden, ib. 
His opinion as to love, and remarks on the subject, 
ib.ctseq. Hiscondnct in his amours, 437. Hisopinion 
as to the age fit for love, 433. His subjection to sea- 
sickness, and remarks on the subject, 441. His regret 
respecting the Pont Neuf, 443. His love for discus- 
sion, 453. Some curious superstitions to which he 

government of a family, 41)4. Further details con- 
cerning himself, his mode of life, and his wishes for 
the future, 4115 ct see. His opinion as to the best 
form of government, 408. His fear of falling into 
repetitions in what he wrote, and recurrence of his 

complaint of want of memory, 471. Further details as 

to his Essays, ib. His painful situation in the midst 
of the agitations of bis time, 472. More about his 



death, and before lo- a Hairs were set I led. ib. What 
kind of death he roli-he,l he-i IM. His opinion as to 
the dest in vol' bis work ib. His method o| travelling, 
482. The facility with which he accomi lated him- 
self to circumstances,! - * His distaste foi public affairs, 

485. The reason of Ins frequent digressions, 4.-7. His 
avowal that lie sometimes veiled hi- thoughts, 48S. 
His love for Koine, and familiarity with her great 
names, it. How far he stood indebted to fortune 189. 

The in fRoman i itizenship 1 6 reo in i i. More 

details as to his character and tendencies, 490. His 
nomination to the mayoralty of Hordoaux. and con- 
duct in that office, 491, His moderation In the midst 

of parly contests, 105. His reason for discontinu- 
ing to play at games of chance, 4!lti. The pains lie 
was at to avoid law suits, 407. His Justification of 
llimsi If agaiusl some reproaches as to his conduct m 

the mayoralty, 499. liis opinion as to the new 
manner of computing time, introduced by Gregory 
XIII., 501. His opinion about miracles, 502. The 
annoyances he experienced latterly at the hands of 



the troops during the wars. 500. Account of a plague 
that desolated the part of the country in which he 
lived, 511. Why he made use of so many quotations, 
515. Account of two dangerous adventures in which 
he became involved, 517 ct xa/. His passion for his 
i personal liberty, 523. Tlie advantages he found 
hi of Lipy's 



in studying 1 
character of 



king of Ma 



the 



vorld 

ad- 



self, 534 et scq. 

Montdore. Mention of this poet 335 

Montfort (John V., Count de), duke of Brittany. Re- 
flections on the grief he manifested at the death of 
an enemy 127 

Montluc (Blaise de), marshal of France. His regret for 
the loss of his son 207 

Montmord. The censure he incurred 36 

Montmorency, the Marshal de. The rigour he exer- 
cised at the siege of I'avia. and at that of Villano, 
47. Montaigne's opinion of this warrior 335 

Moon. Various opinions as to the moon 232 

Mourning. The colour of the mourning worn by the 
Argive and Roman ladies 166 

Mules. Observations upon the use of this animal as 
an equipage, 102. A decree of the Athenians in 
favour of their mules 225 

Muley-Mohammed, King of Tunis. The reproach made 
him by his son 204 

Hassan, King of Tunis. His interview with 

Charles V. at Naples 172 

Moluch, King of Fez. His victory over Sebas- 
tian, King of Portugal, and his heroic death 342 

Mullet. A curious circumstance connected with this 



fish 245 

Muret. Mention of this writer 100,101 

Mussidan. Mention of the siege of 36 

Mutability of human affairs, illustrated in several re- 
markable instances 51 

Myso. A saying of his 456 

N. 

Naker. Curious observation upon this shell-fish 245 

Names, Reflections and anecdotes on the subject of 

names 154 

Naples. Cause of the facility with which Charles VIII. 

conquered the kingdom of Naples 84 

Narsingua. The devotion of the women of this country 
to their dead husbands, 137. The plan adopted in 

this country for putting an end to quarrels 348 

Nature. The advice which nature gives man to pre- 
pare for death, 58 ct set/. General law of nature as 
to the dissolution and reproduction of things, 66. 
Superiority of nature over art, 115. Her care for all 

created things 234 

Nausiphanes. Doctrine of this philosopher as to ap- 
pearances 269 

Necessities, natural ; their limits 131 

Neck. Account of a man who made use of his neck for 

the purposes to which other men apply their hands. 67 
Neorites. A custom of this people as io the disposal 

of their dead 512 

Nero. The answer made ibis emperor by two soldiers, 
31. His emotion on parting with his mother, whom 

vet he himself had cond ed to death. 127. A good 

irait in his character, 178. His cruelty to Epicharis 361 
Nerva (Cocccius), a Roman senator. His reason for 

dying 190 

Nicetas. His opininon as to the universe 292 

Nicies. What occasioned him to lose the fruits of a 

victory lie had obtained 32 

Nicocles. Sayincs of his 381, 382 

Ninachetucn. The death of this Indian lord 190 

Niobe. Reference to her story 30 

None (Francois tie la). Eulogium upon this Warrior . . 335 

Noma. Hi . lation 2f>3 

Numbers. Curious observation on the subject of 238 

Numidinns. A custom of Hair cavalry in battle .... 160 
Nurses, Their influence on the character of chil- 
dren 67 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Obligation. Remarks upon the question whether death 
absolves us of obligations 

Obstinacy should be carefully checked in children 

Octavius (Marcus). A remarkable circumstance con- 
nected with his siege of Salona 

• Sagitta. His furious passion for Pontia Pos- 

thumia 

CEdipus ; his wicked prayer to the gods 

Old age. Examination of the question, whether to die 
of old age is the most natural death, 177. Reasons 
why wine is best relished by old people, 184. The 
incommodities of old age, 203. The effects of old age 
physically and morally, 204. A striking illustration 
in support of Montaigne's opinions 

Olivier (Francois). Chancellor of France. A saying of 
bis, 328. His great merit 

One-eyed. Anecdote of a person who became so, from 
pretending to be so 

Opinions. Cause of a great number of strange opin- 
ions, G7. Influence of opinion on our notions of good 
and evil 

Oracles. Observations as to the commencement of 
their discredit 

Orange, William, Prince of. Mention of the assassins 
of this prince 

Oratory. Observations upon its credit or discredit 
among different people 

Orchomenians. The treachery of Lyciscus towards 
this people 

Orders of chivalry. Reasons for their institution 

Origen. The alternative to which lie was reduced . . . 

Orleans (Louis /., Duke of). His challenge to Henry 
IV. of England 

Ostorius Scapula. The death of this leader 

Ostriches. Their manner of hatching their eggs, 64. 
The singular use to which they were put by the Em- 
peror Firmus 

Otanez. His judicious resignation of his right to the 
crown of Persia 

Otho. Emperor of Rome. The profound sleep into 
which he fell just before he committed suicide 

Ovid. An avowal of Montaigne as to this poet 

Oxen. The story of a woman who had accustomed her- 
self to carry one, 66. The use to which they were 
put in the East Indies, 163. Curious account of 
those employed in the royal gardens at Susa 



Pacuvius Calavius. An ingenious plan of his for ap- 
peasing a seditious movement 

Page. Montaigne's opinion as to the custom of keep- 
ing pages 

Pain. How it may be alleviated, 139. Reflections on 
the subject, 140 et scq. 

Painting. Its success a great deal depends on chance 

Paluel. Mention of this dancer 

Palus Moeotis. The severity of the frosts there 

Panetius. A saying of this philosopher 

Panic terror, described 

Panthea.' The noble conduct of Scipio towards this 
fair captive 

Paracelsus. His innovations in the art of medicine . . 

Paradise. Opinion as to Mahomet's paradise 

Parians. Their expedient for reforming the Mile- 



Paris, Prince of Troy. The fearful consequence of his 
incontinence 

, the city of. The offensive extent of its dirt . . . 

Parmenides. His opinion as to the divinity, 263; as 
to appearances, 269 ; as to the soul 

Parthians. Their custom of being almost always on 
horseback 

Pasicles. A curious anecdote of this philosopher 

Paulus Emilius. His answer to the King of Macedon, 
55. His stoicism, 142. The sacrifice he offered to 
Mars and Minerva, 267. His recommendation to the 
Romans when he departed for Man-don 

Paulin, St. His praver after the taking of Nola 

Paulina, wife of Saturninus. A singular adventure 
that befel her 

, wife of Seneca. Her noble death 

Pausanius, a Macedonian lord. The outrage he en- 
dured from Attains, and his revenge 

, the Lacedemonian general. His mother's 

rieonr towards him 

Paxea. The noble example she gave her husband 

Pedantry. Observations on this subject 

Pedants. Obnoxious to men of mind, 79. The dis- 
tinction between them and the old philosophers, ib. 
Story of two pedants 



Peduceus (Sextus). An act of probitv of his remarked 

upon 316 

40 Pegu. A custom of the people ofthis country, 124. A 

peculiarity in the toilette of their women 423 

370 Pelagia,St. The death of this virgin 189 

Peilelier (Jacques). A present he made Montaigne, and 
the singular use that was made of it, 62. A theorem 
lie commit 1 1 ieated to Montaigne 292 

Pelopidas. His pusillanimous behaviour before his 
judges, 28. A favour that was refused him by Epam- 
inondas 112 

Perfidy. Reflections on this subject 390 

Perfumes. Why they were used in religious ceremonies 172 

Periander, the physician. A reproach made hiin by 
Archidamus 48 

, tyrant of Corinth. A singular proof of his 

conjugal affection 434 

Pericles. An answer he received from a Lacedemonian 
ambassador, 74. His reply to Sophocles, 112. His 
eloquence 168 

Peripatetics (the sect of). Idea of their sage, 44. Their 
I opinion as to truth 257 

I Peru. The ancient mannerof travelling]!! thiscountry 243 
Perrozet. Mention of this personage 519 

i Persia. An inconvenient custom of the kings of this 
country, 49. The excellence of the education in use 

I I there, 83. A custom of the kings of Persia at their 

j banquets 112 

i ' Persians. A remark as to their sculls, 124. A custom 
i j of theirs, 183. 'Fhe reason why Cyrus refused Ihem 
I permission to change their country 295, 334 

Perseus, the Greek philosopher. His opinion as to the 

divinity 264 

- , King of Macedon. The manner of his death, 

153. His character by Livy 525 

Pescara, Ferdinand, Marquis of. His perfidy at the 
j siege of Genoa 37 

Petus (Cecina). The story of this consul and his wife 
451 Arria 371 

Phalarica. Observation upon this war-engine 161 

152 Phaliscians. The honourable conduct of the Romans 

towards this people 35 

Pharax. The prudence of this Spartan 157 

Pharsalia. The mistakes committed bv Pompey at the 
battle of Pharsalia 158 

Phaulius. The ambition of this Argive 427 

Pha?do. Anecdote of this philosopher 427 

Pherecydes of Scyros. A supposed letter ofthis philo- 
sopher to Thak-s, 256. An invention attributed to him 283 

Philip II. of Macedon. The inappropriate praises ad- 
dressed to him by certain ambassadors, 134. His 
reproach to his son Alexander, ib. A saying of a 
musician to him, ib. His reparation of an unjust 
decision he had made 522 

Philip V. of Macedon. His remark on Galba's army, 
113. His cruelties 350 

Philip VI. of Macedon. His motive for sending his eld- 
est son to the wars 344 

Philip I. of Austria. An agreement made between this 
prince and Henry VII. of England 38 

Philippines. I lis wise answer to Lysimachus 3!-'2 

Philistus. His suicide 342 

Philopmnien, general of the Acheans. Eulogv of him, 
74. His conduct in a battle against Madia nidas, 154. 
Anecdote of him, 325. His reason for not allowing 
his soldiers to wrestle, 350. A saying of his about 
Ptolemy 352 

Philosophers. Are not blameabie for yielding to the 
first impulses of the passions, 45. A doubt whether 
they ought to write history, 65. Causes of the con- 
tempt they sometimes fall under, 79. Commendation 
of the ancient philosophers, 80. What Aristo of 
Chios said of philosophers 83 

Philosophy. What the study of philosophy consists of, 
52. It should be taught early, and presented to 
young men with the smiling aspect which really be- 
longs to her, 93. The extent of her jurisdiction, 95. 
Further observations on the subject. 25). Account 
of three classes of philosophy, 257. The absurdities 
advanced by some philosophers, 270 tt seq. The 
mysteries of philosophy have main things in common 
372 with those of poetry, 285. Its regulation as to natu- 
ral pleasures 430 

182 Philotimus. A saying of this physician to a sick man 463 

Philoxenus. Anecdote of this poet, 303. The injustice 
of Dionysius towards him 452 

Phocion, recommended as a model, 133. His modera 
tion,358. Anecdote of him ■ 401 

Phryne. The manner in which Ibis courtesan gained 
her cause 516 

Physic. Montaigne's ill opinion of physic, 76. Further- 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



observations on the subject, 251. Sketch of the va- 
riations of medicine, 382. More about physic 52G 

Physiognomy. Considerations on this subject 517 

Picard. Anecdote of a Picard who was about to be 
banged 137 

Pins II., Pope. A letter addressed to him by Maho- 
met II 374 

Pigeons. The use the Romans made of these birds . . . 243 
Pin. Anecdote of a woman who had swallowed one. . 64 
Piso (Lucius), governor of Rome. Observation as to 

his drunkenness 182 

(CneiusCalpurniiis), consul and governor of Syria. 

All instance of extraordinary cruelty on his part . .. 358 

Pity, reputed a vice among the Stoics 28 

Piliacus. A saying of this sage 428 

Plague. Account of a plague that devastated Mon- 
taigne's neighbourhood 511 

Plancus [Lucius Munalius). A saying of Ibis consul. . 348 
Plato. A remarkable say ing of his, and observations 
thereupon, 67. The number of bis domestics, 169. 
Mention of a dialogue attributed to him, 212. Criti- 
cism on his works, 215. His opinion as to the moon, 
226. Opinion of Chrysippus on some of his writings, 
260. The number of sects that arose from his doc- 
trine, 261. What it was induced him to give his 
works the form of a dialogue, ib. Objection to his 
system of rewards ami punishments, 265 Fabulous 
tradition of bis origin, 272. The name that Timon 
gave him, 275. Reproach made him by Uicearchus, 
298. Criticism on his style, 324. A saying of his as 
to the slanders againsl him 424 



310 



Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer. His system 

of the world 293 

Purgatory. The Indian notion of a purgatory 294 

Pi gmulion. The story of this statuary 218 

Pyrrho. His tranquillity in a meat tempest, 139&251. 
Jlis opinion as to truth. 257. Refutation of some 

errors respecting him, 358. Anecdotes of him 353 

Pyrrhonians. Reflections on this sect 262 

Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. The good faith shown him 
by the Romans, 35. The opinion he expressed of the 
Roman army, 113. The object of his disguising him- 
self in battle 158 

Pythagoras. An ingenious comparison of this philoso- 
'pher, 92. Anecdote of him, I.Vi. Mis kindness for 
animals, 224. The source of his system, ib. Ilia 
doctrine as to the knowledge of God, 2b.'!. Reflec- 
tions on his system of metempsychosis, 265. Men- 
tion of his pretended transmigrations, 284. Ilis 
opinion as to human seed 285 

Pythagoreans. Their view of good and evil 41 



Quarrels. Reflections on this subject 

Cluartilla. Her singular want of memory . 



Rabelais. Mention of this author i 

Rabirius. What saved him from Ctesar's animosity . . i 
Rachel and Leah. Their extreme complaisance towards 



:M< 



nankind, 52. The d; 
ire, 132. The incon 
regards plea: 



150. 



339 



Plenty and Poverty dep I on opinion 145 

Pliny the Elder. Criticism upon him 103 

the Younger. His advice to Cornelius Rufus, 

131. His ambition, 133. Criticism on ids letters .. 135 
Plutarch. Montaigne's partiality for this historian, 85. 
The utility of his Lives, 91. Criticism upon this 
writer in comparison with Seneca, 214. His opinion 
as to the moon, 232. His frequent contradictions . . 261 
Poetry. Montaigne's opinion on the subject of 120 & 171 

Pol, Peter. His singular mode of riding his mule 162 

Polemon. The effect produced on him by a lecture of 
Xenocrates, 334. His resistance against pain, 413. 

The action brought against him by his wife 421 

Pol jc rates. Anecdote of him 267 

Polyen of Lampsacus. The change in his notions about 



Poly 



Peculiarity of this marine animal 

lie Great. What induced him to pardon the 
ines, 28. The fear that seized his friends at 
s of his murder, 50. His excellent horseman- 



■ Sextus. An advi 

■ the dancer. Men! 



.ere I 



happened to him 1'.12 



in which he 



Poris. The tragic end of this prince 

Portuguese. Their cruelly towards their Indian pri- 
soners 

Possidonius. His affectation of despising pain, com- 
mented upon .... 139 & 

Pnslhumius Tubertus. Mis severity towards his son. . 

Poyet, M. A singular dilemma in which he became 
involved 

Praise, observations on this subject 134, 

Praxiteles. Anecdote of Ins Cm idia u Venus 

Prayer. Reflections on the subject of prayer 

Preachers. The sort of eloquence they should possess 



traordinary feal he performed 

pinion us to the Divinity. 263. As to 
to laws, 297. As to natural objects ' 
appy chance that enabled this painter 



I Vuletes, King id' Egypt. The enormous fine 

I from him by the Romans 

58 



Raisciac. The story of his son's gallant death, and his 

Ram. The extraordinary amour of one i 

Rangone, Count. Instance of his prudent generalship 

Rapiers. Their use among the Romans ) 

Raven. A .singular characteristic of the Barbary 

ravens S 

Razias. His horrible death ! 

Regi llus. The excesses committed by his troops 

Regulus. Ilis poverty, 169. Opinion as to his death 

compared with that'of Cato. 1H7. Opinion as to his 

life compared with that of Thorius 

Religion. What is its best foundation, 57. Reflections 

on the Christian religion, 227 el seq. 
Resemblance. Considerations on the resemblance of 

children to their fathers .: 

Resti tutus. Singular account of this person 

Ret i lenient. Reflections on this subject 



Rhel 



A de 



nil I 



L'i'Cise . . . 
r, 35. Th ■ 
manner i 



Riches. Reflections on riches .... 

Riding. Montaigne's partiality IV 

Romans, the. Their foi 

dislike to use the word ihnth. 5 
which Hannibal obtain. -I a gr at advantage over 
then., 134. The dexterity of their horsemen, 160. 
Their method of preventing insurrections. Id]. Ac- 
count of various customs in use among them, 164 ct 
seq. Their military discipline, 211. One of their 
principles of education, 341. Their colonies, .'!!!. 
Reason of the gladiatorial combats among them, ib. 
Their power, 345. The use of the thumb among 
them, 347. A complaisant custom of the Roman 
husbands ' 

Ronimero. A blunder of his at the siege of Yvoy 

Ronsard. Montaigne's opinion of this poet 

Rusticus. Anecdote of this tribune 

Ruslilius, Rufus. A military institution of this consul 



S. 

Sacrifices, human. Mention of several in different 
countries 113 

Sacristan. Anecdote of one belonging to Hie temple of 
Hercules 272 

Sadness, or Melancholy. Montaigne's contempt for 
this passion 29 

Sallust. Mention of this historian 216 

Salsberi (William), Count of. Anecdote of him at the 
battle of Ilovines 147 

Baluzzo. The motives of his treason to Francis I. ex- 
plained 43 

Simile/.. King of Navarre. The nickname given to 
this prince 170 

Sara, wife of Abraham. Her extreme complaisance for 
her husband 118 

Sarmatians. A custom of their women 435 

Saturniniis | I'ublius Scmpronius) \ saving of his to 
l lie soldiers y ho bad | laitned him emperor 4*", 

Savoyard. The absurd saying of a Savoy aid 91 

Scoava. The extraordinary valour of this Roman .... 369 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Scanderberg. A curious anecdote of this prince, 27. His 
opinion as to what number of soldiers was requisite 
for conquest 369 

Scarus. A curious circumstance relating to this fish . . 245 

Scarf, Knights of the. One of the rules of this order. . 164 

Scaurus, Mamercus. The noble example given him by 
his wife 190 

Sceptics. Their opinion as to truth, 257. Apology for 
this sect, ib. el seq. 

Scholar. The contempt in which scholars and pedants 
were held among the Romans 84 

Sciences. In what way they should be taught .93 

ScipioCalvus (Cneius Cornelius). The grief occasioned »- 
to the-Roman army by his death 35 

(Publius Cornelius) Jlfricanus. Instance of his 

high-minded courage, 77. The most glorious period 
of his life, 177. His noble deportment when unjustly 
accused, 193. His favourite author 366 

(Publius /Eniilianus) Africaniis. His aversion 

for pomp, 169. His regulations for his soldiers, 211. 
Eulogy of him 376 

(Publius;, Pompey's father-in-law. His courage. 

ous death 51 

Scaevola. His brave deportment in the presence of 
Porsenna 141 

Scrihonia. The advice she gave her nephew 188 

Scythians. Their manner of fighting, 45. A power 
attributed to the Scythian women, 64. Their cruel 
sacrifices in honour of their dead kings 236 

Sea-sickness. What occasions it 441 

Sebond, Raymond. Details as to his Natural Theology, 

Sechel, George. His frightful punishment 351 

Severity, in education, objected to 95 

Seleucus, King of Syria. His opinion as to royalty . . 149 
Selim I., Emperor of the Turks. Sayings of his, 329, 

341. The strict discipline of his troops 509 

Sempronius Lonsus (TVierius). A remarkable circum- 
stance attending his defeat by Hannibal 50 

Gracchus (Tiberius). A sacrifice he offered 

to Vulcan 

Senate. The injustice of the Roman senate towards 

several towns 395 

Senator. The remark of a Roman senator as to the 

change of manners in that city 254 

Seneca. Montaigne's partiality for this philosopher, 

85. Praise of his letters, 135. Opinion of this author 

as compared with Plutarch, 2J4. His frequent con-' 

' tradictions, 261. Defence of him, 360. His death . . 

Senses. The effect of custom on the senses, 66. Doubt 

of Montaigne as to the senses, 301. Their uncertainty 303 
Sepulture. Ancient customs of the Indians and Greeks 

as to burial 70 

Sertorius. A stratagem employed by this leader 243 

Servius Tullius, King of Rome. A law of this prince 177 
Servius, the grammarian. His remedy against the gout 186 

Sextilius. A reproach cast upon him by Cicero 316 

Sextius. His passion for study 254 

Sforza (Lodovico), Duke of Milan. His captivity and 

death 51 

Sicilian. The desperate action of a Sicilian at the 

siege ofGozo , 189 

Silanus (Lucius). The manner of his death 411 

Silius (Caius). His scandalous marriage with Messa- 

lina 429 

Silk clothes. When they first began to be depised in 

France 152 

Simonides. Anecdote of this philosopher 340 

Sincerity should be always inculcated on the minds of 

youth 90 

Singularity of manners should be avoided 196 

Sins. The confounding of sins a dangerous thing 181 

Sleep. Instances of persons who have slept soundly, 
though surrounded by pressing dangers and death, 
152. The image of death, 196. Zeno's opinion of 

sleep 283 

Smells. Various observations on this subject 171 

Sneezing. Why it is treated with such respect 441 

Snow. The use the Romans made of it in their repasts, 
165. The opinion of Anaxagoras as to the colour of 

snow 269 

Society. The rules of politeness observable in society, 

46. What is the perfect ion of society 104 

Socrates. The answer of this philosopher, when dying, 
to his friend Crito, 33. Montaigne's opinion as to 
the Demon of Socrates, 44. His reply to him who 
brought him news of his condemnation, 58. His 
opinion on generation and love, 64. Commendation 
of his refusal to save his life by a disobedience to the 
magistrate, 71. The way in which he buntered a 
pedant, 84. His method of teaching, 87. A saying 
of hie respecting a bad man, 129. His opinion as to 



giving children fine-sounding names, 154. His defi- 
nition of rhetoric, 168. His exemption from the 
plague, 172. His idea of the principal object of wis- 
dom, 181. His reputation as a toper, ]82. Reflec- 
tions on his virtue as compared with that of Cato, 
220. An avowal of his, 222. One of his reasons for 
giving man the preference over the brute creation, 
249. A saying of his, 25.5. His explanation of the 
oracle that assigned him the title of sage, ib. His 
account of his own knowledge. 256. An ingenious 
comparison attributed to him, 2til. A perplexity in 
his doctrine, 264. His habitual prayer, 295. A saying 
of his to his wife, 298. His firmness at the approach 
of death, 310. A conjecture of Montaigne's respect- 
ing him, 403. A favourite saying of his, 404. The 
serene countenance he always wore, 406. The oath 
he made use of, 431. His opinion as to kisses, 434. 
Illustration of the sensibility of his constitution, 439. 
His calm manner of retreating from the enemy, 442. 
The good humour with which he met contradiction 
in argument, 454. His inaptitude for ordinary busi- 
ness, 486. A saying of his as to riches, 494. His 
advice as to nyimr temptation, 497. Remarks as to 
our admiration of ilu-- philosopher, 506. His plead- 
ing when before his judges, 514. His personal defor- 
mity, 516. His opinion as to physicians, 528. A 
saying of his as to the scolding of his wife, ib. The 
feeling he experienced when Ins letters were struck 

off, 533. Anecdotes of him 541 

Soldiers. Reply of two soldiers to Nero. 31. Considera- 
tions on the manner in which their cowardice should 
be punished, 47. The effects of fear upon them in 
different circumstances. 49. Reply of Ciesar to an old 
soldier, who requested permission to kill himself, 57. 
A fine saying of a young soldier to Cyrus, 108. Whe- 
ther soldiers should he richly armed, 157. Whether 
they should he permitted to insult the enemy, before 
a battle, by injurious words, 158. Remarkable replies 
of soldiers to Antignnus and Lurullus, 179. Severity 
of Bajazet to a sofdier of his, 195. A reproach that 
Scipio made his soldiers, 211. The strict discipline 
of the soldiers under that general, ib. The degree to 
which the Lacedaemonian sopiiers were inured to 
hardship, ib. Anecdote of a soldier condemned to 
death, 223. The strict obedience of Cesar's soldiers, 
366. The devotion of that general's troops to his 
person and service, 369. Anecdotes of two Roman 
soldiers, 397. The voluntary deaths of many of the 

Roman soldiers after the battle of Cannae 512 

Soliman II., Emperor of the Turks. His generous con- 
duct towards the inhabitants of Castro 329 

Solitude Reflections on this subject, 129 el seq. 

Solon. A saying of his examined, 32 His saying to 

Crossus, 51. His reason for weeping at the death of 

his son, 298. A law attributed to him, 427. His 

opinion as to the laws he had established, 468. A 

saying of his as to human ills 470 

Songs. A song made by an American Indian, 118. A 
love-song of the same Indians, 119. Observation 

upon the songs in use among rude nations 171 

Sophist ical subtleties condemned 98 

Sophocles. His death, 30. Opinion of Montaigne as 
to a decision in favour of this poet, founded on one 

of hisplavs 181 

Sophronia, St. Her death 189 

Sorcerers. Reflections respecting them 504 

Sorrow, at its height, is unutterable 30 

Soul. The idea of the Stoics respecting the calm in 
which the soul should remain. 45. The way in which 
the soul looks upon things, 128. The soul is dis- 
covered in all our motions, 166. It trues lliings what 
shape and colour it pleases, ib. What it is that gave 
some philosophers (lie notion we have two souls, ISO. 
The opinions of different nations as to the soul, 224. 
The effect of the condition of the soul upon the health, 
251. Opinions of different philosophers as to the 

existence, the nature, and the place of the soul 278 

Spaniards. The dogs they trained to war in America, 
239. The character of their gallantry, 433. Their 

cruelty to the Indians 448 

Spnrgapizes. His reason for killing himself 190 

Spoitsippus. His singular death, 54. His opinion as to 

the Divinity 263 

Spiders. Their manifest possession of the faculties of 

thought and deliberation 233 

Sponge. The use the Romans made of sponges 165 

Stag. The use to which Helioguhnlus applied them .. 443 
Statilius. His reason for not joining the conspiracy 

against Ciesar 167 

Statins Proximus. His suicide 189 

Stephen, St. A miracle at tri billed to bis shrine 103 

Stilpo. His reply to Demetrius Poliorcetes, 129. The 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Stoics. Tin 



by tin 



way in which he hastened his death, 184. His virtue, 
222. His remark as to the sacrifices offered to the 

gods 

on as to pity, 28. As to the calm in 
ii maintain the soul, 45. Their ad- 
ig, 182. Their doctrine as to suicide, 
n of some of them as to virtue, 219. 
le of their maxims, 222. Their opi- 
248. As to truth, 257. The reproach 
on Epicurus, 270. The manner in 
which they bind Cod to destiny, ib. Their opinion as 
to time, 307. Mention of several of them who passed 
their lives out Of their native country, 478. Their 

opinion as to justice 

Strato. His opinion as to the Divinity, 264. As to the 

origin of diseases 

Stratonice, wife of Seleucus Nicanor. The effect of her 

beauty on Antiochus Soter 

— , wife of Dejotanus. Her singular complai- 
sance towards her husband 

Strozzi, Philip. His great military talents, 335. 

favourite author 

Study. What the real advantages of study are, 88. A 
young man may study too much, 95. What should 

be the studies of old men 352 

Style. Montaigne's view of his own stvle 65, 99 

Suabians. Their dexterous horsemanship 162 

Suhrius Flavius. His firmness at the moment of exe- 



61 



36G 



Sum 



No proof of deser 



a" this historian 



Sulmona, I he Prince of. His firm seat on horseback . J 04 
Sulpicius, Publius. The treachery of a slave of his ... 394 
Sun. A religious observance ol certain Indians towards 
the sun, 1 19. The prayer of Eudoxus in reference to 
the sun, 262. Montaigne's opinion as to the adora- 
tion of the sun, 263. The opinions of Anaxagoras and 
Archimedes as to the nature of the sun, 274. Opin- 
ion of the Mexicans as to the sun 449 

Superiority. Wherein consists one man's true supe- 
riority over another 119 

Swallows. The judgment they exhibit in their nests. 233 
Swiss women. Their insensibility to the pains of child- 



beat 



141 



Sword. The meaning ol'tlie rusts sword carried before 
the magistracy of Marseilles 72 

Syila. His inflexibility towards the inhabitants of 
Perusia, 28. His death 237 

Sylvius, James (physician). His opinion in favour of 
an occasional excess in wine 183 



How it was that the greater portion of his 
gs became lost to us, 338. Montaigne's opin- 

t his historian 

Montaigne's mention of the inveterate lying 



Taih 

of 

Talva. The occasion of his death 

Tamerlane. See Bajazet and Lepers. 

Tartars. A custom of theirs 

Tasso. The impression made on Montaigne by this 

poet, 



nad house . 

Account of his suicide ] 

Taverns, Francis. The way in which he was non- 

Teniperance. Advantages of this virtue 

Terence. Montaigne's opinion as to the real authors 
of the plays assigned to this personage, 134. Criti- 

Tenz, King of Thrace. A singular notion of this prince 
Thales. The opinion of this philosopher on life and 
death, 60. The manner in which he cleared himself 
from an unjust imputation, 80. Thales pointed out 
as an example, 130. His reason for not marrying, 
142. The answer he gave his mother on the subject 
of marriage, 204. Anecdote of his mule, 242. His 
opinion as to the Divinity, 263. Anecdote of him, 

275. His opinion of the soul i 

Thale-t'ls, Uucon of the Amazons. The compliment 

Then in. A s.-ij nig of hers as to modesty 

Tin '. I ii ■ -.ii k of this city by Alexander, 29. Sin- 

instance connected with a Thehnn family 

Theft Mention of several young men of good family 

addicted to thieving, 203. Why l.ycurgus permitted 

theft 

Tlieini \titan. Cruel sacrifices offered to this deity . 
Theodoras. A saying of his to l.vsiinachus, i:)7. 

maxim of his, 167. His atheism 



Theodorians. The opinion of this sect as to justice . . 522 

TheologiaiiB should not write history 65 

Theological disputes. Their inconveniences 175 

Theology. Stands best by itself 175 

Theon. His somnambulism 536 

Theophilus, the Emperor. The effect that fear pro- 
duced upon him 50 

Theophraslus. Opinion of this philosopher as to know- 
ledge acquired by the senses 287 

Theoporupus, King of Sparta. A saying of his 146 

Theoxena. Her affecting history 350 

Theranienes of Ceos. A proverb in reference to his 
shoe, 500. The noble effort Socrates made to save 

him from death 541 

Thetis. The sacrifice offered to this goddess by Alex- 
ander 266 

Thomas (Simon). A plan of his for curing had lungs . 60 
Thorius lialbus. A comparison of his life with that of 

Regulus 450 

Thrace. Singular distinction between the king of 
Thrace and his subjects, 148. A custom of the Thra- 

cian wives and concubines 236 

Thracians. An absurd practice of theirs 35 

Thrasonides. Anecdote of this young Greek 434 

Thrasylus, the Athenian. Curious anecdote of him. . 253 
Thucydides. Reply of this historian to Archedamus, 

in reference to Pericles 168 

Tiberius. His confidence in a pra-tor named Cossus, 
1&>. His cruelty, 309. His dissimulation, 329. A 
rapid journey he made, 343. His conduct towards 
Armenius. 31)0. His taste in love, 407. A cruel pun- 
ishment he invented, 412. His refusal of a prize 
adjudged him by the Roman senate, 452. His opinion 

as to medicine 526 

Tigillinus (Sophonius). His singular death 54 

Tigers. Anecdote of a tiger, 246. The use to which 

Heliogabalus put tigers 443 

Tigranes, King of Armenia. Mention of the victory 

obtained over him by Lucullus 211 

Tigranocerta. The siege of this place by Lucullus . .. 368 
Timagoras. Singular assertion of this philosopher .. 302 
Time. Reflection upon time as compared with eter- 
nity. 308. Time is the sovereign physician of our 

passions 412 

Tinioleon, the Corinthian general. The singular cir- 
cumstance that saved him from the consequences of 
a conspiracy, 95. Reflections on the tears he shed 

for the brother he had killed 128, 395 

Timon. His misanthropy, and Montaigne's opinion 

of it 167 

Tiresias. His pretending to know the language of 
brutes, 232. Reference to his pretended metamor- 
phosis 420 

Torpedo. Peculiar property of this fish 240 

Tortoise. Their manner of hatching their eggs, 64. An 

instinct of this animal 237 

Torture. The use of torture condemned 194,195 

Trebizond, George of. Mention of this personage 330 

Tripoli, Raymond, Count of. His assassination ...... 326 

Trisinegistus. His praise of our sufficiency 271 

Trivulcio, Alexander. His death 36 

.Theodore. Anecdote of him 32 

Troglodytes. Mention of this people . 



Opin- 



T n 1 1 ib" in us and Aganiedes. Their death 

Truth. The difficulty of distinguishing it, 41. 

ions of different philosophers as to truth : 

Tunnies. Peculiarity of this fish ! 

Turkish armies. How cheaply they subsist 

Turks. Their manner of fighting, 44. Their valour, and 
contempt for letters, 84. Their adherence to their 
religion, 138. Their endurance of pain, 112. How 
their armies subsist, 163. Their position at table, 
165. Their hospitals for animals, 225. Desperate 
action of fourteen Turks, 286. Anecdote of a young 
Turk, 346. Custom in use among them • 

Turnetus. Mention of this learned person, 82, 335. 
His opinion of Raymond Sebond i 

Tutor. Reflections on what a tutor should bo 



u. 



Observations on this subject . 



Valens (Flavius), Emperor of Rome. His hatred for 
the sciences and philosophy 254 

Valerius Mcssala. An observation attributed to this 
consul, 324. His total loss of memory 330 

Valour has its Mini ts ; 4b 

Vanity. Reflections on this subject 199 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Vatienus (Caius). An offence committed by this Ro- 
man, and its punishment 347 

Vaux. Anecdote of him, in connection with the siege 

of Commercy 36 

Velleius. His reproach to Cotta and Cicero 256 

Velly (the Seigneur de). His conduct under remarkable 

circumstances 48 

Venice. Remark upon this city 172 

Vespasian, the Roman emperor. A saying of his, 341. 

Miraculous cure attributed to him 462 

Vibius Virius. His noble conduct on the taking of 

Capua by the Romans 190 

Vibulus Rufus. The rapidity of a journey he per- 
formed 343 

Vices. What vices ought most to be checked in chil- 
dren, 40. Vices ought to be taken in hand at their 
. very first showing themselves, 67. There are some 
vices worse than others, 181. The sorrow that at- 
tends vice 398 

Vicious motives destroy the essence of virtue 125 

Victory. The principal aim of both general and sol- 
diers 154 

Violation. An offence of the worst sort 189 

Virgil. An opinion of this poet 213 

Virginity. The difficulty of keeping it 424 

Virile member. Its indocility 63 

Virtue. One of the principal benefits it confers on us 53 

Visions. Source of their credit 51 

Vislicza. The cruel vengeance taken by Jaropol on 

this town 394 

Voice. Observations on the voice 530 

Volumnius. Reasons given by this consul for the elec- 
tion of Fabius with Decius 168 

w. 

Wallachians. The rapidity of their travelling 343 

War. The different usages and maxims of different 
nations as to war, 35, 46. The influence that chance 
has on the results of a war, 159. One great mischief 
in civil war pointed out and illustrated, 193. Reflec- 
tions upon the civil war in France iu Montaigne's 
time 228, 508 

Watermen. The custom as to paying them among the 
Romans 166 

Waters, mineral. Montaigne's observation respecting 
them 385 

Weapons. Montaigne's opinion of various weapons, 
ancient and modern 161 

Weavers. The notion the ancient Greeks had about 
women- weavers 505 

Whale. A curious circumstance in the nature of this 
animal 245 



Wills. Reflections on the unintelligible language used 
in these documents 520 

William. Observation on this name, 154. The number 
of Williams there were at a feast given by Henry, 
Duke of Normandy, ib. 

, DukeofGuienne. His austerity 142 

Wine. Observations upon the use of wine 184 

Withold. A singular law of this prince 395 

Women. Their tendency to cross their husbands, 206. 
In what case they may reasonably have the adminis- 
tration of affairs, 207. Even their modesty has a vast 
deal of coquetry about it, 313. The custom among 
the Indian women of burning themselves, 354. Ob- 
servations on women in general, and upon three good 
women in particular, 370. The intercourse with beau- 
tiful and well-bred women a desirable thing, 406. A 
judicious custom among the women of a place near 
Montaigne, 412. The very singular complaint pre- 
ferred by an Arragonese woman, 421. Admirable re- 
flections upon the ordinary plan of female education 423 
World. The world is a mirror in which all should ex- 
amine themselves 92 

, the New. A reflection on its discovery .. . 113,446 

. Reflections on the question of a plurality of 

worlds 268 

X. 

Xanthians. Their despair when besieged by Brutus . . 137 

Xantippus. The honours he paid his dog 225 

Xenocrates. His opinion as to the Divinity, 264. His 

extraordinary continence 363 

Xenophanes. His endeavour to eradicate divination. 44 
Xenophon. His loose principles as to faith in warfare 
reproved, 37. His style, 324. His grief at the death 

of Gryllus 4] 1 

Xerxes. The extravagances into which passion led him 35 

Y. 

Yvoy. Mention of the siege of this town 37 

z. 

Zaleucus. His sumptuary laws 152 

Zenoof Citium. Opinion respecting him, 169. Hisman- 

ner of representing three degrees of certainty, 257. 

His doctrine as to the sciences, 2fi0. On the Divinity, 

264. On nature, 266. A saying of his as to the voice 303 

Zenobia. Her singular continence Ill 

Ziska. The singular dying injunctions he imposed . . 32 
Zoroaster. Opinion as to the period of the existence 

of this philosopher 293 



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